Thanks to all the folks who responded to our invitation. We had intended to run some of them in the paper, but someone *cough, cough* couldn't keep his Iraq war timeline to a manageable length, and we ran out of room.

Ah, but that's old school. We got the web. So here are those others who sent me their thoughts via e-mail. Thank you all for sharing.

A mother’s nightmare. This is how I describe my son’s two deployments to Iraq. I do not like to watch the news, because it upsets me so much.
When I wake in the morning the first thing I do is turn on the computer to see if he has e-mailed, even if it’s a forward, just to know that he is safe. Then I can go on with my day.
I go to Mass every Sunday, and I light candles for my son. Have a few priests that I know keeping him in their prayers, hoping they have more of an influence than me.
I know that this is what he wants to do, and it’s his job, but I will not rest until he is stateside.
Every month since he has been in Iraq, a few family members and his sisters and I make up a love package and we take turns sending it to him, to share with his fellow soldiers. He is never forgotten. At Christmas, each item was individually gift-wrapped.
His picture was made into an ornament and hung in our county courthouse on a special tree made for the soldiers.
Soon my prayers will be answered and he will be back at Fort Lewis, where he is stationed.
I even quit smoking in August, so I can see him retire from the military.
I cry alot, but there are so many other mothers, who have lost their children at war, so I am not alone. I try not to cry when my son calls me, but it’s so hard. I do cry after we hang up. If I miss a call from him I feel terrible. His messages are still on the answering machine, and I play them once in a while just to hear his voice.
How has the war affected me, you ask? It has taken a piece of my heart. I want my son to come home. It’s been a long 18 months!
Thanks for listening!
Harriet Schaeffer, Pottsville, Pa.
mother of CWO4 Bernard Milyo, Jr., FOB Warhorse, Iraq.

[More:]

This war is a criminal travesty that has been perpetrated against our country, our brave military personnel and the innocent people of Iraq. Those who brought us this war with their lies and manipulations should be prosecuted to the full extent of our laws. The fact that our national legislature and the media have failed to push that agenda adds insult to injury.

I love this country and what it used to stand for. However, it would be impossible for me to find the actions of our leaders and this war any more disgusting or distasteful.

Good luck to all of our troops who have been or will in the future find themselves in harms way for this or any war.
Scott Hackl
Federal Way

I am currently in Baghdad, and have many nice strangers via the U.S. mail send things in care packages. Christmas cards to a banjo to the ever popular baby wipes.

Over the years the messages, not the written ones but the implied emotional ones, have remained constant. People back home want to do more for us over here. They just don’t know what to do, or how to do it. In the care packages is usually a letter, a note, or even a scrappy drawing by a preschool class (one of my favorites).

One recurring theme in all of the packages and letters is that people are always asking what else they could do, what could they send to make our life easier. I have plenty of chapstick, and sunscreen, thank-you very much.

I can’t speak for all soldiers, actually for anyone but myself, but this is what I have learned over three deployments to the Middle East that would make my job easier over here. If I don’t have to worry about things back on the home front – and due to my fantastic wife of almost 19 years I don’t – I can focus on the mission over here. If the folks back home need some ideas on how to support us – “the Troops,” as we are called so often – they can do the following, and none of these ideas cost anything, other than time:

Pay the bills on time. Spend an extra five minutes talking to that 6-year-old who needs help with their homework. Tell your kids something else other than “sit down” or “shut up” when you walk in the door. If you are married, remember the day you stood in front folks, exchanged vows, and think of your spouse 7,000 miles away when tempted to stray Pay your car insurance. Don’t drink and drive. Don’t run up a $4,000 cell phone bill. Walk your dogs. Believe it or not they need more than a pile of food dumped in a bowl twice a day.

Write a lot of letters to your loved ones who are deployed. Getting mail is the highlight of a lot of soldiers’ days.

When merging onto Highway 16 off of I-5 let that guy to your right get in front of you. Take your kids to the Point Defiance Zoo. Treat yourself to something nice every once in a while. Feeling stressed at the end of the day? If you can swing it, drive to University Place and walk around that new golf course. Volunteer at a local hospice, cut your neighbor’s grass when you see it a foot tall, and you know it’s because it’s just a spouse with a blue star flag hanging in her window.

If folks back home are taking care of business on the home front, we can take care of things, giving all we have to our mission over here, and yes, we will return one day.

Thank you so much for any support you can give, or have given over the years!
Army Sgt. Glenn Cuneo
Baghdad, Iraq

After over three years as an Army wife, I can honestly say that what our troops and family members face on an everyday basis is truly something to be admired.

My husband was a young private and myself a college sophomore when he left for his first year-long deployment to Iraq in June 2004. When he left, it felt like the end of the world. To make things easier, I told myself that this war would be over soon.

He returned home in May 2005 and by that time, I felt like we had both gone through so much for our young ages. More than anything, I truly admired what he and everyone else who served their time had endured.

Then in July 2006 he deployed to Iraq again. I really felt defeated. How can our troops keep getting sent over there and everyone is expected to be so strong?

During that year, which was also my senior year of college, I started considering the effects deployments had on not only troops but also their family members. As a result, I decided to write my senior thesis on exactly this. It took a toll on me personally when interviewing and speaking to others regarding this, I had to be so strong – at times it was hard to fight back the tears.

I graduated in May 2007 and my husband returned home to a big ceremony in July. Overall, I can truly say that these deployments have been the defining moments in our young lives.

The burden placed on troops and their family members is, to say the least, overwhelming. Knowing your spouse may be home for just a year before leaving again is heartbreaking.

Furthermore, I believe these wars will have a tremendous impact on all Americans' lives for a long time contrary to what some may think.
Brandi Rodriguez
Formerly of Fort Lewis, now stationed in Mannheim, Germany

On the fifth anniversary of the start of this war, we must reflect that our military men and women should never again be sent somewhere to fight and die when we as a nation have not been provoked by the enemy we’re fighting there.

But if we are going to wage pre-emptive conflicts as our main mode of diplomacy, at least our government should have a plan for swift and permanent success when we do so. The current presidential administration’s complete lack of a plan for victory in Iraq from the first days of war until today -- indeed their inability to even define what success in the region would look like -- has often been attributed to bungling and mismanagement. But it has come to the point where incompetence can no longer account for the size and scope of the failures of the Commander in Chief.

We can no longer continue to draw any other conclusion beside this: Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney have wanted it to go this way all along. They and their partners in Halliburton, Blackwater, et al. -- who have benefited from this war, and who stand to continue benefiting to the tune of billions per month as long as we stay in Iraq -- have systematically ensured that anyone who stands in their way, even (as we have recently seen) if only to question the rationale for the imminent war with Iran, suddenly has a great deal more time to spend with their family.

If we thought it was shameful to have an incompetent president, how much worse to have one who uses the guise of incompetence as carte blanche to ruin the economy, bankrupt the nation, and plunge headlong into endless war on purpose.
Matt Taron

I deployed from FLWA to serve with the 24th ID during Desert Storm in ‘91. My opinion of that war was that it was just. We ousted the Iraqis from Kuwait.

This time around, I don't buy into the political rhetoric. How many kids from Lewis have died? For what, lower oil prices? F#@k that!

Upon my retirement from the Army in 1997, I went back to Riyadh to work for Vinnell Corp as a trainer, so I have a pretty good sense of their mindset. At $275 million a day, I say pull those guys out of there. The Iraqis are on their collective asses and won't do anything for themselves until they absolutely have to- the day after we leave.
H. Max Tritt, Homestead, Fla.