News from the Front

So today I drove down from the mountains into the city of Colorado Springs. A friend and I had agreed to do some door to door canvassing for the local Democratic Party. Our job was to go to people in certain key precincts and urge them to get out and vote this November. My friend and I were handed a clipboard with a series of apartment adresses for a low rent part of town attached to it. When we got there we discovered that most of the apartments were occupied by soldiers (mostly E3's - E5's) and their families stationed at near by Fort Carson, home of the 3rd Armored Cav. Division, an outfit which has seen a lot of action in Iraq. All the soldiers we talked to had done at least one tour in Iraq, many had done two or even three. Soldier after soldier told us stories about lack of supplies while fighting in Iraq and cuts in combat pay and military families forced to go on food stamps because pay is so low and the commissary no longer offers the good deals it once did. There is not enough housing on base, so these members of our regular army and their families are forced to live in the run down apartments like the ones we visited today. Many of the soldiers we talked to were black or hispanic. They were stoic as they spoke of their hardships and seemed surprised that a couple of civilians would feel concerned. When they saw that we were sympathetic, they would open up and tell stories about lack of clean drinking water and raiding old NATO bases for fresh food supplies. It wasn't just one man who spoke of these things, it wasn't just two or three, but soldier after, soldier in run down apartment after run down apartment. Small children would cling to their Mom or Dad's legs as they watched we two strangers listening to their parents' words.

We are letting down the courageous men and women who serve this country. We are letting them down on the battlefield and we are letting them down here at home. Bush is SOOOO out of touch with reality when he talks about how well our military are treated. He should know better. He was the one who reduced their combat pay. Just one more Bush atrocity