Got This Email Today...Grassroots America...
Hello everyone,
After two weeks of walking the halls of congress, attending trials and sharing my son's poem, there has been tremendous progress in getting our message of bringing our troops home to the lawmakers who decide the future course of Iraq.
Jim Moran of VA read Cloy's poem (attached) and told his scheduler to make an appointment to meet with me as soon as I was available. I have met with the chief of staff or senior aide of 6 representatives and 3 senators. Each day I knock down another layer of the isolation that surrounds the lawmakers.
But the biggest news of all is the person who will decide if the voices of peace will be heard has confirmed a meeting next Friday. I met briefly with John Murtha who chairs the subcommittee of defense on Friday and he wants to sit down and meet with Cloy and myself next Friday.
I would appreciate all prayers and good thoughts towards this meeting.
The Institute of Policy Studies is providing an office for me. I will open it on Monday and will forward the address and fax numbers then. Until then, any funds can be sent in care of the Instead of War coalition in St. Louis. They will forward them to me.
Thank you for all your help and support. This is really making a difference.
Tina Richards
Grassroots America, A non-profit
Because I can't forget no matter how hard I try.
They told us we were taking out advancing Iraqi forces,
but when we went to check out the bodies
they were nothing but women and children
desperately fleeing their homes because
they wanted to get out of the city
before we attacked in the morning.
Because my little brother, who is my job to protect,
decided to join the California National Guard
to get some money for college and
they promised he wouldn't go to Iraq.
Instead three months after enlisting
he was sent to Iraq for one year.
Since he has been home for the last six months,
he refuses to talk to anyone, he lives by himself.
the only person he associates with is a friend of his,
the one other man out of his squad of thirteen men
who made it home alive.
He called me a few weeks ago for the first time
and told me he's having nightmares.
I asked what they were about and
he said they're about picking up the pieces
of his fellow soldiers after a car bomb hit them.
Because every single one of the Marines I served with,
the really brave warriors, even when some friends and people
they looked up to got killed or lost an arm or leg,
they wouldn't cry, they just kept fighting.
They completed their mission.
Every one of them I have spoken to since we got home
has broken down crying in front of me,
saying all they can do since they got back
is bounce from job to job, drink and do drugs,
and contemplate suicide to end the pain.
Because I'm tired of drinking, bouncing from job to job
and contemplating suicide to end the pain.
Because every time I see a child,
I think of the thousands I've slaughtered.
Because every time I see a young soldier,
I think of the thousands Bush has slaughtered.
Because every time I look in the mirror
I see a casualty of the war.
Because I have a lot of lives I have to make up for,
the lives I have taken and
because it's right.
That's why I fight.
Because of soldiers with wounds you can't see.
SURVIVOR'S GUILT by Cloy Richards USMC
I stare at this paper and don't know what to say
I don't feel right saying "happy memorial day"
I don't find anything happy in the price you've paid
We're both just pawns when this game called war gets played
My body came home but my spirit just stayed
That hot Iraqi day when you were slayed
Watching my back so I could sleep unafraid I heard the
explosion from where I laid
And instantly I watched the skies go gray
I watched my life just float away
How could things go this way?
You were my brother in arms and you took my place
But not like the way that car bomb took your face
And blew off your limbs
When I think about it my head starts to spin
I get noxious when I think of your family
I want to tell them I truly am sorry
I'm sorry your son died protecting me
This isn't the way things were meant to be
You see that day your son took my duty
Your brother sacrificed four hours of sleep
So he could go guard a gate for me
Your fiancée took my fate from me
I'm sorry your father took my place for me
I'm sorry I can spend Memorial Day with my family
Today should have been a memorial for me
At least then the survivor could have lived guilt-free
CLOY RICHARDS, USMC—Written 2006—
Served 2 Tours in Iraq
Survivor's Guilt written in Honor of My Friend
Jeffrey who died at Camp Fallujah.
Me: how much more of this stuff do we think is out there just like this one, anguishing over their roles in Iraq or Afghanistan. There must be miles and miles of it...waiting like a coiled spring...ready to snap...most likely to do harm to themselves because they can no longer live with what they did, witnessed or simply couldn't help their dying buddies. A terrible burden was placed upon these young people and when they come home there is no preparation for healing what they hide inside themselves...there's no way to get it out. And they deserved so much more than what they got in return. And of course "we" know it was for much ado about nothing.
Labels: sadness
That so sad, and where Bush got much of his support--from military families. They wanted to believe that their loved one was not risking his/her life in vain. Now, I think and hope that they and others are seeing the war for what it truly is: horrible, unnecessary, dangerous, reputation-damaging (of U.S.) etc.
Posted by
PBS |
3:17 AM
Everytime I hear some nut saying "they are fighting for your freedoms", I want to scream at them. I think, I should send them these poems instead. There is a lot of pain in there. I'm so sorry this family is suffering because of this administration and also because of all the American people who are apathetic.
Posted by
Peacechick Mary |
5:46 AM
That was just so sad..
Posted by
Anonymous |
5:53 AM
Those of us old enough remember the same poems, different words, same pain from Viet Nam. War is never good and clean and uplifting. It is about killing and being killed. Even if the purpose is somewhat noble as in WWII the killing and being killed and the memories are just the same. Cloy and his comrades both alive and lost are going to have to live with their pain and there won't be a scrap of justice to temper it. The injustice of this war just makes the pain worse.
Posted by
fallenmonk |
6:44 AM
Thank you for your words of comfort. My son has found comfort in writing these poems. They keep him alive. So many times these last couple of years my son has turned to me for help when he has had a gun or shotgun in his mouth. Begging to be given permission to pull the trigger. Begging to be forgiven. Since 2002, I saw where this President was leading us and tried to speak out against this war. Only to be called a traitor to my country and son. I waited through his deployments, destroyed by the thought of what he would go through when he returned. He just wants to put his life together and move on, but the military isn't done with him yet. Unfortunately, there are thousands like my son. I have put my life on hold for four years and will ocntinue until I see all our sons and daughters home. Only when this war ends will my son be able to start to heal. I'll be posting a new poem of his he wrote yesterday after he received notice to report in on the 24th of March.
Tina Richards
Grassroots America
GrassrootsAmerica4US.org
Posted by
Anonymous |
2:59 PM
It's awful sad and in any other venue it would be criminal. Lots of broken lives and broken hearts as a result of this war, the war that should have never been.
This will be my third attempt now to type the verification thing. It's hard to see what you're doing when tears are all over the place.
Posted by
pissed off patricia |
3:06 PM
Absolutely powerful and heartening. Good Post. We now have a direction to support.
Posted by
MandT |
4:55 PM
A couple more pictures
Wipe Your feet
Wash the Damn Spoons
Posted by
Anonymous |
7:14 PM
What is it exactly that these hawks are after? You would think, that after the several years of blood and mayhem there would be a clear cut reason for all this foolery.
Yes, I know the list of reasons, everybody does, but since there is so many reasons in it and some of them cotradictory to others, it leaves no reason what so ever. This is pure monkey business and there should be an immediate embargo layed on bananas till the the Price of Chimps and his gorillas are chased out from that big white enclosure in Washington DC.
Posted by
Anonymous |
9:12 PM
pbs...exactly what I feel too.
Mary...the fighting for your freedom thing gets my blood up too.
Happy...sad seems to be what we say in this country all the time.
Monk...I agree with the injustice making things far worse.
Anon...I'm terribly sorry for the pain your family and others are going through. There are those of us really trying to do something, anything we can to try and end tis madness. Congratulations on what you've accomplished so far.
POP...broken lives and hearts is what this is about.
Mandt...we all have to stay motivated no matter what...in order to try and stop these fools.
Earl...love those pics...keep them coming.
Pekka...monkey business is right on!
Posted by
sumo |
10:49 AM
Like Fallen Monk said - I really thought I'd heard the last of stories like this after Vietnam. I had a friend. He stood two tours. A Marine. It destroyed him. Every time he'd hear a helicopter overhead he'd go get his gun and hide in the bushes. The stories he told me made me weep. Gave me nightmares. I wanted to help him - but help was impossible. He couldn't turn his brain off, you see. He was a boy when they sent him - 17 years old. He could have passed for an old man 8 years later. His life was shattered. America shattered it; just like America’s destroying young lives now. Please - someone tell my why there are people in this country who think that chest thumping and drum beating equals support for our troops? Why are they not supporting Congressman Murtha’s attempts to insure those poor men and women go into battle properly equipped? Why do they not scream when President Bush cuts veterans aid? Any time I try and point this out I get called vile names and am physically threatened. Murtha – he’s denigrated – his service to America covered with feces by cowards who have never crawled out from under the rocks they hurl. I really, truly do not understand.
Posted by
TFLS |
9:55 PM
TFLS...I think it may be even worse now because of the technology there is...more people can be maimed or killed faster. The soldiers are so out in the open in the desert too. Any way you slice it...it's terrible. It's unconscionable that they don't receive proper care when they get home for what they've given up in return.
Posted by
sumo |
11:49 PM
I met Tina - in person we had read each other's web sites before we met - in front of the Crawford Peace House and became fast friends. She is one of the most dedicated proponents of peace I have ever met. I think living in Missouri helped make her even more stubborn. Last year she worked as the campaign manager for Veronica J. Hambacker and although Veronica lost the race, the simple fact that she refused to change her position on the war in the face of a lot of red voters said a lot about her character. Cloy was unable to make it to Camp Casey last year, but I'm hoping I'll be able to meet him this year.
I love you, Tina! Keep up the good fight and let's all do everything we can to keep Cloy and other innocent Americans from heading back to that hellhole called Iraq.
Posted by
Robert Rouse |
9:20 AM
http://tina-richards.blogspot.com/
Posted by
Anonymous |
10:27 AM