Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lurqer who wrote (42915)	4/16/2004 9:36:09 PM
From: lurqer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Watching and Waiting Dean Reynolds As she sat down to watch President Bush's news conference Tuesday night, Heller thought back to May 1, when the president, aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, announced the end of major combat in Iraq. "I remember watching the airplane land on the ship last spring — two months after the war started — and they said the war was over," Heller recalled. "The war is far from over. "I'd like to know when [Bush] is going to send help over there," she said. "That's my first concern because it's personal to me." Heller's husband, Staff Sgt. Brian Heller, has been in Iraq for almost a year as a member of the 32nd Military Police Company of the Wisconsin National Guard. Bonnie and her four sons eagerly await his return. On Tuesday night, Bonnie Heller invited Krista Sorenson, the wife of Sgt. Denis Sorenson from the same National Guard unit, over to watch the president's remarks. Both women support Bush and believe the world is safer without Saddam Hussein. But they share the belief that their husbands' unit is being treated unfairly. After almost a year in Iraq training a new police force, and after undergoing one four-month extension of their tour of duty, the unit's soldiers were confident they would be heading home in May. Brian Heller was waiting to catch a plane out of Baghdad on Sunday when he was pulled out of line and told to go back to the base. The unit's tour of duty was being extended yet again — this time at least until September. Summer in Iraq "He was sobbing," Bonnie Heller said, recounting a telephone call from her husband Sunday. "He was sobbing. He and the rest of that unit are right now at rock bottom. Morale could not be any lower." The families had already undergone what the army calls "reunion training." Vacations were planned. Welcome home banners painted. All for naught. "When he left here he said, 'Don't worry, honey. I'll be back here in six months, tops,' " Krista Sorenson recalled ruefully. "You can't keep doing this. You can't keep taking these hopes away from these families," she said. "Where do they want us to get the strength to keep us going?" Replacements for the 32nd Military Police Company members have already arrived in Iraq and been trained. But now it appears they will simply be added to the "boots on the ground." The extension means that Krista Sorenson's plans to build a new home are on hold. It means Bonnie Heller will have to continue to run her husband's landscaping business from their home. And it means her sons won't have their father to watch Little League games for a second straight summer. "I don't know if it's [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld. I don't know if it's [Secretary of State Colin] Powell," said Bonnie Heller, "but I'm asking for somebody to look at the human side of what's going on." They need not look much farther than the e-mail Bonnie received from her husband this morning. "My dearest love of my life," it began. "It hurts to write this letter. The pain in my heart is heavy. I miss you so much. I miss the boys. "I know you say that it's not my fault and I know that it is not my fault, but I am so sorry that I am putting you through this. I wish I could do something about it." The message ended: "I love you so. Your husband." abcnews.go.com lurqer