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 : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SiouxPal who wrote (48336)	11/12/2005 4:33:06 PM
From: Patricia Trinchero	Respond to of 361220

Hero’s survivors rue war: Mom says son ill-equipped By Maggie Mulvihill Friday, November 11, 2005 - Updated: 03:14 AM EST Alma Hart stood over her only son’s grave at Arlington National Cemetery in November 2003, vowing to honor his life. Pfc. John Hart was just 20 when he was shot dead by an Iraqi enemy – just three months after his arrival in Iraq. “When we buried John I promised him I would think of him every day,” said Hart yesterday, her voice breaking. “And I have.” Today, as another Veterans Day passes, Alma Hart, 47, her husband, Brian, 46, and their two teenage daughters will lay a wreath in John’s memory at Memorial Park near their Bedford home. John Hart was one of 31 Massachusetts soldiers killed in the war so far. But helping the living is what helps his mother make sense of her child’s death. She has begun volunteering at Bedford’s Veterans Administration hospital, determined to make sure the soldiers there aren’t ignored like many who returned from Vietnam. “I will not let this happen to the Iraq generation. We can’t just stuff them in a hospital and leave them there,” Hart said. “This is how I will honor my son. I just can’t sit around and stare at John’s picture. There are guys that still need me.” John Hart was killed as he traveled with fellow soldiers in a canvas-covered Humvee in Northern Iraq. In a phone call home a week before his death, he told his father he lacked body armor and ammunition. “He said, ‘Dad can you do something?’ ” Hart remembered. Alma Hart said she and her husband were stunned, though they had heard news reports of ill-equipped soldiers. “We were hoping it wasn’t true. President Bush had announced the war was over in May and I thought they were just there on peacekeeping stuff,” Hart said. By the time the couple decided to write a letter to Massachusetts congressmen, “the Army was ringing the doorbell to say John was killed,” Hart said. “They sent him into an ambush where there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell he was going to survive,” she said. She vividly remembers the early morning in October 2003 when her doorbell rang. Looking out the window she saw a local police officer, a priest and an Army official. “I thought: ‘I just won’t open the door. They can’t tell me if I don’t open the door,’ ” Hart said. Hart feels deceived the White House hasn’t established that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or a connection to al-Qaeda. “I bought the whole line. The president told me something and I believed him,” Hart said. “But Brian and I have this nagging fear that it is going to come to nothing. We want something meaningful to come out of this for John. This is the big tragedy for us, and to think he was lied to by his government and sent over there ill-equipped and unprepared is very upsetting.” “I used to be a Republican until they killed my son,” Hart said. “Killing my boy was the last straw.” She wants American troops brought home. “It isn’t just John’s death. It isn’t only about our son. It is about everybody’s sons. It is about all the innocent Iraqis who are trying to raise a family just like me. We can’t fight their civil war for them.” What’s open, closed Following is a list of what’s open or closed today for Veterans Day. Stores, supermarkets: Open Liquor stores and bars: Open MBTA trains and buses: Weekday schedule Garbage collection: No delay Parking: Some city lots closed Banks: Most closed Government offices: Closed Schools: Closed Libraries: Closed Post Office: Closed Stock market: Open news.bostonherald.com