Bush Meets Families of Fallen Soldiers

[NCOutdoors]

Whatever you may think of the war, I think this shows how Bush really feels about theses military guys.



http://www.washtimes.com/functions/p...0-124908-7077r

Widow tells Bush to stay the course in Iraq war
By Bill Sammon
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published June 30, 2005
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President Bush, who met with relatives of fallen soldiers before Tuesday's Fort Bragg speech, was urged to stay the course in Iraq by a woman who gave him a bracelet honoring her late husband.
Â*Â*Â*Â*"I said: 'I know people are pushing you, but please don't pull the guys out of Iraq too soon,'Â*" said Crystal Owen, whose husband, Staff Sgt. Mike Owen, was killed in Iraq last year.
Â*Â*Â*Â*"Don't let my husband -- and 1,700-plus other deaths -- be in vain," she added during a private meeting with Mr. Bush at the North Carolina base. "They were over there, fighting for a democratic nation, and I hope you'll keep our service members over there until the mission can be accomplished."
Â*Â*Â*Â*Mrs. Owen gave the president a stainless steel bracelet engraved with the names of her husband and another soldier, Cpl. John Santos, both of whom were killed on Oct. 15.
Â*Â*Â*Â*The president slipped the bracelet on his left wrist and wore it throughout his 28-minute prime-time address to the nation, becoming visibly emotional at times.
Â*Â*Â*Â*"We have lost good men and women who left our shores to defend freedom and did not live to make the journey home," he said as his eyes turned glassy. "I've met with families grieving the loss of loved ones who were taken from us too soon."
Â*Â*Â*Â*Before his speech, as is his custom, the president met for three hours with more than 90 spouses, children and parents of 32 soldiers killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom. The last person he met was Mrs. Owen.
Â*Â*Â*Â*"Even though he'd met with 31 other families prior to me, it was like I was the only one -- I mean, he made me feel special," she told The Washington Times yesterday. "He wanted to know about Mike and about me and if I was OK.
Â*Â*Â*Â*"I did get teary-eyed and he kind of held my hands for a while," she added. "He was very sincere and gave me a kiss on the cheek as he left -- I was a little flabbergasted."
Â*Â*Â*Â*The only other people in the room were two Secret Service agents and a photographer for the White House, which declined to release photos.
Â*Â*Â*Â*Mr. Bush has always barred press coverage of his meetings with family members of fallen soldiers.
Â*Â*Â*Â*"It's a time for the president to comfort the families and reassure them that the world is going to be a more peaceful place because of their loved ones," explained White House press secretary Scott McClellan.
Â*Â*Â*Â*"There were a lot of hugs," he said of the Tuesday meeting. "They shared some tears and some laughs."
Â*Â*Â*Â*Mr. Bush has long been criticized by Democrats for not attending the funerals of Americans who have died in the war against terrorism. But White House officials say the president does not want to disrupt public services or create the appearance that he favors one family over another.
Â*Â*Â*Â*The practice began on Sept. 14, 2001, when the president spent hours visiting relatives of those who had been killed in the World Trade Center three days earlier.
Â*Â*Â*Â*During the highly emotional gathering in Manhattan, Mr. Bush alternately laughed and cried with the families, posing for pictures and giving autographs.
Â*Â*Â*Â*Since then, he has continued the somber ritual by meeting with hundreds of relatives of slain soldiers at such military bases as Fort Stewart, Ga.; Fort Polk, La.; and Fort Lewis, Wash.
Â*Â*Â*Â*At Fort Campbell, Ky., in 2004, he met with 133 relatives of 46 fallen service members. While at Fort Hood, Texas, in April, he met with 90 family members of 33 slain soldiers.
Â*Â*Â*Â*The president wept during a meeting one year ago at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida. In December, he posthumously awarded a Bronze Star during a meeting with 50 family members at Camp Pendleton, Calif.
Â*Â*Â*Â*Although not all family members agree with the president's policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, many reported being deeply moved by their sessions with him. These include Dave Bader, whose brother, Staff Sgt. Daniel Bader, was killed in Iraq.
Â*Â*Â*Â*"He was just a regular American who came to talk to us," he told the Denver Post after meeting with Mr. Bush at Fort Carson, Colo., in November, 2003. "I was touched by that."
Â*Â*Â*Â*Others used their meetings with the president to counsel perseverance in the face of withering domestic criticism.
Â*Â*Â*Â*"Mike believed in him," Mrs. Owen said. "He was his commander in chief and would have done anything he was ordered to do.
Â*Â*Â*Â*"I was proud to be a military wife," she added. "And I was very honored that the president would take time out to meet with me personally."

[tardfarmer]

Whatever you may think of the war, I think this shows how Bush really feels about theses military guys.

No one has ever said anything derogatory about the soldiers.

BTW: if bushy is so proud of them, why didn't he serve with them?

[North Texan]

He had to do something to increase his ratings. The Jacko trial out in California had taken the attention away from his war on terror. Michael Jackson was molesting his press coverage.

[BenGarrett]

ORIGINAL: North Texan

The Jacko trial out in California had taken the attention away from his war on terror.

This is the kind of statement that absolutely pisses me off. "His" war on terror? How quickly we've forgotten.This is OUR war on terror. When the terrorists attacked our nation three and a half years ago, they weren't personally attacking George W. Bush. They were attacking US. The moment they took that first plane with innocent women and children aboard and flew it into the WTC, it became OUR war.

If Americans had considered WWII President Roosevelt's war against the ***anese, where would we be today?

[Charlie P]

I think this shows how Bush really feels about theses military guys.

LOL, Heres an editoral from the Army times. Bush and the GOP led Congress love these guys so much theor cutting their pay and benefits. I believe they also tried not paying "combat pay" for many of our ttroops.

Editorial: Nothing but lip service



In recent months, President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress have missed no opportunity to heap richly deserved praise on the military. But talk is cheap "” and getting cheaper by the day, judging from the nickel-and-dime treatment the troops are getting lately.
For example, the White House griped that various pay-and-benefits incentives added to the 2004 defense budget by Congress are wasteful and unnecessary "” including a modest proposal to double the $6,000 gratuity paid to families of troops who die on active duty. This comes at a time when Americans continue to die in Iraq at a rate of about one a day.
Similarly, the administration announced that on Oct. 1 it wants to roll back recent modest increases in monthly imminent-danger pay (from $225 to $150) and family-separation allowance (from $250 to $100) for troops getting shot at in combat zones.
Then there"™s military tax relief "” or the lack thereof. As Bush and Republican leaders in Congress preach the mantra of tax cuts, they can"™t seem to find time to make progress on minor tax provisions that would be a boon to military homeowners, reservists who travel long distances for training and parents deployed to combat zones, among others.
Incredibly, one of those tax provisions "” easing residency rules for service members to qualify for capital-gains exemptions when selling a home "” has been a homeless orphan in the corridors of power for more than five years now.
The chintz even extends to basic pay. While Bush"™s proposed 2004 defense budget would continue higher targeted raises for some ranks, he also proposed capping raises for E-1s, E-2s and O-1s at 2 percent, well below the average raise of 4.1 percent.
The Senate version of the defense bill rejects that idea, and would provide minimum 3.7 percent raises for all and higher targeted hikes for some. But the House version of the bill goes along with Bush, making this an issue still to be hashed out in upcoming negotiations.
All of which brings us to the latest indignity "” Bush"™s $9.2 billion military construction request for 2004, which was set a full $1.5 billion below this year"™s budget on the expectation that Congress, as has become tradition in recent years, would add funding as it drafted the construction appropriations bill.
But Bush"™s tax cuts have left little elbow room in the 2004 federal budget that is taking shape, and the squeeze is on across the board.
The result: Not only has the House Appropriations military construction panel accepted Bush"™s proposed $1.5 billion cut, it voted to reduce construction spending by an additional $41 million next year.
Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, took a stab at restoring $1 billion of the $1.5 billion cut in Bush"™s construction budget. He proposed to cover that cost by trimming recent tax cuts for the roughly 200,000 Americans who earn more than $1 million a year. Instead of a tax break of $88,300, they would receive $83,500.
The Republican majority on the construction appropriations panel quickly shot Obey down. And so the outlook for making progress next year in tackling the huge backlog of work that needs to be done on crumbling military housing and other facilities is bleak at best.
Taken piecemeal, all these corner-cutting moves might be viewed as mere flesh wounds. But even flesh wounds are fatal if you suffer enough of them. It adds up to a troubling pattern that eventually will hurt morale "” especially if the current breakneck operations tempo also rolls on unchecked and the tense situations in Iraq and Afghanistan do not ease.
Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Texas, who notes that the House passed a resolution in March pledging "œunequivocal support"� to service members and their families, puts it this way: "œAmerican military men and women don"™t deserve to be saluted with our words and insulted by our actions."�
Translation: Money talks "” and we all know what walks.

[rick_reno]

He's had troops at war for a number of years, I'm pretty sure this is the first time he's done this. It's all part of the ratings game - Karl Rove no doubt told him to run off an do this.

[CalHunter]

President Bush, who met with relatives of fallen soldiers before Tuesday's Fort Bragg speech, was urged to stay the course in Iraq by a woman who gave him a bracelet honoring her late husband.
"I said: 'I know people are pushing you, but please don't pull the guys out of Iraq too soon,' " said Crystal Owen, whose husband, Staff Sgt. Mike Owen, was killed in Iraq last year.
"Don't let my husband -- and 1,700-plus other deaths -- be in vain," she added during a private meeting with Mr. Bush at the North Carolina base. "They were over there, fighting for a democratic nation, and I hope you'll keep our service members over there until the mission can be accomplished."
This pretty much sums it up perfectly.


Tardfarmer
No one has ever said anything derogatory about the soldiers.

BTW: if bushy is so proud of them, why didn't he serve with them?
Tard, President Bush is at least doing something in a classy way and that means a lot to the families of fallen soldiers. Why do you have to bash EVERYTHING that Bush does? Sometimes your negativity seems to override any objectivity.


North Texan
He had to do something to increase his ratings. The Jacko trial out in California had taken the attention away from his war on terror. Michael Jackson was molesting his press coverage.
That pretty much sounds like something a lawyer would say.

Ben Garrett
This is the kind of statement that absolutely pisses me off. "His" war on terror? How quickly we've forgotten. This is OUR war on terror. When the terrorists attacked our nation three and a half years ago, they weren't personally attacking George W. Bush. They were attacking US. The moment they took that first plane with innocent women and children aboard and flew it into the WTC, it became OUR war.

If Americans had considered WWII President Roosevelt's war against the ***anese, where would we be today?
You nailed this one Ben.


Rick Reno
He's had troops at war for a number of years, I'm pretty sure this is the first time he's done this. It's all part of the ratings game - Karl Rove no doubt told him to run off an do this.
And that would explain why he doesn't allow press coverage of this golden PR opportunity???

Charlie, I do happen to agree with you on your point about not properly paying the troops. IMHO, the death benefit to families whose loved ones die on our battlefields should be $250K, not some measly $6,000. And we should get serious about combat pay as that is an incredible hardship for the military families. I believe they should increase the imminent danger pay (combat pay) to $500 a month so that it starts to compensate ourtroops for the danger. Yes, I know that would equate to approximately $70 million a month but that is the REAL price of doing business. And they should bump up the family separation pay to the same amount--$500 a month for the same reasons.

And Rick, Bush has been doing this since the 911 tragedy. It's not new. It's just something he does. I think it's even more exemplary that he does it in private rather than turning it into a PR stunt.

[NCOutdoors]

You guys are a tough crowd . . .

[CalHunter]

ORIGINAL: NCOutdoors

You guys are a tough crowd . . .

That is a very POLITE way of stating it.

[NCOutdoors]

Ah hel*, I like y'all.