Last night, President Obama called for support of our troops and their families, yet he painted far too rosy a picture of the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and stopped short of offering any real plans to ensure jobs and mental health services for veterans.

Since the supposed end of combat operations in Iraq last summer, 18 U.S. troops and at least 649 Iraqi civilians have been killed.  According to many analysts, Obama will likely maintain 5 U.S. bases and 50,000 troops in Iraq indefinetly.¹ According to the National Priorities Project, U.S. taxpayers will contribute $65 billion to the war in Iraq, money that could instead pay for over 1 million jobs, or 13.4 million people receiving low-income health care.²

President Obama stated that troops would start coming home from Afghanistan this July, but Pat Alviso, who’s son is currently serving in Afghanistan, asks: “The withdrawal may start in July, but when will it end? My son is in Afghanistan now, and almost 30,000 more troops are scheduled to deploy before July.  When will they come home?”  She continued, “If President Obama, wants to keep his promise of ‘shaping a world that favors peace and prosperity,’ he needs to bring my son and all the troops home now – and take care of them when they get here.”

The president also made sweeping promises about improving education, health care, clean energy, and creating jobs.  However, at the same time he is proposing a 5-year freeze in domestic spending, with only minor cuts to the military budget.  “My community is suffering from cuts to health care, failing schools, and a rising unemployment rate.  My husband was discharged from the Army in Nov. 2010. He is 75% disabled now and just had his 3rd operation.  He is not able to work.  His unemployment benefits have been cut, and his disability pay does not cover our expenses.  I am working full time, but can not make ends meet.” said MFSO member Tammara Rosenleaf from Montana. “Congress and the President may clap to show their gratitude, but I’d rather be able to actually pay my bills.”

Members of Military Families Speak Out and Gold Star Families Speak Out are available for interviews about the State of the Union. If you are looking for a family with a specific story, please contact Samantha Miller, MFSO’s Communications Coordinator – Samantha@mfso.org or 818-419-6994

MFSO is a national organization of thousands of military families working to bring all U.S. troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan, secure the care that our troops, veterans, and military families need, and support a foreign policy that will not lead us into such wars again. Gold Star Families Speak Out is a chapter of Military Families Speak Out made up of families whose loved ones died as a result of these wars.

MFSO has recently launched a new national campaign, The True Costs of War, highlighting the human and financial costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Using online tools, local events, media outreach and grassroots lobbying, we are working to strengthen the voices of military families and build alliances with other organizations who agree that our troops and tax dollars belong at home.

For more information about Military Families Speak Out, please visit: http://www.mfso.org
For more information about Gold Star Families Speak Out, please visit http://www.gsfso.org

1. Jamail, Dahr “Iraq: Operation Enduring Occupation,” http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=18204 and Schwartz, Michael “Will the U.S. Military Leave Iraq in 2011?” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-schwartz/will-the-us-military-leav_b_498579.html

2. National Priorities Project, Trade-Offs Database, http://nationalpriorities.org/tools/tradeoffs/

Last night, President Obama called for support of our troops and their families, yet he painted far too rosy a picture of the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and stopped short of offering any real plans to ensure jobs and mental health services for veterans.

Since the supposed end of combat operations in Iraq last summer, 18 U.S. troops and at least 649 Iraqi civilians have been killed.  According to many analysts, Obama will likely maintain 5 U.S. bases and 50,000 troops in Iraq indefinetly.¹ According to the National Priorities Project, U.S. taxpayers will contribute $65 billion to the war in Iraq, money that could instead pay for over 1 million jobs, or 13.4 million people receiving low-income health care.²

President Obama stated that troops would start coming home from Afghanistan this July, but Pat Alviso, who’s son is currently serving in Afghanistan, asks: “The withdrawal may start in July, but when will it end? My son is in Afghanistan now, and almost 30,000 more troops are scheduled to deploy before July.  When will they come home?”  She continued, “If President Obama, wants to keep his promise of ‘shaping a world that favors peace and prosperity,’ he needs to bring my son and all the troops home now – and take care of them when they get here.”

The president also made sweeping promises about improving education, health care, clean energy, and creating jobs.  However, at the same time he is proposing a 5-year freeze in domestic spending, with only minor cuts to the military budget.  “My community is suffering from cuts to health care, failing schools, and a rising unemployment rate.  My husband was discharged from the Army in Nov. 2010. He is 75% disabled now and just had his 3rd operation.  He is not able to work.  His unemployment benefits have been cut, and his disability pay does not cover our expenses.  I am working full time, but can not make ends meet.” said MFSO member Tammara Rosenleaf from Montana. “Congress and the President may clap to show their gratitude, but I’d rather be able to actually pay my bills.”

Members of Military Families Speak Out and Gold Star Families Speak Out are available for interviews about the State of the Union. If you are looking for a family with a specific story, please contact Samantha Miller, MFSO’s Communications Coordinator – Samantha@mfso.org or 818-419-6994

MFSO is a national organization of thousands of military families working to bring all U.S. troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan, secure the care that our troops, veterans, and military families need, and support a foreign policy that will not lead us into such wars again. Gold Star Families Speak Out is a chapter of Military Families Speak Out made up of families whose loved ones died as a result of these wars.

MFSO has recently launched a new national campaign, The True Costs of War, highlighting the human and financial costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Using online tools, local events, media outreach and grassroots lobbying, we are working to strengthen the voices of military families and build alliances with other organizations who agree that our troops and tax dollars belong at home.

For more information about Military Families Speak Out, please visit: http://www.mfso.org
For more information about Gold Star Families Speak Out, please visit http://www.gsfso.org

1. Jamail, Dahr “Iraq: Operation Enduring Occupation,” http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=18204 and Schwartz, Michael “Will the U.S. Military Leave Iraq in 2011?” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-schwartz/will-the-us-military-leav_b_498579.html
2. National Priorities Project, Trade-Offs Database, http://nationalpriorities.org/tools/tradeoffs/

We’re listening closely to what President Obama has to say this week – yesterday he made a pledge to support military families with a sweeping program, and tonight he will give his third State of the Union address.  Though he pledged his support to military families and clearly recognizes the special hardships we face, he stopped short of supporting us in the one way we’re all working for, that could do the most good for service members, veterans, military families and the rest of the country – an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  From all of the predictions, it is clear that he will barely mention the wars tonight, focusing his message on jobs and economic recovery.  As military families, we have a unique perspective on the state of our country, and this is a time when the media wants to hear what we have to say.

Here are a few ways you can respond to the State of the Union…

• Watch the State of the Union tonight at 9pm EST (it will be airing on every major news station, or watch it streaming online live)
• Keep a pen and paper (or your computer) next to you so you can quickly write down any responses
• After the speech is over tonight or first thing tomorrow morning, click here to write a Letter to the Editor
• Write a blog response to the State of the Union – send your blogs in the body of an email or as a .doc or .docx attachment to samantha@mfso.org. We’ll post the blogs on our website and on other sites. You can also post it yourself to any sites focused on the wars, veterans, military families, politics or the economy.

Members of Military Families Speak Out will be watching President Obama’s State of the Union address this evening, and though they know the focus will be on jobs and strengthening the economy, they’ll be listening closely for any mention of ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“I’m heartened to hear about President Obama’s pledge Monday for unprecedented support for military families. The best thing he could do to support us is to bring all the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan. I’m proud of my son for serving, but like most Americans don’t believe that how he is being used is actually making us any safer,” said MFSO member Pat Alviso, whose son is currently serving in Afghanistan.

Members of Military Families Speak Out and Gold Star Families Speak Out are available for interviews about the State of the Union. If you are looking for a family with a specific story, please contact Samantha Miller, MFSO’s Communications Coordinator, for more information – Samantha@mfso.org, 818-419-6994

MFSO is a national organization of thousands of military families working to bring all U.S. troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan, secure the care that our troops, veterans, and military families need, and support a foreign policy that will not lead us into such wars again. Gold Star Families Speak Out is a chapter of Military Families Speak Out made up of families whose loved ones died as a result of these wars.

MFSO has recently launched a new national campaign, The True Costs of War, highlighting the human and financial costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Using online tools, local events, media outreach and grassroots lobbying, we are working to strengthen the voices of military families and build alliances with other organizations who agree that our troops and tax dollars belong at home.

For more information about Military Families Speak Out, please visit: http://www.mfso.org
For more information about Gold Star Families Speak Out, please visit http://www.gsfso.org

Earlier this month, MFSO was part of launching a new “Cost of War” sign in Rochester, NY. This is part of a growing effort to raise awareness about the financial costs of war. But we military families never forget the human costs of war, as it is our families that bear them. For more information on our True Costs of War campaign, go here.

Iraq and Afghanistan wars invisible to most

Mark Hare, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
November 16, 2010

A few dozen veterans gathered with friends and family in the parking lot of St. Joseph’s House of Hospitality last Thursday to mark the observation of Veterans Day with a solemn reading of the names of New Yorkers who have lost their lives in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflictss.

When they were done, they plugged in a borrowed “Cost of the War” electronic sign that will travel to several locations around Rochester over the next few weeks. Three messages scroll across the screen: “160,000
veterans are homeless tonight; 18 veterans commit suicide every day; all veterans need our support.”

The reading was organized by the Veterans for Peace, Chapter 23, who were joined by the local chapter of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Military Families Speak Out (against war) and the MK Gandhi
Center for Nonviolence at the University of Rochester.

“We just had an election and the war never came up for discussion,” said Paul Meagher of Rochester, a Vietnam-era Navy veteran who repaired Navy planes and radar. The troops today, he said, “are in a state of
perpetual deployment,” going back again and again to the war zone.

The Iraq combat vets Jim Bloom knows “are not doing too well,” says the 27-year-old Rochesterian, who served as a Navy corpsman in Iraq in 2004-05. “They don’t get the mental health services they need.”

Asked about his own health, Bloom said, “I have my days. I don’t really sleep.” He takes prescription muscle relaxants, he says, to keep him from “grinding my teeth so much that my eardrums become inverted.”

More than 4,400 service men and women have died in Iraq; more than 1,300 more have died in Afghanistan. Somewhere near 100,000 civilians have died in Iraq alone. The cost of the wars has already topped $1 trillion; caring for the physical and psychological injuries to veterans could cost another trillion.

Despite all the years of bravado about a war on terrorism and preserving American freedom, I have no idea what “victory” would look like in either place.

The best, maybe the only, way to end these wars and protect America against future misadventures, is to reinstate the draft, said Jim Swarts, an ordained Episcopalian priest who teaches history at the State
University College at Geneseo. “A draft would bring in the middle class,” he said, “and provide a balance, a different point of view.”

I spent my youth protesting the Vietnam War and the draft that conscripted so many of my generation into the meat grinder. As the father of two sons of prime military age, I can barely imagine calling for its reinstatement. But these wars are invisible, paid for with credit cards, waged largely off the TV screen, inflicting death and trauma on a tiny segment of our population — on beautiful young men and
women who will never recover from three and four and five tours in combat. The conflict drags on because most Americans have no stake in it.

There is no guarantee that a draft — with Vietnam-era exemptions for students, and those who know how to work the system — would be any fairer today. But without a draft, our leaders have been free to wage undeclared wars with no clear purpose, but with no consequences — except for those forced to fight them.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Military Families Available for
Interview

November 10, 2010
Contact: Samantha Miller
818-419-6994, Samantha@mfso.org

On Veteran’s Day, Military Families Remember the True
Costs of War

This Thursday, much of the country will commemorate Veterans Day with the usual mix of parades, ceremonies, and clearance sales. For families with loved in ones in the military, those caring for recently returned veterans, and those grieving for loved ones who died as a result of their military service, this day has a much more personal meaning. Members of Military Families Speak Out (MFSO), the largest organization of military families to speak out against war in the history of the U.S., are asking that
this Veteran’s Day, Americans look at what the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are costing each and every one of us.

Military families pay the ultimate cost of the wars: their loved ones serving multiple deployments to efforts that are not making us safer, returning home to limited job prospects and inadequate care, or not
returning home at all Every American, however, is paying the costs of wars whether they realize it or not. In
fiscal year 2011, it is projected that American taxpayers will contribute $119.4 billion towards the war in Afghanistan.[i] While the Pentagon has submitted a proposal to increase their budget by $500 billion in the next 10 years, the Obama administration is proposing a 3 year freeze on “discretionary spending,” the money which goes towards things like transportation, education, and housing.

“For the countless Americans whose lives have not been touched by these wars, Veteran’s Day is a convenient once-a-year effort to express support and reverence for our troops. For us, a family who has borne the cost, Veteran’s Day is just another day of pain, grief, and anxiety,” said Adele Kubein of Corvallis, Oregon, “We had to fight for five years just to get complete medical care for my disabled veteran. Where is the support and reverence when we need it?”

Adele’s daughter served in Iraq with the Army National Guard and became disabled as a result of her service.

Oregon is one of 48 states currently experiencing a state budget crisis, and has undergone cuts in state money for education and wage cuts and furloughs for state employees[ii]. Meanwhile, taxpayers in Corvallis, Oregon will contribute $17 million towards the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2011[iii].

Members of Military Families Speak Out and Gold Star Families Speak Out are available for interviews about Veterans Day and the cost of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you are looking for a family with a specific story, please contact Samantha Miller, MFSO’s Communications Coordinator, for more information – Samantha@mfso.org, 818-419-6994

MFSO is a national organization of thousands of military families working to bring all U.S. troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan, secure the care that our troops, veterans, and military families need, and support a foreign policy that will not lead us into such wars again. Gold Star Families Speak
Out is a chapter of Military Families Speak Out made up of families whose loved ones died as a result of these wars.

MFSO has just launched a new national campaign, The True Costs of War, highlighting the human and financial costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Using online tools, local events, media outreach and grassroots lobbying, we will be working to strengthen the voices of military families and build alliances with other organizations who agree that our troops and tax dollars belong at home.

For more information about Military Families Speak Out, please visit: http://www.mfso.org

For more information about Gold Star Families Speak Out, please visit http://www.gsfso.org

Click here to sign  up for campaign updates and let us know how you’re interested in getting involved

As military families, we know the true costs of war. It is our loved ones who are serving without adequate materials, returning home to failed job prospects and inadequate care. Most tragic of all for some of us our loved ones will never return home again.

But the American public is also suffering the true costs of war. It costs $1 million a year to keep one soldier on the ground in Afghanistan. The operational costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have already surpassed $1 trillion. Economists estimate providing care for returning veterans will reach another $1 trillion.

Hundreds of thousands of American men and women are serving in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – wars that are not making us any safer at home. The wars are, however, hurting our troops and military families, and decimating our economy.

The Pentagon has more than enough money to quickly and safely bring our troops home now. Cutting off funding to the wars is the best way to support our troops.

MFSO members can play a critical role in educating and inspiring the public to mobilize direct pressure on President Obama and Congress to end the wars and provide comprehensive care to veterans and their families.  We hope you will join our campaign – we need your involvement!

Family Members of
Troops Currently Deployed, Recently Returned, or Killed in Action in
Afghanistan Available for Interview

Contact:

Nikki Morse, nikki@mfso.org or 347-703-0570

Deborah Forter, deborah@mfso.org or 508-237-5343

To connect with Iraq
and Afghani Veterans directly, contact Maggie Martin – IVAW Media Coordinator,
912.596.8484, maggiemartin1@gmail.com

October 7, 2010 – Today marks the 9th anniversary of the start of the Afghanistan War, now the longest war in American history, with 1,321 American service members killed in action, at least 8,000 wounded, tens of thousands of Afghani civilians killed, and over
352 billion of American taxpayer dollars wasted. Military Families Speak Out (MFSO), the largest organization of military families to speak out against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, calls on Senators and Representatives to bring our troops home now and provide the support they need to recover from the wounds of war, including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Traumatic Brain
Injury (TBI), and Military Sexual Trauma (MST).

Members of Military Families Speak Out (MFSO), and their chapter Gold Star Families Speak Out (GSFSO), will be participating in vigils and actions to mark this day. We are also involved in the launch of a national veteran-led campaign to end the military’s widespread practice of deploying wounded troops into war zones. Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) Operation Recovery: Stop the Deployment of Traumatized Troops will focus on ending the practice of deploying service members suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), and Military Sexual Trauma (MST).

One MFSO family member recalls the experience of her cousin who served in the US Marine Corps, and was deployed after 2 tours of duty, including the 2007 troop surge in Fallujah, Iraq, “He wasn’t mentally stable enough to return to combat operations in Afghanistan but the Marines deployed him anyway. He had to go because orders are orders. On December 26th 2009, just two weeks into combat operations in Afghanistan, he killed himself because he couldn’t handle the war raging in his head.”

How many more lost lives and injured young souls will it take before our Congressional leaders will demonstrate the kind of courage our loved ones in the military show every day? When will Congress stop thinking about political posturing, show the courage to end the war, and allow our surviving troops to heal and recover from this nine-year debacle?

Family members of both the Afghanistan and Iraq War veterans, including many with personal experience of having a loved one deployed while wounded, are available for interview. We will be supporting the IVAW press conference at 1:30pm at Russell Senate Office Building, (Constitution Ave NE, and Delaware Ave. NE) At this press conference, veterans and military family members will testify about their experiences with redeployment and announce the launch of Operation Recovery.

Military Families Speak Out includes over 4,000 military families whose loved ones serve or have served in the military since 2002; it is the largest organization of military families to be speaking out against wars in the history of the United States. Gold Star Families Speak Out is a national chapter of MFSO and includes families whose loved ones died as a result of the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. More information about Military Families Speak Out can be found at www.mfso.org; more information about Gold Star Families Speak Out can be found at www.gsfso.org

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