April 22, 2007
President George W. Bush
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear President Bush:
By way of introduction, I am a Republican who voted for you in both elections. I am beginning to greatly regret that decision and I would like to take this opportunity to explain why.
My son, Spc. Matthew Beard, is serving in the U.S. Army (4th Brigade, Fort Stewart) and his termination date would have been July 6, 2007. However, because of the unconstitutional way in which the “stop-loss” policy is being used, he is going back to Iraq in August or September along with many others who have been stop-lossed to fight a war that is not our war, fight enemies who look the same as our alleged friends in that region, and to try and stop two factions of the same religion who have hated each other for centuries from blowing each other up. Does that make any sense to you? I guess it does or my son would not be going back to Baghdad. He spent a year of his young life there from January 2005 through January 2006. He has served his country and fulfilled his duty to the U.S. Army.
Therefore, my son should be freed from indentured servitude and allowed to live his life. He was just married in August and had plans to return to school this August to study history. He wants to be a history professor.
Congress passed the stop-loss policy for our wars and our conflicts not another country’s civil war. Please get our young men and women out of there. We have lost over 3,000 young people and for what? The majority of people over there hate us. That is a fact that is becoming more obvious as each day passes and there is nothing that our soldiers can do about that.
Iran is the key to all of this. They are supplying weapons to insurgents and terrorists, they are allowing terrorists to use the border freely to move back and forth and they are inciting the violence that is occurring with their rhetoric. If you must stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, you can do that without a boot on the ground. A pre-emptive strike should not be out of the question and I believe it may actually serve to discourage terrorists from acting against the United States or our foreign interests.
But you have gone way beyond what Resolution 114 gave you the power to do. The resolution authorized the use of the U.S. military to make Iraq comply with the U.N. Resolution it signed in 1991 at the end of the Gulf War. The rest, as they say is history, or it should be. We captured Saddam Hussein and we found little WMD. That is as much power as Congress gave you and with all due respect, you have abused that power and affected the lives of tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers. How many soldiers have died because they were in Iraq due the “stop-loss” policy? The Department of Defense should have those statistics and under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), I am requesting those statistics along with statistics for serious injuries incurred while deployed due to the “stop-loss” policy from Secretary of Defense Gates to whom I have sent a copy of this letter.
Please do not misunderstand me. I am proud of my son’s service to his country but his duty has been fulfilled and now, it is time for him to be allowed to live his live as your daughters, Jenna and Barbara, and your nephews, George and John, are living their’s. If it is such a “just and noble cause” as you claim, why are they not serving in Iraq? My son is just as important to me as they are to your brother and you.
I have no misconception that you will actually read this. I know some staff person will simply write me, if that, and thank me for my support.
Please end the “stop-loss” policy and let those who have served and met their contractual obligations to the U.S. Army out so that they can go on with their lives. This policy has affected over 70,000 soldiers and their families. It is nothing more than a “back-door” draft thinly disguised as a contractual obligation that should be used only when the United States has declared war or another country has declared war on us.
If something happens to my son, during this fifteen (15) to eighteen (18) month deployment, you, Secretary Gates and his Captain will have his blood on your hands. Just as you will for any soldier who has been forced to return to Iraq. Again, I am not trying to be disrespectful to the President of the United States but enough is enough! You have the power to save my son and thousands of other soldiers. Please feel free to visit my website www.endstoploss.com. I plan to spread the word about “stop-loss” in any way I can. I have been interviewed on television, the Alan Colmes radio show and the Florida Times Union. I will use any venue that is available to educate Americans about what “stop-loss” truly means and how it has affected 70,000 soldiers and their families. In a short while, many Americans will understand what is being done to these young men and women and it will be interesting to see how that affects recruitment numbers.
Sincerely,
Mrs Suzanne Miller, Esquire
cc: Secretary of Defense Robert Gates
