- DENVER -- They are angry
and disillusioned, frustrated and full of doubt. This war is not going
the way they hoped it would.
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- They are wives and husbands of the 129th Army Reserves
Combat Transportation Company, stationed in Kansas, and they are terrified
for spouses who are conducting missions in Iraq.
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- A month ago, these family members launched a "bring
our soldiers home" petition drive when the 129th Company's tour of
duty was extended with no advance notice.
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- Today, after a string of suicide bombings in Iraq, they
stand with a growing number of military families who are convinced that
the war is going awry and who think the American public isn't getting a
straight story on the conflict.
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- Doubts about Bush
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- Cherie Block, 29, could barely contain herself while
watching President Bush's press conference Tuesday from her home in Sac
City, Iowa, especially when Bush insisted the vast majority of Iraqis are
with Americans, not against them.
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- "Look at everything that's going on there this week,"
Block said, "And [Bush] still has this perfect picture in his head
that they want us there. To me, they're already against us.
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- "Either he doesn't really understand what's going
on, or he's not telling it the way it really is," said Block, whose
husband Wallace is a sergeant with the 129th Company.
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- Around the country, other military families are voicing
concerns over the war, including Military Families Speak Out, a Massachusetts
group that claims support from about 1,000 families nationwide. Some marched
to protest the war last weekend in Washington, D.C.
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- While many of these families are adamantly anti-war,
others embrace the administration's rationale for going to war in Iraq
while criticizing its postwar conduct.
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- Among them is Trisha Leonard, 27, of De Soto, Kan., who
declined to name her husband, a captain in the 129th Company. "I think
taking out Saddam's regime was a good move. But there is no postwar plan
or exit strategy. It's a mess."
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- The vast majority of military families support the war,
at least in public. They don't want wives and husbands, sons or daughters
to return home to a country with a negative view of the conflict, like
that faced by soldiers who came home from Vietnam.
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- Overwhelmingly, families are against a massive pullout
of troops that would leave Iraq destabilized and vulnerable. The U.S. has
to finish what it has begun or risk an even greater surge of terrorism,
they believe.
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- But reservists like those in the 129th Company, which
operates trucks that haul tanks and other heavy equipment into Iraq, are
in an especially tough position. Planning for their service in the Iraq
war has been particularly chaotic, families charge, insisting the military
has given them inadequate information and assistance.
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- Initially, most of the 129th Company reservists believed
their tour of duty would be three to six months. Then they were told it
would be a year from the time they arrived in Iraq, not including the three
months they spent on duty while waitingto be deployed.
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- Then, last month they were told the 270-member 129th
Company might not come home before 2005. That's when Rachel Trueblood,
42, of Lees Summit, Mo., a mother of three whose husband is a staff sergeant
with the company, went from "sucking it up," as she puts it,
to getting mad.
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- Petition drive under way
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- Her bottom line: No National Guard or reservist should
be deployed for more than 12 months. Trueblood mounted a petition drive
(www.129bringthemhome.com) that has gathered almost 13,000 signatures.
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- Though her husband supports the war, Trueblood has doubts.
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- "We've committed ourselves to something that's bigger
than any of us ever bargained for," she said. "My feeling is,
we can't leave, but this might be a cause we'll never win."
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- Every time Bush says the U.S. won't back down until it
wins the war against terrorism, as he did Tuesday, Trueblood wonders, "How?
We're already stretched to the absolute limit. Where are you going to lead
us next, into Iran or Syria?"
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- For Jodie Holm, 38, faith is the answer to her questions.
She prays that her husband Jeff, a sergeant with the 129th Company, will
return home safely.
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- "If it wasn't for God, I'd be a basket case right
now. ... I'm so scared," said Holm from her home in Council Bluffs,
Iowa, breaking into tears over the phone. "... My husband says don't
worry, but I can't help myself. It's the not knowing what is going to happen
next that's killing me."
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- Copyright © 2003, Chicago Tribune
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