MFSO Oregon is a chapter of Military Families Speak Out, a national organization of people who have relatives or loved ones in the military and are opposed to the continued occupation of Iraq.
If you would like to help out with a donation, please click here.
MFSO was formed in November of 2002 and has contacts with military families throughout the United States, and in countries around the world. National membership currently includes over 3,000 military families, with new families joining daily.

MFSO Oregon started as it’s own organization in November 2004 as it was evident the war and occupation was continuing with no exit strategy and that Oregon families needed support and a way to speak out against the war in a safe and protected environment.

MFSO Goals:

• Provide support to families of soldiers.
• Speak out against the war and ensure the voices of families are heard.
• Educate the public on the impacts of war on soldiers and families.
• Engage in advocacy in the community and with elected officials for an exit strategy and proper care for troops returning from the occupation in Iraq.

The monthly support group for July, 2008 will be combined with a social gathering of MFSO families on July 12th 6-9pm. RSVP with Suzanne Brownlow at 503 658-5432.

Call Linda Marshall for information about the support group at (503) 617-0997 or email Suzi Sutherlin-Martin at jmartin906@aol.com. The regular monthly support group will resume in August and continue to meet the first Saturday of each month at the UCC Frog Pond Church in Wilsonville -
For google map directions to the church, click here.

One mother wrote this about the meetings…WE WANT THEM TO COME HOME

Yesterday was the meeting of the “Military Families Speak Out” support group I attend once a month. There weren’t very many of us this month — just 5 parents, three with sons in the Army and two with sons in the Marines, sitting around a table in a church fellowship hall. We started out talking about a hearing in our state legislature. The hearing was on a resolution calling for bringing our troops home from Iraq.

Some of us testified about our sons at the hearing. Their stories vary. They patrol streets and disarm bombs in Iraq. They practice in the California desert, getting ready to man checkpoints on the Syrian border and transport troops through Anbar Province. They wait — to go to war for the first time and to be sent back for the third time. One struggles with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Our stories are all the same. We think the war in Iraq is unjust and we oppose it.

One mother critiques her testimony, saying she doesn’t think she should have talked so much about herself –about how worried and scared she is. No, several of us insist, you were great! Public speaking has been part of my job for years, but I can’t talk about my son going off to war without crying, the lone Dad at the table confesses. That’s OK, people can see how you really feel, the worried Mom reassures him. There is another hearing on the resolution next week. A Mother who didn’t make it to the last one says she will go. This is a toothless state resolution, but, for right now, it’s our group’s best chance to work towards bringing the troops home.

We wonder about the value of our actions. What shows we are for the military, but against this war? Do more people think about the war because we hold signs reading “Bring the Troops home” on street corners? Does writing to our senators change their minds? Did marching for peace in Washington, DC, alter the national policy? Did it do any good to speak at the hearing? These actions feel worthwhile, but, we agonize about their effectiveness.

The conversation veers off the topic of the hearing and we eat some cookies. A Mom whose son is in Baghdad says she can’t sleep at night unless she takes a sleeping pill and a shot of whiskey. Another wonders if she will ever be “herself” again. She thinks she will calm down, but never be the same as before her son went to war. The Mother whose son will be going to Iraq for the third time says she worries about him every minute of the day. I tell the group my son is talking about making the military his career, dashing my hopes of only having to worry about his survival for a finite time. The Dad in the group takes another cookie off the plate. His wife didn’t come today because sometimes it’s just too hard to think about this kind of stuff all the time. She’s gone to a baby shower instead. We all understand. Their son is due to deploy to Iraq next month. The training he was supposed to get before deploying has been cut short so he can be part of the surge. My wife can’t eat these days, he says, and I can’t stop.

Newspaper stories about soldiers’ funerals really get me going, one Mother says. Another Mom nods. A third reports her son has asked for a basic military funeral if he is killed. Don’t, he insisted, have an expensive funeral. I speculate that my son would want a military funeral, but, I could not tolerate being handed a flag in exchange for his life. The Mom, whose son has given her his final instructions, describes the fear, more vivid than any funeral she can imagine, of two men in uniforms coming to her door to notify her that he has died.

What does the grave marker say if you are buried in a military cemetery, someone asks? The War in Iraq? Iraqi Freedom? One Mom thinks the markers read — The Global War on Terror. We all sit back and think about that. The idea of slogans being attached to our sons in life or death is hard to take. Can you be buried in a military cemetery without that kind of marker, a Mom muses? None of us think so. The Dad at the table tells us his 18 year old son is bringing home his will.

The afternoon winds down and we end up talking about houses. Three of the five of us live in houses too big for us, now that our kids are grown. We’ve thought of moving to smaller places but we all agree we will be staying put. No one even needs to say it. Everyone is having the same thought. If our sons come back wounded, we want them to return to the rooms the remember.

We pack up the left over cookies and put away the table and chairs. We say good-bye to each other and head out the door to our cars. They are plastered with bumper stickers saying our boys are in the military and we want them to come home.

Suzi SM

The Portland meeting included several vets and family members who spoke to the difficulties in accessing support and getting employment. Representatives from the VA and other veteran’s services were present and heard our testimony that social support for vets and their families must be in place in addition to formal treatment programs. The reps from the VA seemed surprised to hear from OIF veterans that access to treatment was difficult and that negative stigma against vets was evident in hiring practices.

We encourage military family members to attend to continue to bring a message of the need to support returning troops.

June 30 Myrtle Point
2-4 p.m. Meet with local officials at City Hall Council Chambers
7-9 p.m. Town Hall Meeting Coos County Fairgrounds, 115 5th St., Oaks
Pavilion

Continue for July schedule for Roseburg, Eugene, Warrenton (Camp Rilea), La Grande, Hood River, Pendleton, Madras, Hood River/Dalles, Ashland and Klamath Falls.

July 1 Roseburg
9-11 a.m. Tour Roseburg VA Medical Center
2-4 p.m. Meet with local officials at City Hall Council Chambers
7-9 p.m. Town Hall Meeting Roseburg Armory 111 NW General Avenue

July 10 Eugene
8:30-9:30 a.m. Eugene Vet Net 1626 Willamette Street (Upstairs)
10:30-11:30 a.m. Tour new Springfield Armory
1-1:45 p.m. Veteran Service Office 151 W 7th Ave, Suite 435
2-4 p.m. Meet with local officials at Springfield City Hall
7-9 p.m. Town Hall Mtg Lane Community College Bldg 19 Room 250

July 14 Camp Rilea/Warrenton
9-10 a.m. VA Community Based Outpatient Clinic 91400 Rilea Neacoxie
Street Bldg. 7315
10-11:30 a.m. Tour Camp Rilea
2-4 p.m. Meet with local officials at Astoria City Hall Council
7-9 p.m. Town Hall Meeting Astoria Event Center 894 Commercial St

July 17 La Grande
9-11 a.m. Community Based Outpatient Clinic
2-4 p.m. Meet with local officials at City Hall Council Chambers
7-8 p.m. Town Hall Meeting La Grande Armory 401 12th Street

July 18 Pendleton
2-4 p.m. Meet with local officials at City Hall Council Chambers
7-9 p.m. Town Hall Meeting Pendleton Armory 2110 NW 56th Drive

July 19 Madras
2-4 p.m. Meet with local officials at City Hall Council Chambers
7-9 p.m. Town Hall Meeting County Commissioner’s Conference Room,
66 ‘D’ St.

July 24 Hood River/The Dalles
9-11 a.m. Tour Veterans Home
2-4 p.m. Meet with local officials at The Dalles City Hall Council
7-9 p.m. Town Hall Meeting Hood River Armory 1590 12th Street

July 28 Ashland
9-11 Southern Oregon University Meeting
2-4 p.m. Meet with local officials at City Hall Council Chambers
7-9 Town Hall meeting Ashland Armory 1420 E Main Street

July 29 Klamath Falls
9-11 a.m. Tour Kingsley Field
2-4 p.m. Meet with local officials at City Hall Council Chambers
7-8 p.m. Town Hall Meeting Kingsley Field Room TBD

So far we have three. This one’s at NW Front Street and 17th. While MFSO is able to get billboard space fairly cheaply, it still costs a lot to produce and install them. Please help us get out our important message! click here to donate

Hello, my name is Adele Kubein, I am a member of the advisory board of
Military Families Speak Out and the mother of a permanently disabled
Iraq veteran.

I have been invited here tonight to speak about the cost of the Iraq
war. Who pays this price? The simple answer is all of us, but some
more than others. I can rattle off monthly figures for the financial
cost of war (over three billion), and the numbers of American soldiers
killed (almost 4100), as well as the estimated number of dead Iraqi
civilians, (somewhere between 100,000 and 600,000). But when one
focuses on the particular, the cost becomes horrifying. As a mother I
cannot escape the particular and neither can the other members of
MFSO, nor the people of Iraq. Numbers cannot chill the soul the same
way my soul was chilled when I sat in a darkened hotel room and
listened to my daughter recount what it was like to clean her friend?s
brains and body parts out of a humvee. The chill I felt when she
described the shock of looking into the eyes of the first person she
killed, a twelve year old boy. At that moment I knew we could never go
back to the time before. From the minute my daughter took life our
lives have been divided into then and now.

Then was a time when my daughter laughed, and we hiked mountains,
snowshoed together, rode our mountain bikes, and shared our joys as
well as our sorrows. I remember the day she left for Iraq. I begged
God to magically swap us, I offered myself as sacrifice; the way
mothers have done throughout the ages. And most of all I begged God to
send her home with her soul intact. I was willing to give up a bit of
her beautiful body, a leg, an arm, some of those toes I tickled long
ago, because I knew that infirmity can be dealt with, whereas
innocence can never be returned.

Now is the time when my daughter wakes screaming from dreams of blood, when she limps around the house in agony, feared to go out in public because of the consuming anger she feels toward the unknown. Now is the time when she begs the doctors to amputate her leg, like an animal
in a trap. We still share joys and sorrows, but the balance has
shifted toward sorrow. My grandson was born with a disability, perhaps
because of the things my daughter was exposed to, such as depleted
uranium and oil fires. The same things Iraqi mothers are exposed to.
We and thousands of other families struggle with the Veteran?s
Administration for medical equipment, and care. My daughter has been
sewing the same leg brace together again for six months now, and we
have waited over a year for our overburdened, under-funded state to
provide the special services her son requires. We seek to find meaning
in our sacrifices, to escape the feeling that it was for nothing. I
would have been proud to see my daughter in Darfur saving lives, but
we eat bitterness each day this needless carnage goes on. We military
families hope that the pain we experience will help to bring this
nation toward the light; that is the only meaning we will find
acceptable. Toward that end I have been speaking out since November of
2002, when I joined the fledgling organization which was to become
Military Families Speak Out.

I am joined by over four thousand other family members, some of whom
no longer have their loved ones. I have held mothers while they cry
their burning tears into my neck. I have fielded calls from frantic
fathers worried that their sons are committing slow suicide with
alcohol and drugs. The Lucey family desperately sought help for their
son and were turned down, until the Thanksgiving Day when their son
hung himself with a garden hose in the basement of their home. In
Washington DC I marched with a mother, who in a level voice told me
what it was like to see her son return burned literally to a crisp.
She said she will never forget the sound of his last breaths when she
unhooked his life support. We are doomed to repeat our stories over
and over until someone hears us, and sometimes it seems as if pop star
scandals are more important than the death and life battles that
people in both nations are waging for the lives of their families.
Wars are easy to get into, but the ship of state is hard to turn once
it has been set on a path. We hope that our stories will incite you to
help us push. For us it is personal and particular, and it should be
for you too.

We mothers weep, yet our sorrows are but a fragment of the sorrows the
Iraqi people face. From a nation that boasted female doctors, lawyers
and judges, a place with universities, hospitals, running water,
electricity and garbage services, Iraq has turned into a place women
cannot even go out in public, a place where mothers early in the
morning must push the dead bodies out of the way so that they may walk
their children to school without terrifying them. Sewage runs in the
streets and the population has nowhere safe to turn. Death can come
from your neighbors, the Americans, Iraqi soldiers, and common
criminals. The cradle of civilization echoes with the cries of agony.
The gates of Nineveh are shattered and tanks crush the traces of
ancient civilization. We must face the hard fact that all of our
bullets and bombs cannot put Iraq back together again. We must cease
killing and support the Iraqi people as they go about putting their
shattered country back together. There will be years of grief in Iraq
which we cannot escape, but our soldiers are trained to make war, not
peace. We are responsible for the uses to which they are put. It is
time to send in the peacemakers and bring the warriors home.

If we avoid the particular we become the population that allows its
government to torture, to kill civilians, to bomb families, hospitals,
and weddings. We are no better than the people throughout history who
stood by as their governments shed blood. The families of MFSO have
loved ones on the line, and the people of Iraq are paying the ultimate
price. All we ask is that you join hands with us and do some simple
things. If we all push together we can turn the ship. Please call your
representatives, and do it often. Let them know that we want
accountability and peace. Write letters to the editor. Even if a few
people read them they will tell someone else who will tell someone
else. Don?t be afraid to talk to the people around you, you might be
surprised to find they too want peace. You will give others courage to
speak out. Each person you speak to will speak to a few more, and soon
many of us are sharing the task. Each one of you is important and can
effect change. Each push toward peace is like a pebble dropped in a
pond, the ripples spread to the edges. Give yourself the gift of
knowing that you are one of the people who does not stand by
helplessly. Give the gift of peace to the future. No one stands alone,
and we hope that you will stand with us.

Adele Kubein
Department of Anthropology
Oregon State University
Waldo 278, Corvallis, 97331

The Register-Guard recently ran an op-ed from Katie Dyer, the wife of an Oregon National Guardsman deployed to Iraq. (Click here to read the original op-ed.) She talked about how difficult and lonely it was for her to be separated from her husband. I understand her feelings, because I am the mother of a deployed son on his second deployment to Iraq. His deployment this time is for 15 months. I think about him constantly, and wonder about the danger that he is in. I also was appalled by the story that Katie told about the anti-war protesters in Ashland, one of whom said to her: “You’ll join us when your husband dies.” Fortunately, the majority of Americans who oppose the war do not behave in this way.
Unlike Katie, however, I believe it is possible to support the troops and not support the continuation of the huge American presence in Iraq. I am a member of Military Families Speak Out, a national organization of 4000 military families who are opposed to the war in Iraq and who have family members either serving in Iraq or who have served in Iraq.

There seems to be a lot of confusion about what it actually means to support the troops. Supporting the troops does not mean remaining silent in the face of tragic mistakes and deceit on the part of our civilian and military leaders. In a democracy, both soldiers out of uniform and military family members are allowed to have and voice their opinions about the wisdom or folly of any particular war. Our democracy will remain healthy only if our leaders are held accountable for their mistakes. Only in non-democratic systems are citizens expected to acquiesce without question in the decisions of their leaders.

Supporting the troops means electing civilian leaders who will not rush needlessly to war and who will carefully weigh and plan for the dangers that soldiers will face. Supporting the troops also means making sure that they have the armor they need when deployed and taking care of them and their families when they return. And supporting the troops also means giving the troops a higher purpose for which they are willing to sacrifice their physical and emotional welfare.

Unfortunately, the American engagement in Iraq fails all of these standards of what it means to truly support the troops.

We now know that there were no WMD in Iraq and no links between Saddam and al-Qaeda, and so the primary justifications for this war are null and void. To base a war on such biased and faulty intelligence is reckless endangerment of our soldiers. We know how faulty the planning for the war was, and how crucial information about Iraq was ignored in the planning. The insurgency and chaos were allowed to take hold because of such poor planning. We also know that some soldiers have had to buy their own body armor, because of faulty body armor supplied by the military, and that the military lacked enough armored trucks. We know about the lack of care and chaos in VA hospitals, and about the backlog of 400,000 cases for disability benefits in the Veteran’s Administration. We know that wounded soldiers after leaving the hospital have to painstakingly prove they were wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan in order to get disability benefits and, in many cases, have waited years to receive their benefits. We know about the lack of counselors and the lack of psychological counseling for our soldiers. Finally, we know about the destruction that we have inflicted on Iraq: the 5 million Iraqis internally or externally displaced; at a minimum 100,000 civilian deaths; the destruction of much of the Iraqi infrastructure; the destroyed medical system; the sectarian violence unleashed; the lack of asylum for those Iraqi interpreters who have risked their lives helping our soldiers. Some soldiers, in some areas, can be proud of the help they have brought the Iraqis, but looking at Iraq as a whole, how can our soldiers know they have brought something better to the Iraqis?
Do we, the American people, really want to send our soldiers on multiple deployments to occupy countries halfway around the world, and to wage an endless war on one billion Muslims? Or do we want to find and capture Bin Laden? The military is lowering its standards and losing many of its best people because of multiple deployments. Do we want an army of misfits and criminals, or do we want a professional military?

In the coming year I will support our troops by helping to elect a new senator from Oregon, and a president who will refuse to continue funding the greatest strategic disaster in American history. I invite all Oregonians to support our troops by doing likewise.

—- Miriam Reinhart

The Eyes Wide Open boot display presented by the American Friends Service Committee is touring the state. This is a very moving memorial honoring American soldiers and Iraqis killed in the war. At each location there will be speeches and reading of the names of the fallen from Oregon. For details, click here.

MILITARY FAMILIES SPEAK OUT – OREGON
Five Years and Counting
“Does Anyone Else But Military Families Care?”

Corvallis, OR – For members of MILITARY FAMILIES SPEAK OUT, March 19th marks an especially tragic event. It has been five full years since the United States began its illegal, immoral, and unjust invasion of Iraq. Nearly 4000 troops and perhaps over a million Iraqi children, women, and men have died in this war already. Continuing it for another year will mean the deaths of at least 350 U.S. troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis.

MFSO-OR Spokesperson Adele Kubein said, “We are five years into a war that should never have happened, and we cannot wait until January 2009 to begin to see a change in this horrific situation.”

“Four thousand of the best young men and women this country has to offer have died as a result of this catastrophic blunder. So many tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed that we stopped counting. The only solution offered by our leaders to this carnage is more misery and bloodshed. When are we going to wake up and demand a change in course?” said MFSO member Steve Weiss, father whose Marine son has recently returned from Iraq.

MILITARY FAMILIES SPEAKS OUT-OREGON calls upon Congress to refuse to authorize funds for the continued operation of this war. We call upon the American people to insist Congress use its power of the purse to end the war and bring the troops home. We call upon all of us to ensure the 1.3 million American service men and women who have returned from Iraq receive the health care and other benefits they have earned.

Suzanne Brownlow, MFSO member, and mother of a soon-to-be stop-lossed war veteran, said, “The brunt and pain of this war seems to be falling only on the shoulders of us military families. It concerns us that the rest of Americans are no longer interested in ending this horrible war.”

MFSO member, and mother of four times deployed Army son, Kathy Kirsch suggested, “Americans don’t seem to be aware that we are still in Iraq. Maybe they wouldn’t notice if we left.”

Maggie Pondolfino, MFSO member and mother of Army son, said, “The majority of military families are against the war, but we represent only a tiny portion of the population. Every American who wants an end to the Iraq war needs to regularly and publicly voice their opposition.”

We are military families. We support our loved ones - we support our troops. We are speaking out to say: bring our troops home now, and take care of them when they get here, and never, ever again send them off to fight an unjust and unjustifiable war, a war based on lies.

Since the war in Iraq began, I’ve written many columns in support of people serving in the military. They are patriots. They make tremendous sacrifices in service to our country.

Most often, my stories have come from the parents of soldiers. I’ve quoted parents who strongly support the war in Iraq. I’ve interviewed more parents whose children have served, been injured or been killed — and most of those parents are against the war. But they never wanted to say so in the newspaper.

Suzi Sutherland-Martin is the first person who has contacted me and been willing to say, in print, that her son is serving in Iraq and she is opposed to the war. Suzi’s son is an officer in the Marines. She loves him very much; she worries about him constantly. She writes him letters and sends e-mails. She telephones and ships packages.

And every Saturday she heads for the Portland airport, sits at a table in front of a sign that says “Bring the Troops Home” and tries to talk to people about the war.

After months of this work, Suzi has come to a sad conclusion: “I feel the majority of Americans are not interested in the troops or the war,” she says. “I watch all the people who walk by and ignore us, or say they aren’t interested. “The whole mess just doesn’t touch them. That is the double whammy of the war for families like mine. You are overwhelmed with concern for your . . . Marine, in my case. And not only don’t people seem to care, they don’t even seem to be paying attention.”

Suzi knows well she could be vilified for speaking out against a war in which her son is fighting. People already have told her she’s not being supportive of her son. “How is it supporting your children to send them to a war we shouldn’t have waged, that no one has any idea how to end? Some of them don’t have proper equipment. And the public doesn’t care.”

She knows she will be called anti-military but says she’s not.
“My husband and his brother were in the military. Their father was a career Army officer. My father was in the military. My son grew up in a family” with a tradition of military service. After college graduation, he joined the Marines.

When Suzi’s son was sent in harm’s way, she realized she had no one but her husband to talk to about her fears. “We talked about it obsessively.” But outside the family, “I felt so desperately alone. Nobody I knew wanted to talk about the war.” Suzi says she started writing letters to people who wrote commentaries about the war in the newspaper, “because they were the only people talking about the war.” She felt self-conscious, like she was asking the writers “to be my pen pals.”

Then she heard about the Oregon chapter of Military Families Speak Out. She attended a monthly support group in Wilsonville and “was thrilled beyond belief to feel I was not the only person in this situation.” Here were other parents, and a few wives and siblings, who opposed the war their loved ones were fighting. “We talked about our children, and the depressing things going on for them.” One member’s son returned from battle with severe post-traumatic stress symptoms. One woman’s husband has been sent to Iraq four times.

Many members supported the war at the onset but changed their opinions after hearing what their loved ones had seen. “Their kids don’t like it,” Suzi says. “They’re disillusioned with this war. “We started talking about what we could do. Write letters, go to demonstrations.” To those activities they added the Saturday table at the airport.

Suzi and others pass out pamphlets, bumper stickers, candy. They provide sheets with information about the cost of the war and tell people what they can do to help end it. “While I’m doing this stuff, I feel like it really matters,” Suzi says. “But on the way home, I’m not sure. Because nothing has changed.” She’s dismayed that in an election season there’s not more discussion about ending the war. She thinks she knows why. “This is a terrible thing to say, but I think we should have a draft,” she says. “I don’t like the draft, I don’t like war. But I can’t think of anything else that would cause people to pay attention” to a war she believes we should not be fighting. “I think if we had a draft, we would not have had this war.” The general population would not have wanted to put its children at risk. College students would have protested more.

But since we are at war, Suzi figured this was a good time, “right before the fifth anniversary, for want of a better word, of the start of the Iraq war” to tell the other side of the story: “The one about parents of soldiers sitting at a table in the airport, trying to remind people there is still a war going on.”

Margie Boule: 503-221-8450; marboule@aol.com
©2008 The Oregonian

Fifth and Hall St.

Military families have been attending this, Oregon’s largest sustained vigil, for over two-and-a-half years. We welcome your support each Wednesday from 6:30-7:30.