Our very own commenter Jules, at Sirens:
Looking back on the time between his leave and the time he was done with his tour seems so short. But it went agonizingly slow. My partner and I both had trouble sleeping. Our sleep was plagued with nightmares. As things got worse in Iraq, we dreaded coming home, afraid to find a car in the drive. We both knew what that meant.
Throughout his deployment the people around us would tell us how proud we must be. The hardest ones to take were the ones who started spouting the “fight them over there” crap. They have no idea of the sleepless nights and the struggles to maintain composure when we talked to our son, no idea just how bad things are in Iraq. Nothing would make me angrier than listening to the President give a speech. All I could think about were his daughters running around drinking and doing nothing. They are about the same age as my son. They do nothing while he is risking everything for their father’s vanity war. I have no time for supporters of this war, especially those who are content to allow others to fight it while they wave their flags.
A.