We just finished up our last event of the day at Solon Public Library.
We had Blake, an Army Reservist from Iowa, introduce General Gration.
Blake has been volunteering in our Iowa City office and it’s an honor to have him helping us out.
We had a bit of lively crowd to end the evening. The folks in Solon brought a good mix of passion for change and engaging conversation.
One of the people I met was Heidi, who lives in Solon.
Heidi’s husband served in the Navy during the first gulf war. Since coming home, he has dealt with some concerns related to post-traumatic stress. So Heidi definitely keyed in when General Gration started talking about Senator Obama’s work to make sure our members of the military have adequate care for dealing with PTSD.
In 2005, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced plans to contact veterans with severe PTSD and ask them to prove that they deserved their disability payments. This was incredibly disruptive to many veterans still suffering serious health effects from their military service. So Senator Obama worked with his colleague Senator Dick Durbin to pass legislation to limit the review and ultimately helped publicly pressure the agency to abandon the effort.
And the director of Veterans for America, Bobby Muller, has acknowledged Senator Obama for his work in this area:
Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI) is fast becoming a major problem for many veterans. We urge the Senate to adopt an amendment sponsored by Senator Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to add TBI to the list of post-deployment physical and mental health screenings for soldiers returning home from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars."
General Gration has one more day on his tour. Tomorrow we stop in Washington, Ottumwa and Knoxville.
Be sure to check back in here or stop by one of our final events. It’s a great opportunity to hear from a longtime military man on why Senator Obama is the person with the judgment, courage and leadership capability to be the next Commander in Chief.
***Update 2:15 pm***
We got a little behind schedule in Maquoketa because so many people wanted to talk individually with General Gration, B.J. and Seamus. They mostly just wanted to thank them for their service and tell them how much they appreciate them.
Now we’re in LeClaire at the fire department. It’s clear, as we’re moving across the state, that there are a whole lot of people – veterans and strong military folks – who are very much ready to bring our troops home. And that is evident here in LeClaire. We’ve got a nice group of about 30-40 people, about half are veterans. And their focus, as we go through questions, is Iraq and how will Senator Obama get us out of Iraq.
One person I met here is Steve from Davenport.
Steve served in the Navy from ’68-’72 and served in Vietnam. Like Senator Obama, he has been opposed to the war from the very beginning and is upset that we went in in the first place.
Steve says that listening to General Gration speak very candidly about the situation in Iraq made sense. Now that we’re in, we have to be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in.
And like General Gration, Steve believes Senator Obama is the one candidate with the judgment and vision to get it done the right way.
We've got some time before our next event. We'll grab some lunch and then it's on to Solon!
***Update 11:38 am***
Last night, our tour ended off in Cedar Falls. We stopped in at the AMVETS Post #49. Here, our discussion was a much more policy-focused discussion. The group of folks listening was about half people who came out expecting to see General Gration and about half who had just come out for an evening at the post and got to hear the general’s insights on military issues.
The discussion varied from Iraq to how local vets can get better health care to ensuring mandatory funding for the VA. It was clear that the local vets were frustrated – to say the least – with the level of service they currently receive. They have long drives and long waits to get care. Senator Obama has several policy proposals that he plans to implement as the next Commander in Chief to make sure that our country delivers on the promise made to our service members.
Today, we’re starting off in Maquoketa. General Gration and B.J. Jackson are still with us on the tour. And today we’ve been joined by Seamus, a Marine from the Quad Cities who served in Iraq.
Seamus graduated from high school in 1999 and spent one year in college – on orders from his father. After that year, Seamus decided he wanted to follow in his brothers’ footsteps and serve the country. So he went down to the local recruiting office and joined up. His brother urged him to go into the reserves and continue college. Shortly after gradution, Seamus got a letter in the mail – it was a job offer from George Bush. He had been called up to deploy to Iraq.
About a month before Seamus went to Iraq, his brother dragged him to a VFW where a guy named Barack was speaking. At the meeting, Seamus’ brother pushed him to introduce himself to Barack. After being a little reluctant, Seamus did introduce himself and was immediately put at ease by the way Senator Obama related to him and seemed to genuinely take an interest. Seamus was impressed but didn’t expect much after that.
But then, a short time after being deployed, he got an email from Senator Obama. Again, he couldn’t believe that Senator Obama took the time and had the genuine interest to stay in touch, reach out and see how he was doing in Iraq.
And that’s what it means to be opposed to the war but have a deep appreciation and care for our men and women in uniform.
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