What is amazing here is that this story was the lead story for the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Santa Cruz is famous for its extremely liberal politics. I usually refer to Santa Cruz as the second most liberal city in America. While I was on my last deployment, my wife stopped telling people why I was gone because of the negative reactions she got. Santa Cruz is a very hard place for military families to live.
One of the lessons of Vietnam has been that denigrating soldiers because you’re against the war is not something that America society is willing to accept again. So, the anti-war movement is struggling to find a way to hate the war and love the soldier. But the simple fact is, at least on the large scale, they can’t do it. When I returned from my last deployment I experienced thinly veiled hostility. I was called a murderer. I was asked how I can do such terrible things. Those who were actually willing to engage me in open minded conversation discovered that they really didn’t know very much about what was going on on the ground in Iraq.
Santa Cruz is a hard place for military families to live. That’s why I am very grateful, first to Jennifer Pittman for writing the article about Sergeant First Class Jason Wood and his family, and second, to the this story for choosing to run it as a lead story. I’m quite certain they will receive more than a few angry letters.
Aloha
Smittie
[posted with ecto]