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April 30, 2008

Max Cleland, Barbara Roberts & Jeff Merkley - what a trio!

I attended the fundraiser after Cleland and Merkley's Town Hall at PSU. Apparently Jim Rassman - the vet who John Kerry saved in Vietnam - participated in the Town Hall too.

All three of them were at the fundraiser along with former Governor Barbara Roberts and all of them addressed the packed crowd.

Jeff mentioned a very sobering statistic in his address. Did you know that we lose more soldiers and veterans each day from suicide right here in America than are killed in Iraq? It is absolutely unconscionable the way that Bush and the GOP have mistreated veteransI All of the "rah, rah, hooray for the troops" rhetoric dissipates into nothing once those soldiers have been used up and/or badly injured.

Jeff called for ending combat missions and getting soldiers off of patrols immediately and then withdrawing all American forces in a 6 to 12 month timeframe. No bases to be kept and staffed. He wants us out... completely out except for the ambassadorial staff. He also called for getting every single American contractor out of there ASAP and hiring Iraqi's to do those jobs instead.

I'm going to quote Sarah Lane's excellent DKos diary here because she was there too, had the wisdom to take notes and phrased it better than I could anyway:

Merkley went on to talk about the importance of taking care of our Veterans when they come home from service. Merkley said, "We need to fight for them when they come home just as they have fought for us." Merkley said that Veterans should be able to collect retirement and disability at the same time. He spoke a lot about the need to address the mental health issues soldiers are faced with. He said that the high rate of suicides among our soldiers and reservists were, "Reflective of not helping them enough." Merkley called for fully funding the VA, and said, "Reservists should have full access to Veterans rights." Merkley also pledged to fight for a 21st Century G.I. bill. These comments got quite a round of applause from the audience, many of whom were Veterans.

A bunch of us Oregon bloggers who support Jeff Merkley got together and decided that we wanted to do our bit to help get Jeff elected. We recognize that if nothing changes, nothing changes. The stakes are just too high to not go the extra mile. So I may not be able to afford to buy the latest gadget as soon as I'd wanted or go out to restaurants as often as I'd like for a while. I say, "big deal!" There are much more important things that I can do for my self, my children, my state and my country than spend money on things that just aren't important in the grand scheme of things, ya know?

Help me send "the real deal," as Max Cleland called him, to the United States Senate where he WILL do right by our service men and women, both active and out-of-uniform.

Posted by Kevin at April 30, 2008 07:07 PM