Army medical unit leaves St. Petersburg for Iraq

Army medical unit leaves St. Petersburg for Iraq
By Dagny SalasTimes Staff Writer
Published Thursday, April 3, 2008 11:41 PM

Nancy Reuter of St. Petersburg says goodbye to her daughter, Spc. Daphne Reuter, as Bravo Company 345 departs at the United States Army Reserve. “I’m being brave. I was okay until I saw the buses ... my only daughter ... my only child,’’ Reuter said. 

ST. PETERSBURG — For the sake of the kids, Elizabeth Rogers held back her tears. There would be time for that later, she said.

Her husband Charlie and about 50 other members of Bravo Company 345, a U.S. Army medical unit, left St. Petersburg on Thursday on their way Iraq, a deployment expected to last about a year.

"It's rough, but I try to be strong for them," Elizabeth said of Emma, 4, and Ethan, 2. "It doesn't really hit until they're gone."

For his part, Charlie said he has mixed feeling about leaving for his second tour.

"I want to go but I don't want to go,'' he said. "I like what I do in the Army, but I don't want to leave my family. It's just time to go to work, do the year and come home."

But the families could take some comfort that their loved ones will probably be in less danger than combat troops, said Staff Sgt. Robert Hogg.
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If you've been watching Bad Voodoo's War, or any of the other documentaries on the serial deployments in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan, by now you are aware, the troops are tired and their families are tired. Tired of seeing them go and come back, only to be sent back again.

I often wonder what is going through their heads when they hear Bush say "We will stay in Iraq" but never says what it is he thinks will be accomplished. The Iraqi forces have been proven to be not worth the training when they turned around and refused to fight Al-Sadr's militia, handed in their weapons to him, or did go up against him only to be defeated and driven back. There is Sunni, Shia, Shia Shia fighting and all sides what the troops out of there. I hear all kinds of reports on how much good the troops are doing in Iraq yet no one mentions they didn't join the armed forces to become contractors or escorts for them when all sides in Iraq, including most Iraqi police forces, wanting to kill them. Again, go watch Bad Voodoo's War and see what I mean.

What are we doing to the troops? We are not taking care of them. We are not taking care of the National Guard families who have to do without the regular income these people make back here. What exactly does "support the troops" really mean? What's our job in all of this? The most pressing issue before us is the fact that the Republicans in office seem too disinterested in any of this to even support the new GI Bill, support hearings being held on the contractors not providing good body armor to protect them and the list goes on in bloody detail of the things they are not interested in. So where are the voters who put them into office and shout the loudest about "support the troops" when it comes to supporting what Bush has been doing to them?