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[quote="Charleston Sunday Gazette-Mail"] August 19, 2007
DEAR MR. BUSH
11-year-old girl describes life when Mom deployed to Iraq

By Tara Tuckwiller
Staff writer

TESLA — When 11-year-old Sarah-Jo Jenkins found out her mom had to go fight in Iraq, she decided to plead to the one man who could stop it.

This spring, she quietly composed a letter; to this day, nobody else in her family knows exactly what she wrote. She sealed it in an envelope, addressed it to President Bush at the White House and gave it to her grandmother to post. Then she watched the mail, hopeful.

Weeks went by. Nothing.

Finally, just nine days remained until Sarah-Jo’s mom was supposed to go away.

Sarah-Jo wrote another letter.

Dear Mr. Bush ...

My name is Sarah-Jo Jenkins. I live in the state of West Virginia. I am writing to you because I am very angry and sad at the same time! Why? Well you are sending my mom to war ...

I have already written to you and I haven’t gotten any response. You don’t know how dear my mom is to me and my family. To give you a better idea, we can’t really live without her ... if my mom doesn’t come back, my family will be lifeless on the inside, and joy will be something that is hard to bump into ...

Now you’re probably thinking how is an 11-year-old girl going to change my mind, but this isn’t just my thoughts, it’s everybody’s. Everybody wants the troops to come home, and no more, I repeat NO MORE, to leave, everybody wants the war to be OVER, and, Mr. Bush, you have the power to bring them back, you have the power to end this war!

This letter isn’t just for me, it’s also for my 6-year-old sister, my 9-year-old brother and my dad. Our life is empty without her. Write back when you get the chance. PLEASE!!!!

Thank you,

Sarah-Jo and family

And she waited.

Sarah-Jo’s mom knew she had just a few weeks left with her husband and three children.

She spent them alternately soaking up every moment with them — camping on the river near their Braxton County mountain home, fishing for bass and bluegill, and trying to deal with the emotions rampaging through her family.

“There’s been anger,â€

Dear Sarah Jo-Jenkins -

Your mommy joined the military. Not the Peace fucking Corps. She's being called up to go to WAR. Which she signed on to do. If she didn't want to go to war, she shouldn't have joined the damn Navy. If she didn't want to get deployed, she should have done something else. TOUGH SHIT.

While Cleric is being something of an asshole... He is esstinentally correct.

Miss Jenkins' mother is a member of a military unit, she was not drafted, she was not forced, she joined of her own free will. What Miss Jenkins is doing here is asking for special treatment for her mother which is against military policy. I'm not finding fault with the young lady, she wants her mother at home, this is a perfectly natural desire that is only human, she is doing nothing wrong.

There are however, already thousands of fathers and mothers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even if we leave Iraq tomorrow there will still be thousands of fathers and mothers in Afghanistan. Why should Miss Jenkins' mother be allowed to stay home while others must see their parents go off to war?
Because she wrote a letter? Because some newspaper decided to use it and her has an completely emotional appeal to anti-war sentiment?

Before you howl "but the Iraq war is wrong!" I remind you that even without the war thousands were deployed overseas regularly. Married personale under a certain rank were not allowed to bring their families with them to Korea or Okinawa for example. Nor do navy crews bring their families with them on deployments at sea. And of course there is Afghanistan, let us not forget Afghanistan. In wars past parents have left their children and spouses behind to do their duty to their country, it is an awful reality of life but a reality it remains.

I am not fond of Jr, but frank reality of the situation is that the President gets hundreds of thousands of letters a day so it should not be surprising that his staff didn't even show that one. Even if he had seen it, it would have been wrong to grant her request and ignore the other children who must sit at home and hope to hear from a father, a mother, uncle, aunt brother or sister or cousin or so on.

While she didn't mean to, she requested special treatment that cannot even be given in time of peace (policy is that no favorism will be shown to married or family personale at any time in consideration of training or deployments, while I was in they carried out their policy to the letter, men were called away from newly wedded brides, new born children or pregent wives, women called away from husbands and young children, no favorism was shown, not even in peace).

There are good arguments against the Iraq war, to this I must admit. This is not one of them, it is an appeal to emotion.

And to answer Tev's original question: No, El Presidente never got that letter. Unless the letter is particularly newsworthy, charitable to one of his causes, or good PR, the letter will never reach the president. It will go through the vast line of minions and secretaries that deal with the bulk of the presidential email. They will send out nice glossy pictures and nice pretyped, pre-"signed" form letters.

Dear (Insert person's name here);

I want you to know that I recieved your letter on (insert topic discussed here). You should support your (government/troops/president/country) because(insert reason of day here).

Sincerely,
President (Insert name of current President)

P.S. I hope you enjoy the photo.

I understand the childs feelings, this is something the military community has struggled with for years but as others have mentioned Mom volunteered and has to do her duty regardless of how shitty the current situation is. The child is fortunate that Mom can call every night. I know people that are at forward operating bases in Afghanistan that have to be content with letters and calling when they rotate back to the main camp once a month.