A Costly Mistake (Mother who lost son attacks AWOL Bush) [View All]

[Florida_Geek]

http://tampatrib.com/News/MGAFLQSZWQD.html

A Costly Mistake

Published: Feb 21, 2004

Regarding ``Doesn't Deserve Attack'' and ``A Division Strategy'' (Letters, Feb. 15):
These good people who wrote obviously are die-hard Republicans who are unable to see the facts that are in front of them. Did they listen to or read the accounts of David Kay? No evidence of WMD was found in Iraq.

All Americans suffered the attacks on 9/11. My husband lost many friends in New York; he used to work in Tower One in a brokerage firm before we moved to Tampa. We know that those terrorists who attacked the towers had connections to al-Qaida. However, there is no evidence that Iraq was involved, and yet President Bush and his colleagues decided to go to Iraq with less- than-valid information. We know that now. They didn't listen to the American people or the United Nations, and now they have been proved wrong. That mistake is costing many American lives. One of those lives is my 18-year-old son's. I wish my son could have had the opportunity to ``work it out'' with the Marine Reserves and be let out of his obligation to attend college as he planned, just as President Bush did. He was going to study business administration too.

We Americans must defend what is ours, starting here in our own land, and use diplomacy or whatever is available overseas before we send our sons and daughters to die in a foreign land. My heart goes out to the families of the hundreds of American troops who are dying in Iraq. I know exactly how it feels.<

NORMA AVILESTampa


The writer is the mother of Lance Cpl. Andy Aviles, who was killed in the line of duty in Iraq on April 7, 2003