As the father of two Army National Guard soldiers, one who has served two tours in combat in Iraq as a .50 caliber machine gunner, and one who died in April 2005, I urge you to vote for Governor Ted Kulongoski.
Of all the candidates for Governor, Ted Kulongoski is the only one who cares about our troops and their families, the only one who stands with the families when they bury their loved ones.
Ted Kulongoski is the only candidate who understands the sacrifice our troops and their families have made, are making, and will make in the future, and he feels this in his heart.
Ted Kulongoski recognizes that governors have no voice in shaping U.S. foreign policy, no role in conducting war, but that has not kept him from seeing every deployed Oregonian off and seeing every deployed Oregonian return. The other candidates excuse themselves away with their narrow agendas. Ron Saxton wants to save me ten bucks on my taxes.
It takes a giant heart and a very special sort of courage to face those grieving families, and Ted Kulongoski is the only governor in the nation who has these qualities.
For this, Governor Ted Kulongoski is a hero to me.
The number one issue for those of us who are making the sacrifices in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, for those of us who are making these sacrifices again and again, is the war itself. Of all the issues the candidates want to talk about, the only issue for us is the war, the most important question is—when will our loved ones come home?
The typical Guardsman comes from a small town or rural area. The death notices often name a town that few city people have ever visited or even heard of. The names and places are quickly forgotten in the city, as quickly forgotten as the sacrifice itself.
But Governor Kulongoski has made our soldiers and their families a priority from the very beginning of the war. He understands the mission and the needs of our troops, and he will never forget the names of those small towns, the faces of the families, and the stories that flesh out the human beings we have lost in faraway places.
He does this for all of us, for every single one of us. For you, and for me.
The only candidate with his heart in the right place is Ted Kulongoski.
I urge you to vote to re-elect Governor Ted Kulongoski.
Sean Cruz
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
3 comments:
You know, I just blogged my own endorsement for Kulongoski for very different reasons here.
However, my endorsement, like that of WW, was rather lukewarm, simply because on the rather wonky issues that I care about (bicycles, transit, the environment, oregon's land use system, education, etc.), it seems like Teddy is more the type to simply hold the line, rather than innovate and make further progressive changes. Fine by me.
But you bring up a very, very good point: Teddy has a very big heart, and his character (as evidenced by your post and his attention to real people, especially the soldiers from Oregon who have gone off to fight this needless war) is his real redeeming, re-electable quality.
So, hurrah for pointing that out.
Kulongoski is a hero.
I discovered your sight by accident, and just thought, before you make comments you will regret, that Tony Micheletti died, December 15th and 705PM of CJD a very very fast acting brain degenerative desease that robbed him of himself - not unlike Alzheimers's but 100X faster. He went from seemingly healthy to death in 2 months!
I hope this information doesn't make you happy, or make you feel he has been punished for some transgression. I knew Tony fairly well, and, if he was guilty of what you assert, I am sure he truly believed he was doing the right thing for the children...and it is ONLY the children who are important! I haven't read your whole article, but in perusing it, I didn't notice where you stated your ex-wife's justification for doing this...she thought she was justified...why?
Judith McKenney:
I don't know why your comment posted on this thread. I think you were responding to a different post, one of the abduction-related postings, but it posted here. I'll respond to your comment here.
I have little information about any members of the Micheletti family since the kidnapping and had not heard of Tony Micheletti’s death. I had hoped to see him in court someday.
The harm he caused my children and my family is for forever.
My former wife was getting divorced from someone else when the Micheletti family and their friends and associates caused my children to disappear. There was no safety issue, and no allegations of abuse were made by any of the parties.
My children lost both of their homes, all of their friends, their neighborhood, school, their dad, their dad's entire family and their opportunities to live a normal life. Their grandmother passed away four years after the kidnapping without seeing her grandchildren again.
The only two things that remained constant in their lives were the Micheletti family and the Mormon church, and every person involved in the kidnapping was a member of the church.
This group of people decided that they wanted to raise my children in a Mormon-controlled environment, knew that the joint custody order was a barrier, and together they planned and carried out a criminal act: the abduction of my four children, “…taken, enticed and kept” in violation of a valid joint custody order, a class “B” felony. This was the controlling motive.
That first criminal act led to others. They committed additional criminal acts to protect themselves from discovery.
Child abduction victims suffer emotional damage in the same ways that child sex abuse victims suffer, including an inability to form lasting relationships, to trust others.
My former wife is now with her fifth husband. My children are on their third stepdad, one stepdad for each of the three states they’ve resided in since the order for joint custody was first violated.
Among my adult children I can count one death, two broken marriages, severe depression, failing grades, chemical dependency and other problems and issues.
And the two constants: the Micheletti family and the Mormon church, the same group who decided to take my children out of their schools and put them on the road during the Great Storm of February 1996.
You suggested that Tony Micheletti thought he was doing the right thing for my children, and I want to respond to that:
Tony Micheletti didn’t know my children.
He was not close to my family in any way. I had not seen him in more than five years before the kidnapping, and neither had my children. Later, my son Aaron told me that when they saw “Uncle Tony” on February 12, the day my children disappeared, they did not recognize him.
He absolutely knew that they were taking the children in violation of a valid joint custody order, and I have that in his sworn statement. He also committed perjury, and I have that evidence too.
As I write this comment, the Northwest remains in the grip of major heavy weather. There are three climbers lost on Mt. Hood. A man died in southern Oregon earlier this week after his family became lost and stuck in the snow. Power is out in many areas, and people are in general trying to stay out of the weather and off of the roads.
This is precisely the same weather in which my four children disappeared nearly eleven years ago, and on a day they should have been in school. How do you justify that?
Post a Comment