Here it is the middle of the night and I’m having trouble sleeping because of a telephone conversation I had yesterday with my niece in California.

She’s the mother of two boys and married to a great guy who is struggling to make ends meet while completing his college education. Soon after they were married he received his AA degree and volunteered for active duty in the Army.

After a stint at Fort Hood, Texas, (where his first son was born) he was sent to Bosnia and was part of the peacekeeping forces there. After being honorably discharged he came home to California to his wife and son and was hired at his old job. Next, after the arrival of a second son, came buying a house.

Following the signing of the papers he was locked out his workplace due to that well-publicized grocery strike in California. Now this young couple scrambled to keep enough food on the table and pay house payments for a family of four.

The strike, lasting more than a year, finally ends and he’s back at work with fewer guarantees at work and higher insurance costs. The great break came a few weeks ago when he found another job in computers which is what he’s studying in college. Aha! A fairy tale ending to this ordeal.

But wait! He has just been notified he might have to go serve in Iraq. You see, he has a year and a half left of his inactive reserve and the mucky mucks up above need to find more warm bodies.

Now I’m not writing to complain about this chain of events. I’m writing as an ex-GI to question what is happening in Iraq today. If my niece’s husband were to go to Iraq tomorrow, what would be his mental attitude?

Here he is, a new father of two boys; a husband to a woman whom he has already been separated from due to war; taken away from a new job which he’s only held for several weeks; with a possibility of losing his home due to an inability to make the house payments, and being sent to a dangerous place to a job which he probably knows nothing about where he may get killed, leaving a wife, and two sons fatherless.

I know if I were in that position I would not be a happy camper. I’d be just a little angry.

Is this the same position that those being court-martialed in Baghdad are in? I’ve heard claims of very little training. I’ve heard claims of very little supervision.

These young men and women have been uprooted from their jobs and families and their time in Iraq has been extended indefinitely. We cannot condone what has happened but let’s be careful who we hold responsible.

Wasn’t it President Truman during the Korean Conflict who said “the buck stops here”?

Think about it.

Vern Olsen

Greenbank