In this election year, we need to hear from African American families directly affected by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the surge and the plans of the next president.
Georgia active duty military, National Guard, reserves, veterans and families, please use this blog to say what is on your minds. I want to start this discussion by saying that we support the troops in my community because so many of them are our fathers, mothers, son, and daughters. For me that support includes monitoring the White House to make sure that war plans and actions make common sense.
The military has long provided an opportunity for minority upward mobility and a ticket away from southern suppression but, today the South is the place to be and governmental leaders are quick to send troops into harm’s way. They say veterans are the most cautious Americans when it comes to declaring war. I get chills when I think that south Georgia soldiers were facing fire for freedom in Vietnam and their mothers could not order a piece of pie at Woolworth’s—He brought us from a mighty long way.
Let’s start this thread with a list of possible topics:
- Is the surge working?
- Are we spending money building infrastructure in Iraq that should be spent in America?
- Would McCain or Obama be better for military families?
- Can someone be an effective commander in chief without military experience? i.e. Obama, Palin
- Are African American military personnel and their families offended when extremists question the Obamas patriotism?
- Do military families sometimes feel that they signed up for defense and not nation building? Is national building part of denfense?
- Are African American military personnel generally politically conservative?
- Are defense contractors positive or negative to military missions in war zones?
- Can we agree that we should ignore collateral damage if we get absolute intel that Bin Laden is in a house or building.
- Do people around the world dislike Americans in general or our governmental and cooperate leaders actions in particular?
Project Logic Ga 
I attend the A.ME. Church in Sylvester, Georgia and a few weeks ago a young man in our church (okay, the only young man in our church) headed for Paris Island to be built into a United States Marine. We had a brief conversation about Zell Miller’s book “Core Values” and I told him that Governor/Senator Miller wrote that everything he needed in life he learned on Paris Island. For example, Miller said that the Drill Instructors had them standing in formation in T-shirts and gym shorts; then they would kick up these sand flies and dare them to hit the biting pests. Marines in combat and outnumbered must remain perfectly still; hitting a fly could get all of them dead.
G.R. decided to enlist before going to college and we pray for the safety of all U.S. servicemen and servicewomen.
After talking with G.R., I glanced at the pulpit and remember the half dozen years in spent as an alter boy. A fellow alter boy was killed in the military on a flight in Gander, Newfoundland. For years, we thought the DC-8 just crashed and 248 military personnel and 8 crewmembers lost their lives—troops of 101st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell, Kentucky who were rotating as peacekeepers in Egypt. Today, It appears that a terrorist group was the cause and fingers point to state-sponsorship by Libya. This month, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with Gaddafi in Libya.
“This demonstrates that the U.S. doesn’t have permanent enemies,” Rice said. “It demonstrates that that when countries are prepared to make strategic changes in direction, the United States is prepard to respond. Quite frankly I never thought I would be visiting Libya and so it is quite something,” she said. What would have been “quite something” is if she would have slapped hell out of Gaddafi and said, “We can move forward now but that was for Gander.”
General Colin Powell always said that the current U.S. Armed Forces is a volunteer operation and he was/is right but as citizens we should closely monitor when, where and why our troops go into “harm’s way,” –did I mention that G.R. is our congregation’s last young man. President McCain or President Obama keep that in mind.