• Backing our servicepeople Backing our servicepeople The lives of hundreds of Kaua‘i residents are being affected by the National Guard call-up of over 80 guardmembers who live on Kaua‘i. The call-up is bringing change to the lives of families,
• Backing our servicepeople
Backing our servicepeople
The lives of hundreds of Kaua‘i residents are being affected by the National Guard call-up of over 80 guardmembers who live on Kaua‘i.
The call-up is bringing change to the lives of families, causing employers to rethink how to get jobs done without key employees, emptying our armories and dredging up memories of Vietnam-era deployments of Kauaians.
The Garden Island is currently running a three-part series that focuses in detail on these changes.
In addition, a number of families on Kaua‘i have loved ones already stationed in faraway Iraq, as The Garden Island has shown over the past year.
The pros and cons of America’s war against Iraq are perhaps the top national political issue at this time, and at the top of the list in the presidential campaigns being waged by President George Bush and his challenger Sen. John Kerry.
Letters being posted to our Forum page on the showing of Michael Moore’s film “Fahrenheit 9/11” are a microcosm of this debate. An article in last weekend’s issue of The Garden Island about the Democratic Party sponsoring showings of the film, along with posting voter registrars outside the theater, have caused the newspaper to be accused of being both for and against the war, the “for’s” for hinting there’s opposition to the film, and the “against’s” for even running an article about the showing.
While the Iraq war issue is sure to heat up as election day in November draws nearer, it is time for all of Kaua‘i to get behind the men and women of the Island who are already deployed to Iraq, or who are apparently on the way.
There is going to be a gaping hole left behind in many lives here when men and women, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters leave Kaua‘i within weeks for what might be two years or more away from home.
We need to give support where it is needed, both to those left behind on Kaua‘i by the deployment, and to those who are representing Kaua‘i in this struggle against terrorism.
We should consider, too, that the future of the war on terrorism could go in a number of directions, and this deployment could be just the beginning of something bigger, or it could be coming at the end of military action overseas and an early return of our National Guard members. In retrospect, looking back to the days of World War II on Kaua‘i, one can see how drastically war can change things, especially if the former scenario plays out and terrorism attacks within the United States and in foreign nations reach higher levels of activity.
The day-to-day lives we live could be changed overnight by events halfway around the world. Hopefully that won’t happen, and a peace will come that will end the dangerous situation we now face.
