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Y'all,

bert wanted me to post the text of the speech I gave on Saturday. The text below is not exact, for two reasons. One is that I misplaced what I had written sometime during the afternoon. Also, I got so angry at times when I was speaking that I said things that I hadn't written. My memory is very good, but not perfect. But the following is very close.

"For the past three and a half years, I have been very proud to be the wife of a soldier in the 82nd Airborne Division. My husband will soon be returning from his second deployment to Iraq.

"I feel it is important for me to speak to you today. Whenever the news media feature a military wife, they show her crying about how her husband was forced to fight a war he didn't believe in. Or they show you struggling families, in an attempt to make you doubt whether our soldiers should really be in Iraq and Afghanistan. I am here to dispel the myths that the news media would have you believe about our military families.

"I am tired of anti-military activists, biased news media, and yes, some of our elected officials portraying our service men and women as ignorant children with no opportunities, who were deceived into joining the military. My husband is not a child. He is a grown man who made a willful decision to serve his country. He knew what he was doing when he enlisted. And I knew what I was doing when I married him. He chose to defend his country so that others could enjoy the safety that allows them to criticize him as a member of the military.

"I am angry at the individuals who state that American soldiers in Iraq are doing more harm than good. If that's true, then why did my husband return from his first tour with books of pictures of Iraqi children waving and running up to meet him? In some of those pictures, you could see that the children were running by pools of raw sewage in back of their homes, because the tyrannical regime of Saddam Hussein kept them in poverty. There are other pictures of palaces that belonged to Saddam and his sons, with crystal chandeliers, gilded doors, and walls stacked with expensive bottles of wine. Why do those who falsely say our troops are committing atrocities never mention the way Saddam treated his own people?

"But most of all, I am furious at the anti-military, anti-American cowards who try to portray themselves as supportive of our troops. They say that they support our troops, just not their mission. Support is not simply a warm, fuzzy feeling that a person can say he has, even when his actions say the opposite. Support is an action. And those who march through a military town, carrying banners with anti-military slogans and openly hoping for the victory of the insurgents that hope to kill our soldiers, do not support our troops.

"We are the ones that support our troops. We are members of the active-duty military and the reserves. We are the husbands and wives of those serving. We are the parents and children of those serving. We are the military veterans who served in prior conflicts. We are the clear majority of Americans who know that freedom is not free, but must be maintained by the time, blood, and sometimes the lives of brave men and women. Thank you."