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Bush spends 90 minutes with slain soldiers' families

By KEVIN WACK
Blethen Maine Newspapers

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from the Morning Sentinel

KENNEBUNK -- President Bush held private and at times emotional meetings Thursday with the families of five Maine soldiers who died in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the Pentagon.

The midday meetings, which lasted a total of about 90 minutes, were held at Sea Road School in Kennebunk. Bush stopped at the elementary school on his way from the Sanford Airport to his parents' summer home in Kennebunkport, where he plans to attend a family wedding Saturday. The president's weekend in Maine is expected to be marked by anti-war protests.

Nearly 3,000 U.S. soldiers have died since the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and although Bush has reportedly met with hundreds of slain soldiers' families, Thursday's meeting was believed to be his first in Maine.

Reporters were kept outside, and the White House did not release the names of the families who attended. But after the presidential motorcade sped away, some of the families agreed to discuss their closed-door conversations.

One anti-war widow said she used the opportunity to voice her objections to Bush's policies.

"I said it's time to stop the bleeding," said Hildi Halley, whose husband, Army National Guard Capt. Patrick Damon, died June 15 in Afghanistan. "It's time to swallow our pride and find a solution."

She said Bush responding by saying "there was no point in us having a philosophical discussion about the pros and cons of the war."

The president became emotional, Halley said, when she tearfully described the impact her 41-year-old husband's death has had on herself and their two kids, ages 12 and 14, both of whom attended the meeting.

"He wept and hugged me and apologized for my pain," Halley said.

Shortly after her husband died, Halley asked Sen. Olympia Snowe to help arrange a meeting with Bush. Snowe subsequently wrote a letter to the president, asking him to meet with the fallen soldier's family.........