An IED blew off my neighbor's son's arm. The soldier next to him...

[Fridays Child]

...was decapitated. My neighbor thanks God and John McCain for saving her son. (Apparently, McCain made sure her son's platoon received new flak vests.)

She told me that she knew her son would survive Iraq because she prayed to God about it. I asked her if she believed that the mothers who have lost their sons didn't also pray for the same outcome. She said their prayers weren't answered because they were too negative.

My neighbor and her son are B*sh supporters. They believe that this is a good war.

I'm glad her son survived but my conversation with her was very depressing.

[jeff30997]

1. "their prayers weren't answered because they were too negative"

Oh pahleese ! :eyes: She sounds like a kid who try to explain why the tooth-fairy didn't put money under her pillow.

[kittenpants]

2. that is sad on many levels. n/t

[ismnotwasm]

3. good war. That's nice

So she has a special positive pipline to god. Hmm. I've seen Benny Hines (hind? whatever). Those people look pretty positive to me, have a lot of faith too, sending him their money and shit. Too bad their prayers don't get answered. This is too sad to get angry about. She needs to spend time with some heartbroken parents of dead soldiers and tell THEM that bullshit.

[Ariana Celeste]

10. I believe it's Hinn.

My uncle idolizes that man.

[seabeyond]

4. because they were too negative.

that is horrible, sad, disgusting..........

[Yellow_Dog]

50. and it is blatantly ARROGANT

for her to profess that she has a better connection to God than the mothers of other soldiers. Clueless, totally fucking clueless, and happy as a pig in mud in her stupidity.

[GetTheRightVote]

5. She is such a narrowed minded person to believe that other prays

were not as worthy as her own. This is a very sick woman and if I were you do not waste time speaking to her from this day forward, what a big time jerk she must be....

:kick:

[malmapus]

23. Thats so very Christian of her...eom

..

[okieinpain]

38. second that. totally weird.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. and if her son did not come back

or if he is sent back and comes back in a pine box?

Jeesus Age, they are startign to sound more and more like good... wait for it, wait for it... Nazis circa 1943

[Fridays Child]

15. He won't go back. They're discharging him.

May he find a VA system willing to give him everything he needs to rehabilitate himself. He has many operations to go.

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. Ah, I see

he got seriously hurt in the matter.

You are right, wanna bet mom does not know about the godly ordained cuts to the VA system?

the one I feel sorry for is the kid actually. HE did survive that hell, but now he faces a whole new one... the AIDs will look like a walk in the park sooner or later.

[tavalon]

59. And he has to deal with a delusional

and self centered mother to boot!

[RebelOne]

7. That is just so pathetic.

God didn't save him. I am sorry for his loss, but he was just lucky.

[CrispyQ]

8. I'm sorry for what happened to her son, but

what a self righteous heartless bitch to make that comment about other mothers!

Where is the compassion?

[Tsiyu]

9. Too negative?

Okie dokie. For the parents of kids who are dead, I send a huge "Fuck you" to her.

[Fovea]

11. Well, since she is so positive about it,

she should start nagging her husband to volunteer in her son's place!

[HysteryDiagnosis]

12. How can prayers be too negative..... what a shame, what a

waste... what a crime.... all parents of military personnel should familiarize themselves with the information given out here:

www.veteransforcommonsense.org

[earthboundmisfit]

13. So she would she tell the mother of the decapitated soldier

that her prayers (the bereaved mom's) weren't answered because she's too NEGATIVE??? Would she tell this mother that TO HER FACE? Boy, have the brainwashers done their job well!
Bang. Head. Against. Wall.
THIS MAKES ME SICK.

[Fridays Child]

24. It's a strange universe she's in.

What really floors me is that I've known her for many years, and she's always proved herself to be very loving and giving--in both word and deed.

I'm hoping she's just in some sort of PTSD frame of mind from going through the wringer as she awaited word of her son's fate. She's leaving to be with him while he undergoes more surgery here, stateside. I won't be talking to her for awhile but, when I do, maybe she'll have returned to her former reasonable self.

Before this happened, she told me that she only voted for Bush to support her son and that she will vote for Hillary, if she gets the nomination.

[oxbow]

64. She thinks its a test from God

She's just probably trying to put the best face on and not falter in her faith to (her) God, because that would be a sin. I'm sure she feels different sometimes, but doubt she'll let the neighbors see. Here's hoping her son is OK, and she comes to terms with the contradictions in her faith soon.

[mainer]

27. So now we blame the mothers for their sons' deaths?

That would make all Gold Star mothers bad moms.

[earthboundmisfit]

14. Self-delete. Accidental dupe

[BrklynLiberal]

16. Wonder how she feels that NONE of the warmongers have sent THEIR kids to

Iraq?

Antiwar Activist Bids a Son Farewell
Minnesota State Senator Never Asked Lorton Soldier to Refuse His Duty

By Brigid Schulte
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 11, 2005; B02

Becky Lourey walked the nearly two miles in the sweltering heat of the afternoon yesterday from the Old Post Chapel at Arlington National Cemetery to the freshly dug grave in Section 60, No. 8,187, where her son, Matthew, was to be buried.

Lourey, one of the most liberal state senators in Minnesota, had been one of the most outspoken critics of the war in Iraq. She circulated a petition opposing the U.S. decision to go to war unilaterally. She publicly sparred with Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.

And at a Democratic campaign rally last year, as Matthew was preparing to return voluntarily for a second tour of duty in Iraq, she railed against President Bush. "I don't want any more chicken hawks making these decisions, lying to us about the reasons," she said.

Yesterday, she walked slowly and deliberately behind a military band and the clip-clopping horses pulling a caisson with Matthew's coffin. She walked, along with Matthew's wife and nine of his brothers and sisters, their children and dozens of black-clad friends and mourners because, they said, it was one way they could honor him.
<snip>
Military officers left the family alone with the silver coffin that soon would be lowered into the ground. Becky Lourey, a woman who bore four children and adopted eight, a politician who voted on a resolution to support the troops but not President Bush, wept.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/10/AR2005061001980_pf.html

[Horse with no Name]

25. Please post this by itself if you haven't already

It is a great read.
Thanks.

[BrklynLiberal]

43. It was posted on LBN...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1541788

[Fridays Child]

31. I just don't think that question occurs to politically ignorant people.

[rwenos]

17. Every Man's Death Diminishes Me

So sad. I read the military deaths in the LA Times, and force myself to look into the faces of the fallen soldiers, whose faces are run in silence every night at the end of the Lehrer Report. I wonder how many Pub politicians do that. Or the CIC.

Mourn the losses, puzzle over the moral relativism and arrogance of parents who think their kid was spared because they prayed. In war, everybody prays. Everybody wants to live. Some people die. Some people who pray die.

Do not ask for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.

[Fridays Child]

48. Words to remember, indeed.

[GCP]

63. I do that also

It's completely heartbreaking, but I feel someone has to acknowledge their sacrifice. :cry:
I'm sure repukes try to avoid it.

[BringEmOn]

18. I guess the mother of the decapitated kid wasn't praying to the

gawd of the Moneychangers.

[TimeChaser]

19. My God vs Your God; My prayers vs. your prayers

That's how it's going to end up if we keep going on like that woman is. Bush's religious rhetoric just adds to the fire, as does "In God we Trust" and "Under God."

[yorkiemommie1]

20. so God rejects other mothers' prayers?

does she KNOW this? and if her son had died, would she have said that God decided that he'd ' served his country well ' and wanted him to receive his heavenly reward?

:eyes:

[Fridays Child]

Dissonance reduction is an utterly amazing phenomenon.

I'm certain that she would have figured out some way to wrap her mind around it, if her son had died. But, as it turned out, her son survived and she found a way to be okay with the belief that her prayers were answered, while those of other mothers weren't.

[Hissyspit]

21. Well, she didn't pray postitively enough either because he still

lost his arm. I didn't know God worked in percentages. 90% positive prayer and I'll only take away 10% of your body. 50% positive and I'll take away half your body.

You were using logic on someone who doesn't understand the concept. Waste of time.

[Horse with no Name]

26. Then by her own warped analogy

Her prayers fall short too because the ones that REALLY are faithful and pray hard come home without being injured.:eyes:

[fortyfeetunder]

28. Take her babble with a dump truck full of salt

I think she was not all there, given her son's condition....

[Benbow]

29. because they were too negative

That's awful. She should be made to say that to the mother of a dead soldier and listen to the mother's reply.

What would she say if she knew that Bush's "good war" had killed more American soldiers in the past month (80 plus) than the British have lost since the start of the war (around 88)? I guess that she'd say - not that British mothers' prayers were sufficiently positive - but that the British should move into Baghdad and get killed, too - and for what?

[Cha]

30. It's so SAD to be brainwashed

by a bunch of murdering thieves. dickhead cheney, et al depend on suckers like these.

[kayice]

32. I wonder how her son feels.........

and if he has PTSD? Losing your arm and seeing your buddy decapitated might do that. What is Mama going to do then?

I guess all the Iraqis died because they were not praying to her God.....

Maybe she should ask herself why the guy in the WH with his open channel to God didn't provide flak jackets in the first place and why he screwed up his little illegal war so much.

I pray for this woman's son, his mother sounds like she is not operating at full steam. :crazy:

[Fridays Child]

33. Everyone in the family has a long way to go before they're...

...going to be okay. Upthread, I said that I think even my neighbor is suffering from PTSD, having gone through hell while waiting for word of her injured son.

She is a good person. This is the literally first time I've ever heard her say a bad thing, and I've known her for a dozen years.

Pray for her, too. :)

[shadowknows69]

34. those other mothers aren't as good a Christian as I am

in the top 5 reasons I'm not a Christian anymore. hypocrisy and dangerously blind faith in epidemic proportions.

[Dangerman]

35. B*sh supporters are morons!

Supporting this unjust war makes them as moronic as Bozo the Clown.

I feel your pain about being depress in your discussion with them.

[Obamarama]

36. I have no pity for abjectly ignorant creatures such as your neighbor...

I hope she has to help change the dressings when her son has skin grafts to cover the end of his stump....

I hope she has to sit up with him after he has a bad nightmare about the incident because he is too haunted by what happened, and has to listen to her son describe the sight of his buddy's brains splattered in ten different directions....

(of course, I don't wish these things upon her SON, but am rather wondering what hypothetical situation might shake this retarded wench to her senses)

Maybe then, just maybe, she'd wake up from this deluded fantasy world she's living in and get good and PISSED like the rest of us that ANYONE'S child ever needed to be killed or maimed - American OR Iraqi.

What a poor, stupid bitch.

[bluestateguy]

37. As I said after the election

This is all very sad, and I do not wish harm on anyone in Iraq, but they voted for this, and now the chickens are coming home to roost in an awful way.

[leftchick]

39. your neighbor needs a

psychiatric exam. Pronto.

[Fridays Child]

46. I hope she'll get some...

...counseling but it's not in her nature to seek help beyond what she would ask for in her prayers, as far as I can tell. It was out of character for her to say such a thing. I was shocked but I know she's stressed beyond belief.

[seabeyond]

40. she must not have prayed right if her son didnt come back with all limbs

[Mairead]

41. If you were feeling sufficiently mean--you'd have to be very mean

you could always tell her that God let her kid be maimed for life as punishment for supporting Bush and taking part in his war crimes. Quote 'whatsoever you do to the least...' at her.

It might cause her to have a psychotic break.

[bluestateguy]

42. Yes that would be mean

Too mean for my taste, but I'd be willing to bet you that many religious fundamentalist nutjobs would use the old "God's retribution" line against a gay man beaten for his sexuality. Hell, Jerry Falwell and Pat Buchanan used that kind of rhetoric to describe AIDS and gay people.

[lostnfound]

52. and the tsunami. and 9-11, in a general way. nt

[Ilsa]

44. Oh right. Those people lost their kids because

they didn't love them enough to pray for them? Because they were too negative? I wish someone who lost a loved one could set her straight, but I wouldn't wish that encounter on them.

This is so wrong on so many levels.

[gollygee]

45. That's just sick

How awful for the soldier who was decapitated :( and his family :(

I'm sorry for your neighbor's son's arm, but to suggest that god loves her family more than the other soldier's family is sick.

[jbnow]

47. And Mary, you know

Jesus's mom and Jesus himself must have been too damn negative to keep him from being crucified.

That mother sounds like the worst of right wing pseudo-Christianity and pseudo new age.

Even in her belief system...why wouldn't she assume that God wanted some to come be with him now and help from that side? Maybe because then her belief that her prayers could keep her son alive would not have carried her.

I conversed with a "born again" man who was very upset with his wife because she was so worried about her son being in Iraq and he felt she showed a lack of faith.
Even if you believe it is up to God, well God's will ain't always easy to live with. Jesus asked three times that this cup be passed from him and on the cross asked why he had been deserted.

That man showed no compassion, this woman shows even less. She didn't want to feel she had no control, OK, but how dare she dismiss all the soldiers God didn't "save" with her prejudice.

[Blue Diadem]

49. I'm glad her son lived, but she is an awful person

for believing that her prayers and attitude are perfect while judging grieving Mothers.


With her fundamentalist way of thinking, does she not realize that her own prayers weren't quite positive enough. Her son did get injured. After all, there are many who do come home that haven't been physically wounded. In her world, that must mean that their Mother's did a better job praying and her own prayers failed because she wasn't as positive as she should have been.

[wryter2000]

51. I was prepared to express sympathy for her, no matter her politics

That statement about other mothers who've had children die makes me sick. I hope someone lets her know how callous and hateful that statement is.

[B Calm]

53. Your neigbor is sick in the head.. Her son loses an arm in vain and

she thinks every soldier that died in Iraq was because their parents were to negative... OMG

[unblock]

54. apparently she doesn't support the troops

and she's blaming the victim.

typical republican.

[leesa]

55. Well McCain was responsible for sending her son there for no reason

And I'm sure in her childish fantasies, God sent him there as well. This woman needs psychiatric help.

[Geek_Girl]

56. How very sad

She thinks God spared her son but not his arm? and others soldiers died because their mothers didn't pray right or were too negative. I really pity this person. This war has cost her son's arm, her sanity and her compassion.

I really feel for our service men and their families. I think deep down many of these people know they have been duped by this administration, have made the most ultimate of sacrifice and do not know how to reason through it all.

[Postman]

57. Your neighbor, is quite frankly, a freakin' lunatic.

the other mother's prayers were too negative?????

[tavalon]

58. What a selfish, self centered

childish bitch!

[Redstone]

60. That woman needs to be put in a mental institution.

"She said their prayers weren't answered because they were too negative."

She's a fucking lunatic.

Redstone

[Lisa]

61. I am sorry for your neighbor's family

And even sorrier for the family of his dead comrade. I actually hope that your neighbor won't have any recollection of what she said, when she meets the parents of a soldier who had even worse injuries than her son ... or whose child will never come home at all. It sounds like she's grasping at straws to rationalize what happened. I don't think she's the only military mom who clings desperately to the belief that Iraq was a noble quest and that Bush is an honorable and trustworthy man. Nobody wants to believe that they have suffered for nothing.

She and her son might never change their minds -- I've met people from wars many decades ago, who still believe that they were doing the right thing. But from what I've heard, there are increasing numbers of people in their situation who don't think that this is a "good war". Her son might have scoffed at the anti-war protesters, but he might feel differently if it's coming from the guy in the next hospital bed.

[Fridays Child]

67. You've characterized my neighbor and her situation very accurately.

She's still in shock and engaging her mouth before her brain is in gear. I know this woman well, and her comment was not normal for her.

It took my husband more than twenty years to confront the reality that the war he fought in Vietnam was wrong on every level. The power of dissonance reduction cannot be overestimated.

[MadisonProgressive]

62. What a brainwashed bitch!

[Solly Mack]

65. sounds like the "good girls don't get raped" thinking...

denial.denial.denial.

[kimchi]

66. God must hate my brother with a passion.

And everyone else's parents on that helicopter, 'cause he whipped up a sandstorm just to smite them all down.

Clueless bitch. People like her are the REASON my nephew is dead, not God.