When you are the mother of a soldier, when your child is in a war zone, the nightly news can look very different. Your first reaction is always, how will this affect my child today? Will he be in more danger? Unfortunately, you can't just worry about tomorrow. The long-term picture can put your child in just as much, if not more, danger. My son is currently serving in Iraq. This is his fourth deployment in six years, his second time in Iraq. After college, my son enlisted in the military. Now six years later, I have reached the point where having my child in a war zone has become a part of his normal adult life. Since he left college, he has been training to be in a war zone, or he has been in a war zone. This is not what I imagined his life would be like when he was a kid, when I was taking him to swim team practice, piano lessons, and science camp. This isn't even what I imagined when he enlisted in the military. He enlisted before 9/11, when the world was a very different place.

Today the actions of someone in Iraq -- a politician, an insurgent, an ordinary citizen -- might change my son's life forever, or even end it. The actions of someone in the United States -- a politician, a military officer, an ordinary citizen -- might change my son's life forever, or even end it. The stakes could not be higher. The decisions they make, may not just change the next election, they may change my son's life forever. This changes the way you look at the nightly news. You are not just a citizen worrying about what this means for our country, what this will mean for the world. It is much more personal than that. But you are still a citizen and you do have to worry, not just about your child, but about your country, the world you live in.

When you first learn that your child will be going to a war zone, you worry. There will be a lot of rumors going around about when he will be leaving and where he will be going. The information changes almost daily. They are going, and then they are not going. In the end, they always go. You will hear, he will be here and then he will be there. You find self, looking at a map of country, trying to pick out the names of the cities, you learn geography in a way you never did in school. What is the place like -- a city, a remote village, desert, mountainous? What does the highway, the river near the town mean? Do they like Americans? What are the people like? What do they believe? How will they react when they encounter your child? What kind of danger will child be in?

You worry about your child, has he been trained well enough for this mission? Does he have the equipment he needs to do his job and stay safe? Is there anything you can buy, anything you can send, that will make him safer? You feel helpless, there isn't a lot that you can do. You know your child's strengths and weaknesses; you worry about how this war will change him. When he is first there, every battle you hear about, every soldier killed, send fear through your heart. You wait for the phone call, the knock at the door, telling you it was your son. But now, I have been through this several times, he has spent years in a war zone. He went this time, into a war zone, more realistic about what he would experience. I knew what to expect. I know that when things go silent, when I don't hear from him or about him, he is alive. If he were dead, I would have heard, there would have been that phone call, that knock at the door.

You still listen, you still search for every scrap of news on Iraq, on the province, on the town where he is at. But you filter that news from a place of less panic. Often I hear from my son daily in emails. I am able to filter these news events through his perspective on the ground. Other times, I will go for weeks hearing nothing from him, left with no input from him on what all this means. We find our shared perspective a valuable resource to both of us. He can't always see the larger picture bogged down in the day to day details of living and working in a war zone. From him, I gain valuable insight in how an event or decision will, on a practical level, affect the troops on the ground. What I will try to do here, in this column, is to show you what the news looks like to a mother of soldier on the ground in Iraq.
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Tracey-Kay Caldwell is the mother of a soldier, Democratic Party Editor Editor of BellaOnline.com, and a freelance writer. She can be reached at IraqSoldierMom@gmail.com.

We have finally heard the long-awaited surge speech from the president. Like most military families, I was waiting to hear what the president would ask of our soldiers. What was the mission? What would they have to do before they could come home? I didn't hear a lot about what our soldiers would have to do. I heard a lot about what the Iraqis would have to do. It seemed that the mission hasn't changed. It is still wait and support the Iraqis until they decide to stand up. When they stand up, we will stand down. So far, the Iraqis have not managed to stand up.

How do you get the Iraqis to stand up? President Bush reminded us that just over a year ago nearly twelve million Iraqis went to the polls to vote. He said they went to vote for a unified and democratic nation. Is a unified and democratic nation what the Iraqis voted for? The government they elected doesn't seem to have much interest in being a unity government, in sharing power with the minorities. If the Iraqis wanted unity and democracy, would our soldiers be refereeing sectarian violence between the Shias and Sunnis?

President Bush tells us that the Iraqis are ready to quell the violence, that they have a plan. They have had plans before. They haven't worked. The president says they didn't work because there weren't enough soldiers. We have sent more soldiers before; he is sending more soldiers again, but only twenty-thousand. Will twenty-thousand make a difference? The increase in soldiers is a tough one for me. Every additional soldier on the ground probably makes my son safer while he does his job. But, in the long run, will it be enough to quell the violence? Will it just escalate the war? Will it mean this deployment will be extended? Does having more soldiers on the ground, possibly making him safer, change the odds of his being killed or wounded if he has to stay there longer?

President Bush said that if the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people, and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people. What does this mean? According to an ABC News/WP poll, fifty-eight percent of Americans think the war isn't worth it. Is there some magic number where the president will decide that the Iraqi government has lost the American people? As far as losing the Iraqi people, the government hardly has the support of all Iraqis. Many Iraqis feel shut out of the political process. That is why there is a civil war going on. Then what? What will the president do if the Iraqi government loses the support? Will he bring our soldiers home? Will he orchestrate another regime change? As the president pointed out, this is the government the Iraqis elected. We can't just hit the reset button and start the game over.

The Iraq Study Group recommended negotiating with Iran and Syria, but the president has chosen instead to send a carrier strike group to the region. I don't see how this helps to create stability in the region. I worry that the increase in firepower will result in the expansion of the war on terror to another front. I would feel better if we finished one war before beginning another. The president did commit to working with Congress to increase the size of the active Army and Marine Corps -- something necessary if we are going to continue to commit our troops at the level we have been. I wonder if Americans are wiling to pay more taxes to support a larger military. Will these new recruits be found by increasing enticements or lowering standards? No one wants their soldier on the battlefield serving next to a soldier who is not of the highest caliber. The president talked about the sacrifices of soldiers and their families, the quiet sacrifices of lonely holidays and empty chairs at the dinner table. I heard nothing in the president's speech that gives me hope that there will not be lonely holidays and empty chairs at the dinner table in the years to come.

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Tracey-Kay Caldwell is the mother of a soldier, Democratic Party Editor Editor of BellaOnline.com, and a freelance writer. She can be reached at IraqSoldierMom@gmail.com.

The Baltimore Sun featured an article about the how some soldiers are being sent into battle without the safest armored vehicles. If you even saw the article, you probably didn't pay much attention to it. But I, like a lot of military families, immediately sent off an email to my son. What kind of armored vehicle does he ride in? Is he in the safest armored vehicle? Unfortunately, my son is out of email contact for a few weeks, so I have to wait for my answer. I looked at the photos he has sent me, no Humvees or other vehicles in the background, so no clues there. I still have some sleepless nights ahead of me before I get my answer.

Most soldiers patrol in the old M1114 Humvees. It has a flat bottom and that absorbs the impact from the IEDs. There are twenty thousand of the old Humvees in Iraq. The newer Cougars and M117 Armored Security Vehicles, known as MRAPs, are built with a V-shaped hull that deflects the blast outward. There are fewer than one thousand of the newer MRAP armored security vehicles in Iraq. A Marine commander said that, "If you are hit by an IED, your chance of survival is four or five times greater in an MRAP than in a M1114." Ok, that's enough for me, I want my son in an MRAP armored security vehicle instead of a M1114 Humvee. But Armored security vehicles are not like body armor or helmet inserts, I can't just hold a car wash a raise the five hundred thousand to seven hundred thousand dollars each one costs. Even if I could, where would I buy one, how would I send it to him? Would the Army let him use it? Besides, I know my son. He would insist I buy one for everyone.

If that article wasn't enough to give a mother an anxiety attack, MSNBC's Countdown did a story on Trophy, the Israeli built anti-RPG system. This system can stop RPGs, rocket propelled grenades ninety-eight percent of the time. Trophy is battle-tested and ready to be deployed today. The Army fears that the purchase of Trophy systems will jeopardize the development of its Future Combat System, which has an anti-RPG component. The Future Combat system will not be battlefield ready before 2011. I know that policy decisions are difficult and budgets are not unlimited. In some ways, I am glad these decisions are not mine to make. I would buy Trophy today to keep my son safe. But I will feel enormous guilt if in 2011 someone else child lost his life on a battlefield because state of the art equipment was not developed to keep him safe because they spent the money buying Trophy to keep my son safe in 2007.

This is the first major long-term military conflict since the Mexican American war in 1846-1848 that American have not been asked to pay a special tax to fund the war; no additional tax for individual citizens, no excess profit tax for corporations. It isn't the private citizen or the corporations that are being asked to sacrifice in this war. This month, we will be getting our W-2s and filling out our tax forms. We will be looking at how much we have to pay, how much refund we will receive. On that form there is a box you can check if you want three dollars of your tax burden to be allocated to paying for presidential election campaigns. I wonder if there was a box on the form that you could check if you wanted to pay for the war, if you wanted to pay for our soldiers to have the best equipment to keep them safe; how many Americans would check that box?

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Tracey-Kay Caldwell is the mother of a soldier, Democratic Party Editor Editor of BellaOnline.com, and a freelance writer. She can be reached at IraqSoldierMom@gmail.com.

The first time your child is deployed, the letters home are all happy letters. They never tell you of the danger they are in, if they complain at all, it is about the food, or things they can't get. It isn't until they come home that they tell you about the close calls they had, the friend that died. But after multiple deployments, my son knows that I know the realities of life on a battlefield. Now he is more likely to tell me of the mission he just returned from, the successes and the failures, what worked and what did not.

The email he sent me this week told about the mission they had just returned from. They had secured and cleared a village; forcing the insurgent into the canals around the village, and away from the villagers for the battle. They were able to draw the insurgents into fighting them on their own terms.

They were able to do this, destroying no homes or built-up structures, like mosques. My son took great pride in that fact. He feels they are making progress, that they figuring out how to win this war. But my son is out in the provinces and not in Baghdad; an urban battlefield, where fighting insurgents is very different.

Every morning we awake to see new images of the violence that occurred in the city while we were asleep. And I fear that violence will get even worse as we move from the Sunni dominated neighborhoods into the Shiite controlled neighborhoods. That is a much more difficult battle for our soldiers.

Back in Washington, our politicians are having their own battle, deciding where they stand on the war. While the Senate Foreign Relations Committee debated the issue, the first troops of the surge had already arrived in Baghdad.

Soldiers are not ping-pong balls. They are real Americans, with families and people who love them. And when they die, we all lose the future potential they had to offer this country. At the beginning of the war, the president made the decision that the media would not be able to show the flag draped coffins returning from the war. Initially that decision annoyed me, for it seemed he wanted to hide the sacrifice our young men and women were making for their country.

But the side effect of that has been that the media now shows us photos of the soldiers, telling us their name, their rank, and often details of their lives. Instead of nameless flag draped coffins, each week we see real, young men and women, with faces often to young, who have died in this war. We are reminded these are real people who are dying.

The decisions made in Washington have real impact on the lives of our soldiers. Sen. Richard Lugar said, "We have the ability to require weekly updates from our diplomats and military commanders about the status in Iraq. We should be engaging the administration on almost a daily basis concerning the mission and needs of our troops?"

We should demand of the president precise explanations of his political and diplomatic strategy. We should conduct what amounts to a continuous audit of our economic assistance, to ensure that we are maximizing results."

The reality is that this president is going ahead with the surge; a non-binding resolution is not going to change that. Instead of picking sides on the surge issue, our politicians ought to spend their time making certain that the surge has a clear objective for our troops, that they are continuing to make progress in meeting that objective, and that our soldiers have all they need to achieve this mission.

My fear is that Congress will not provide oversight; they will simply pick sides and wait to see what happens in Iraq, hoping that when 2008 comes around, they were on the right side of the issue. The soldiers are not ping-pong balls, we cannot afford for those opposing the surge to be right, that it was a waste of soldiers' lives.

We need them to take action now; to make sure, right or wrong, this surge is not a waste of life. The surge is happening, and now we have to figure out how to make it work. My son's life, and the life of many other people's sons, depends on it.

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Tracey-Kay Caldwell is the mother of a soldier, Democratic Party Editor of BellaOnline.com, and a freelance writer. She can be reached at IraqSoldierMom@gmail.com.

An 86-page report which says it is the reaction to the Iraq Study Group Report has been released. by a group called Free Republic. A press release on the report says that: "the so-called antiwar movement, including the organizers of this past weekend's protest in Washington, is led by terrorist supporting Marxists as part of a global alliance seeking America's defeat in the Global War on Terror and that a prominent White House correspondent has allied herself with one of these groups."

The report: CitizensReportonIraq.pdf

The press release also says that: "Readers will learn that progress is being made in Iraq; there are large areas of Iraq that are safe and prospering; that the enemy is being killed and wounded in astounding proportion to American casualties; that the reporting on Iraq by the dominant media is universally despised as inaccurate and misleading by those fighting for Free Iraq -- Americans and Iraqis alike; that the so-called antiwar movement, including the organizers of this past weekend's protest in Washington, is led by terrorist supporting Marxists as part of a global alliance seeking America's defeat in the Global War on Terror and that a prominent White House correspondent has allied herself with one of these groups." Note: The report identifies the correspondent as Helen Thomas.

A few excerpts from the report:

Page 2: "This report can best be described as a middle finger of defiance aimed at the gloom and doom armchair generals in Congress, the media, and Fort Living Room. It is offered as a beacon of hope to those Americans, Iraqis, and coalition partners striving for victory in Free Iraq against a global, political, military and media alliance committed to our defeat. The American and Iraqi people were ill-served by the Iraq Study Group report issued last year. It was a little more than a prescription for capitulation to our enemies and betrayal of our allies."

Page 50: "Miracles have been performed in Iraq. Not by gods, but by men doing God's work...Out of the ashes of that cruel existence (under Saddam), a new Iraq is being born. While the enemies of freedom within and without Iraq try with all their might to strangle the infant Iraqi democracy in its cradle, Iraqis and those who want Free Iraq to succeed are valiantly making progress throughout the country."

Page 52: Cites a State Department report from October 2006, saying that an astonishing ninety-six percent of Iraqis surveyed in regions covering two-thirds of Iraq's eighteen provinces said they feel safe in their neighborhoods.

Page 68: "There is no antiwar movement in America...What the media call anti-war protests are actually pro-terrorist propaganda exercises organized by Marxist front groups whose leaders cut their teeth cheerleading the North Veitnamese communists to victory in the Sixties and Seventies, who spent their time in the Eighties aiding Marxist guerrillas in Central America and working with the Soviet Union on its nuclear freeze propaganda campaign and in the Nineties organizing anti-capitalism riots while propping up Cold War remnant leftist dictators like Fidel Castro, Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein...With rare exception the media has failed to inform the American public about the beliefs and activities of the dominant so-called antiwar groups."

Page 81: "America cannot affford to lose in Iraq -- neither can the Iraqi people...The American people need to be patient. Experts say counterinsurgencies typically take from five to eleven years to defeat. In addition to an insurgency, we are fighting al Queda terrorists and have to deal with interference from Iran, Syria and duplicitous allies in the Middle East...The best way to help is to join the military or work as a civilian for government agencies or contractors. If that is not possible for whatever reason, there are a multitude of ways Americans are volunteering and contributing...For example: care packages are being sent; donations are being made to buy things like helmet pads and Silly String...Learn a language...Participate in pro-troops/pro-mission rallies and counter-demonstrations of antiwar protests.