‘Dear America’: Gold Star Families Want ‘Archaic’ Support Systems Fixed – By Anonymous (Defense One) / Sept 7 2021
The Pentagon team that manages them “have not protected us, and they have refused to listen.”
An open letter from the undersigned:
Dear America and our leaders,
We live in the land of the free because of our brave. This is the country, and you are the precious people, that our husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters died for while fighting in the Global War on Terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Niger, and across the globe.
We write today as Gold Star families whose loved ones were killed in action over the last twenty years. We do not ask for pity, but we stand as warriors, and ask for action and accountability. Just last week, 13 families joined us in the greatest loss known to American life: they have joined our ranks as new families of the fallen. We hear a lot of promises and know our leaders care, but you politicize our loss rather than wrapping around us and prioritizing us with support, policies, and services that are needed to heal and move forward.
Honoring and remembering our service members and their loved ones should not be a political issue, the politics around it are disgusting. United we prosper; divided we fall. We are more than a tweet or a political tag line. We are the survivors. We need you to choose country over politics; to choose America over your career. Many of you tweet the names of our lost yet turn your face from us when we ask you to help or change the policies to better support our families and the legacies of our loved ones. They fought, bled, and died for you. Please be there for them; please be there for us.
