Abstract

AGAINST THE WAR BUT MARRIED TO IT

The author reports on the growing opposition movement among Army wives to the U.S. military occupation in Iraq. Dozens of interviews with military families in the Fort Drum area and beyond show that there is a growing unease with Bush's Iraq policy. Clearly there are serious challenges facing any peace movement among military families--not least the reluctance of many military wives to buck tradition. At the moment, opposition to the war among military families is mostly bubbling beneath the surface. Those with the loudest voices are parents. What is new are the rumblings of discontent among wives, for whom the stakes are much higher. While the numbers of those willing to go public with their critical views are small, the symbolism is powerful. After all, military families can personally attest to the waste of manpower, the unnecessarily harsh conditions soldiers endure and the inadequate compensation families receive. Nancy Lessin and Charley Richardson, co-founders of the antiwar group Military Families Speak Out (MFSO), became so persuaded that there were thousands of military families privately fuming about Iraq that they created an organization to represent them in November 2002. Richardson and Lessin, veterans of the 1960s peace movement and parents of a soldier son who's been deployed to Iraq, were quick to recognize the unique power military families could bring to the larger antiwar effort.