Almost a year ago, Tom Engelhardt, the editor of tomdispatch.com, began a correspondence with Teri Wills Allison, a mother from Texas whose son is in the military in Iraq. Out of that grew an invitation to Allison to write about how the situation personally affected her as a parent. The resulting essay, published in mid-October at tomdispatch.com, brought a flood of e-mail, selections from which Engelhardt also published at the site. "One thing struck me," Engelhardt said in introducing the letters. "Amid all the pundits opining and journalists reporting on the state of the nation, we almost never hear the voices of Americans who, like Teri Allison, have to deal with the fallout from the mess this Administration has created." Engelhardt said he was also struck by the offers of help directed to Allison and some of the people she wrote about. In their generosity of spirit, he wrote, the responses "offer a kind of hope and renewal all their own." With the permission of all those involved, and with thanks to tomdispatch.com, a project of The Nation Institute, we offer Allison's letter and a sampling of the responses.   --The Editors

MARYELLEN WALTER

Maryellen Walter is an out-of-work telecommunications worker from the Midwest.

Teri Allison's letter put into words many of my own feelings. We are a blue-collar union family whose only two sons are now in Iraq, using the Army to pay for their educations. One son is an armor officer who earned an ROTC scholarship; the other is an enlisted medic who wants to finish his education on the GI Bill. They knew the risks and joined voluntarily. And were they serving in Afghanistan, it would be so much easier for me to bear, because that battle in the WOT [War on Terror] needed to be fought. Iraq is a huge wrong turn that seems to inflame the risk of terror, not diminish it.

We also have a contradiction about Iraq within our family. Our officer son's wife is a huge Bush supporter who views Iraq as the main stage of World War IV, and W. is her White Knight defending our civilization. I envy her the peace of mind that helps her cope with the separation and anxiety. But whistling past the graveyard gives me no such peace. If this is indeed an apocalyptic clash of civilizations, where is the national sense of urgency, why are so relatively few bearing the burden and why are we paying for it on credit?

MIKE ROEMHILDT

Mike Roemhildt, a music teacher, lives in Cloquet, Minnesota.

I just wanted to write to thank you for posting the letter, "The Costs of War." It expressed the feelings of my wife and me in a way that was so close to ours it was scary. Our son, age 19, is a tanker in the Army and has been to Iraq once already and will go back sometime this coming winter. Needless to say, we dread it very much. His first tour found him in an ambush, witnessing many horrible sights, IED explosions and mortar attacks, and finding himself in a position in which he had to kill. He seems to be handling things OK, though he drank for nearly three weeks upon his initial return. There was virtually no psych screening to speak of to identify those soldiers who might have problems. In fact, they were not even held more than a few hours on base before being released into the world!!!

I could certainly go on about my thoughts and feelings but my main purpose for writing was to thank you and to request that you forward this letter on to the author. It meant a lot to my wife and me to read another person's experiences and to discover that we are not alone.

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