"Nothing concentrates the mind about the implications of presidential policy more than having your son shot at."

With that one sentence, Frank Shaeffer nailed the intensely personal nature of politics to military families during times of war.  His brilliant post, "I'm Pro-Military So I Support Senator Obama (and I Have Some Advice for Him on Winning the Votes of the Military Family)," at Huffingtonpost.com is the best distillation of anything I've read anywhere about how military families are viewing this presidential race.

You can find it here:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/im-promilitary-so-i-sup_b_90282.html

George W. Bush proved that one man and his enablers can unilaterally make the decision to invade another country, manipulate the media into going along with it, bully congress into rubber-stamping it, and ramrod a reluctant military into planning for it, all within a few months' time.

A president can receive sage advice from the most esteemed minds our country has to offer BEGGING him to draw down forces or face unparalleled stresses on that military--and he can ignore it altogether, choosing instead to INCREASE forces.

Only, he didn't actually increase them, not really.  This is something most people don't seem to understand. 

What he did was, he shipped off combat units before they were trained, forced other units to remain when they'd been promised they could go home (I read of one family who'd already hung the Welcome Home banners and planned the party when a phone call from the Baghdad airport told them Daddy wouldn't be home for three more months), and rapidly shoved poorly-trained non-combat units into combat roles, while at the same time, dragging out the deployments of reserve and national guard troops by as much as TWO YEARS. 

Two units were even pulled out of Afghanistan, where they were sorely needed, and shipped to Iraq--which is a vastly different sort of combat.  (In Afghanistan, they're doing mountain guerilla fighting.  In Iraq, it's house-to-house urban battle in the midst of civilians in a desert area.)  These types of combat require intense training, and one type of training does not necessarily help in the other kind of combat.

This makes politics VERY personal for military families.

Most of you realize by now that my son did two Marine Corps combat deployments to Iraq, including the historic Battle of Fallujah in November of 2004, and a nephew did three combat deployments to Iraq with the Marines.  My other nephew, who is army, was part of the so-called "surge."  His unit got yanked out before they could do their desert training and shipped over two months early.  Two weeks after arriving, they were told they'd been "extended" from a one-year deployment to a 15-month deployment.

Think about this:  There has been a precious Mills family loved one in combat in Iraq every single year since 2003, when the war began.  Two others have deployed to Afghanistan, one as a high-ranking officer, and one with the special forces. 

So our family has been fighting now for six years with no break.

How much longer do you think our odds can hold out?

This has created an unprecedented strain on our fighting forces and their families.  Never in military history has an army been forced to remain at combat-high levels of stress not only for months at a time with no break, but they are then sent BACK, and then, sent back again. 

What times they are home, they're training for more war, in incredibly realistic battle scenarios designed to prepare new recruits, but which have the effect of triggering great mental stress among those who have already been.  Some of the worst post-deployment nightmares my son ever had, he had during desert training exercises between deployments.  And keep in mind that these training exercises take those same troops away from their families for weeks or months at a time, when they're supposed to be "home."

Every single indicator of the backlash of this treatment has been measured:  high levels of desertion, gutter-low morale levels, recruitment standards in the mud, soaring rates of post traumatic stress that increase with each new deployment, record losses of junior officers and noncommissioned officers who refuse to re-enlist, record high suicide rates, (especially during or just after deployments), skyrocketing divorce rates, shocking rates of family violence and child abuse, and increasing levels of alcoholism and drug abuse.

And although this has received virtually no notice, these repeated deployments are also causing all sorts of physical problems for our troops, even for those who survive without receiving serious injury--such as hidden traumatic brain injury from IEDs, serious back problems, hearing loss, and other difficulties that come from carrying a hundred pounds on your back for months at a time, or from driving over bombs.

From the beginning, this administration has used our troops in the most shameless and shameful manner possible:  as photo-op backdrops and stage props for political speeches.  Talk about a captive audience.

Make no mistake about it:  This is a political war, and has been from the beginning. 

The "surge" in Iraq was about one thing and one thing only:  taking the war off the evening news so that this administration could brag it was "winning" just in time for the presidential campaigns.  Watch for General Petraeus, in his report to congress next month, to ask for a "pause" in troop levels that should last until just before the elections.

He'll say he doesn't want to lose the "progress" they've made on the ground and they want to secure the gains they've made. Whatever he says, it will be about bolstering John McCain, who supports Bush's War, and his claims that the Democrats want to "surrender" and how much of a betrayal that would be to the troops who have fought and died for this glorious (fictional) victory.

Congressional luminaries travel to highly secured areas in the warzone and talk to "the troops," who not only know better than to express how they really feel, but who are stationed, after all, in a highly secured area with the kinds of facilities that would ensure the comfort of visiting dignitaries.

Support troops on mega-bases that house visiting congresspeople and hot celebrities are not seeing the same war my son and nephews have seen, and neither are the congresspeople who stage fly-by visits of one day or so, just long enough for a few Power Point propoganda presentations and a photo op or two before coming home to tell the cameras how great everything is over there.

Don't get me wrong.  Our fighting men and women are no victims.  They did volunteer to serve their country, but they did not volunteer to have their service used and abused to this extent. 

And let's be honest, here.  Recruiters lie.   Most of them who stepped up to volunteer had no idea what they were getting themselves into.  They knew there was a war on, but they did not know, for instance, that they would be spending three years out of a four-year commitment in a warzone.  They didn't know things like, how they could be seriously wounded in action and be home, undergoing rehab for those injuries, but be pulled out anyway and redeployed because the army is running out of "deployable" troops.  Or how, when it was time for them to leave the service, the would be forced to stay in.  Or how, two or three years after they've returned to civilian life, they can be dragged back in and sent back to war AGAIN.

It's never been this bad for the armed forces, not even during Vietnam.  In many cases, the military is breaking its own rules and regulations--even a law, now and then--to scrape up more deployable troops.  No one--least of all, say, an 18-year old just out of high school who's never left home in his life--can know that going in.

I've written before about the low-down dirty tricks they'll use to force troops to stay in past their commitment dates.  What I didn't mention is how often their commitments are ending during deployments, but they're prevented from leaving even though they're supposed to be out of the military.  Who knows how many have died during that enforced overtime?

Who knows how many have died during their three-month deployment extensions?  Or how many have died during their third or fourth deployments?  Or how many survived, say, three deployments to Iraq, only to be killed in Afghanistan?

Those who have no experience with the military, or pacifists who hate war on any grounds whatsoever, or those on the far left who are just suspicious of any military endeavor--sometimes automatically assume that anyone in uniform is a conservative Republican who gets off on war and supports everything their commander-in-chief does.

They would be wrong.

And what Democrats need to realize right now is that a sizeable majority of the U.S. military--according to the army's own polls--is just absolutely exhausted; they are sick of war; and they are very, very disgruntled with the Republicans who sent them there.

Speaking for my own family, my husband, (a moderate Republican) and my son and Marine nephew--all combat vets--support Barack Obama for president.  (I don't know about my nephew who is deployed.  He is extraordinarily busy and like most combat troops, has limited access to e-mail and phone, so I haven't asked him.  I do know that, after his mid-deployment break, he really dreaded having to go back, and we're all anxious for this endless deployment to end.)

Active-duty military are donating in record numbers to candidates who have the most to say about ending the war, and that means Democrats.  Right now, Obama is leading the pack in active-duty military donations. 

Not only that, but online, I read many positive comments posted by active-duty military on progressive blogsites such as HuffingtonPost.com and Talking Points Memo.  They're out there, and they're paying attention.

In the beginning of the Iraq war, I encountered many military family members--moms, spouses--who really bought into the whole flag-waving thing, the idea that our guys (I refer to men and women in the military as "guys," it's just my way) were fighting them over there so they wouldn't have to fight them over here, that they were fighting for our freedom, and so on.

I understood--intuitively if not pragmatically--that they HAD to believe this.  They simply could not bear the thought that they could lose that precious family member for a lie.

When my son was fighting in Fallujah, I used to cry because I could not believe the mythology, and I wished that I could.  It would have made things so much easier for me if I could have.  I finally had to stop visiting family websites because I felt so out of step with the sentiments I read there.

But as time went on and those same loved ones had to go back over and over, and came home more bitter and angry and unrecognizable with each deployment, I began to notice a change among many of the military families I knew. 

One mom even bought a T-shirt that said, Why does it always have to be MY son?

Their own loved ones were coming back from war and telling them that what they were hearing back home about how well the war was going was a lie; that they'd lost buddies, they thought, for nothing.  That they would clear out one area of insurgents in one deployment, then return to the same area in the next deployment and have to do it all over again.  That the same civilians who smiled at them and high-fived them on the streets by day, returned to those same streets by night to plant bombs to kill them.  It just all seemed so pointless.

You have to understand that those who serve our country in uniform are very proud of that service.  They know they stepped up when others did not.  They know that they have been tested, their measure taken, in ways most people will never ever understand.  They love their country, and they are proud to salute the flag.  For the rest of their lives, they have a bearing and a presence that sets them apart from the rest of us.

But many of them feel betrayed right now by the civilian leadership that sent them off to fight a war that was ill-conceived, ill-planned, and poorly executed.  Junior officers are livid at high-ranking officers--many of whom came to that rank during the 20 years of peace after Vietnam and have no combat experience themselves--and restless for THEIR reality to make it into war planning.  Some are risking their careers to speak out and draw attention to their plight.

So don't assume that because a former P.O.W. gets up in front of the flag and talks about how we must support the troops by "winning" in Iraq that those troops are all that impressed with him.  Respectful of his service and sacrifice--absolutely.  Buying his idea that we need to stay for a hundred years--no way.

The Democrats do not need to be bullied into acting like Republicans when it comes to this war.  Hillary Clinton has been doing that since she first authorized Bush to start it.  She's been positioning herself for a general election fight in which she expects the Republicans to attack Democrats as losers where the war is concerned, so she's moved to the right to deflect those attacks.Only recently, after hammering from other Democratic candidates about her hypocrisy, has she swung around and started talking about bringing them home sooner than later. 

Our soldiers and Marines will respect a tough candidate who is NOT afraid to talk about ending the war, because most of them would like to see it ended.  They will appreciate a candidate who understands that this cannot be done overnight, but who will present a practical plan that they can see carrying out with as few serious repercussions as possible--like troop casualties during drawdown.

Democrats might be surprised to find that, for the most part, rah-rah war politicians who use the troops as photo-op backdrops this time around might be in for a rude surprise.  The troop audiences will be polite, but that does not mean they'll vote for them.

Not anymore.

In Frank Schaeffer's incredible blogpost, he offers real insight into what Democrats need to know, and how best they can reach, the military voters.  His suggestions make good common sense.

When Democrats post comments on progressive blogsites, they should be aware that many active-duty and recent-vet troops are reading those blogs, maybe even commenting without revealing who they are.  To assume that they all march in lockstep behind Rumsfeld and Cheney is insulting to them.  To act as if they're children or victims who need rescuing is also offensive.  And to say that choosing to serve in the military in the first place is stupid will only lose us votes, and rightly so.  I don't see a lot of that, but it's out there.

If we want to ensure that the military will be foursquare behind a Democratic candidate and then, administration, we need, as a party, to be respectful of them, their service, their sacrifice, and their individualism.  We need to discuss ending the war in a way that is sensitive to the terrible losses they have sustained in that war, and to understand that many of them are conflicted about those sacrifices. 

We need to educate ourselves as to the difference between generals and other mouthpieces, and ground troops; between support people in heavily barricaded Green Zone areas and grunts who, as my son so aptly described it, "have to shit in a bag"; between the guys who get to have a meal with Angelina Jolie and the ones who have to make split-second decisions on whether a man digging a hole is burying a family pet or a bomb.

Most of all, we need to realize that a great many of those in or just out of the military feel the same way we do.  Some of them are coming around to the progressive way of thinking for the first time in their lives.  They're listening.   They're reaching out.  Let's welcome them into the fold, listen to what they have to say, and give serious weight to their opinions.

We do that, and the cheers they give to the next (Democratic) commander-in-chief won't be prompted or ordered by superiors for the cameras.

It will be heartfelt, and very real.  Only then, can we really bring the troops home.