Last Friday, at our weekly vigil, a sign threatening one of our members was set out in advance at the Veterans for Peace corner. The threat makers, too cowardly to sign their handiwork no doubt hold membership with the very people that point a sign at us each week calling us cowards. They call ours the ‘cut and run’ corner, these brave but anonymous patriots.

First, it should be known that the husband of the woman threatened was an Army Ranger and during his service to his country, earned a Silver Star a Bronze Star and dozens of other medals of valor. He has three purple hearts and discharged in 1996, they still today continue to dig shrapnel out of his body. Like the rest of us they passionately support our troops and they do so openly because they are not cowards.

Polls taken show that over 70% of the ground troops in Iraq believe they should leave within the year, 29% believe redeployment should be immediate. Sadly, as the military is not a democracy, they have no voice outside of little known law which allows for an appeal for redress, a mechanism to seek assistance from their congressman while on active duty.

When my Marine son was deployed in Ramadi I received email alerts whenever Marines were wounded or killed. The gut wrenching terror that it might be my Marine more often than not sent me to the bathroom to throw up. Fear permeated my life the whole time he was there but I am no coward.

Yes, I admit that I have no stomach to see our kids continue to die in Iraq. I have no stomach to see them maimed. I bitterly resent that, along with my son, their patriotism and courage have been misused, abused and squandered. I bitterly resent the tacit complicity and criminal complacency of the American people.

We stand on that corner to move those people, too comfortable and removed from the daily horrors in Iraq, to give a damn, to fight for our troops, to raise a voice to Congress that will finally reach numbers that cannot be ignored. Our nation is in peril, our troops are in peril and the Iraqi people are in peril. They are asking for our help.

Support our troops, invest in renewable energy, drive fuel efficient vehicles, walk to work and scream at Congress to save our troops, our kids. Fight for them like they fight for you.

Finally, to the cowards who threatened my friend. Whatever your aim, she is the wife of a combat soldier, do you really think after what she has lived through, your sign can make her nervous? Just know that to get to her, you will first have to get through me, Mary Geddry, a Marine mom. Believe me, I have seen the devil and you and your band of thugs are chump change.