Tell leaders we want Iowa Guard here, safe

Recently it was announced that 3,500 troops of the Iowa National Guard will be called up for deployment to Afghanistan about a year from now. Since 9/11, more than 10,000 Guard men and women served in Iraq and Afghanistan, a significant number.

The Guardsmen and women and their families have a year to think about their loved ones futures. And some may think about giving up a good retirement for which they have been loyal to this country for. What about the rest of us remaining Iowans? We can pile grills high with chops, beef and chicken or choose to be with vets on Memorial Day.

Here in Williamsburg on two different Memorial Days, I have been privileged to hear Capt. Angela Chipman, a native of Williamsburg, speak. The captain has been involved with the Lioness Program. You may have heard about it on public television. The Lionesses are service women who are made targets and sent into unsecured areas to protect local women and children. At one celebration, Chipman had an Iowa service woman named Twila, who has put her life on the line more than once for the weakest of our enemies.

Enough is enough. These ladies shouldn't be called to do even more. Let's keep these ladies at home. I would like to hear the good captain speak at the cemetery where my brother and best friends are buried.

I'd like to see Twila loading goats into a pickup, picking her way through a yard full of geese and trying to catch roosters in a tall tree after dark.

Tell your representatives we want our Iowa National Guard here on the farm, safe and sound.

Betty Clark

Williamsburg