Somehow the phrases "Family Values" and "Support our Troops" have become partisan, Republican mantras in today's divisive political climate. Yet, both those phrases ring hollow when we see what the Bush administration is doing to the families of our soldiers.
A few days ago, I stopped by a corner market to buy some ice and saw a rather shocking story in the USA Today:
Army wives whose husbands are deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan have committed markedly higher rates of child neglect and abuse than when their spouses are home, according to a study Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The Army-funded study found child neglect was almost four times greater during periods when the husbands were at war. Physical child abuse was nearly twice as high during combat deployments.