A plea for troops to come home

After polls closed on Election Day in Iraq yesterday, war veterans and their families brought the battle to save loved ones in the war to the home front, calling on President Bush to pull out US troops before thousands more die.

The veterans and their families received standing ovations from a crowd of more than 400 people at Faneuil Hall, at the first of a string of unofficial public hearings to be held over the next week in the Boston area.

Testimony came from two groups that favor removing US troops immediately, the 150-member Iraq Veterans Against the War, which was created last summer, and Military Families Speak Out, a 2,000-family organization founded in 2002.

Organizers said they are holding hearings at colleges, churches, and community centers to reveal the war's effect on the military and their families. Yesterday, a 17-year-old Billerica girl whose father is in Iraq wept as she worried about what he will be like when he returns. A former soldier from New York told how his twin brother, also a soldier, returned in a body bag. A Belchertown woman said her family's joy over her brother's return from Iraq melted into grief when he killed himself.

"I am not a professional speaker," said Debra Lucey, 21, whose brother Jeffrey, a 23-year-old Marine reservist, hanged himself in June. "But I am a little sister who lost her big brother."

The organizations, joined yesterday by city Councilor Chuck Turner, are trying to mount pressure on the government to bring troops home quickly, something that seems unlikely given the instability in Iraq.

But families such as the Luceys are increasingly going public to push issues from safety armor for military personnel in Iraq to healthcare for veterans once they return.

Yesterday, many were skeptical about the high turnout in the Iraq elections, saying it obscures the danger the troops face. Instead of seeing the elections as a turning point, Nancy Lessin, a founder of Military Families Speak Out, compared the conflict to the Vietnam War.

"We've all seen banner days come and go," said Lessin, 55, whose stepson served in Iraq and is now home. "We're seeing it all again, the quagmire, the war that never should have started."

The founders of Iraq Veterans Against the War said they grew disillusioned in Iraq.

Former National Guard Sergeant Kelly Dougherty, 26, said she was ordered to burn oil tankers, food, and once, an ambulance. "I did not feel proud," Dougherty calmly told the audience. "These are the things that our soldiers were being sent out to do."

Ivan Medina, 23, of New York, said he and his twin brother Irving joined the military because they wanted to travel and earn college money.

Irving Medina, an Army specialist , was killed in November 2003 when the Humvee he was riding in struck a land mine.