Jeff Duncan: “tomorrow a funeral will be held for Staff Sergeant Stephen Kennedy, the second soldier killed in Iraq who was a member…”

“tomorrow a funeral will be held for Staff Sergeant Stephen Kennedy, the second soldier killed in Iraq who was a member of an Army National Guard unit headquartered in my hometown of Knoxville. Both of these young men who were killed were from just outside my district; but I was able to attend the funeral for the first, Sergeant Paul Thomason, as we were not in session in Congress at the time. Both of these men leave wives and each had four small children and many other relatives. I admire and respect their service. There are many ways one can serve this country, but certainly one of the most honorable is by serving in our Nation's Armed Forces. I am pro-military and believe we should have a strong national defense, but I emphasize the word national. It goes against every traditional conservative belief for the U.S. to try to be the policemen of the world and to place all of the burden and cost of enforcing U.N. resolutions on our military and our taxpayers. It is no criticism of anyone in the military to say that the war in Iraq was a very unnecessary war. The more than 1,500 soldiers who have died there were simply doing their duty in the best way they could, probably hoping to come home as soon as they could, but certainly hoping to come home safely rather than in a body bag. Now this past Saturday we saw headlines about anti-American demonstrations all over Iraq. One wire service story said more than 300,000 demonstrated in Baghdad.…”