Come Back

March 25, 2007

BY DIMITRA LAVRAKAS

Frontiersman

It was an one of those meetings where love finds a way to strike.

Claire Lettow was against the Iraq War before she met her fiance, Jonathan. He had just arrived from Arizona, having been reassigned to Fort Richardson. Then he was sent to Iraq, and although he's due back in October, there's been talk of redeployment.

They'll marry in 2009 in Wasilla, where Lettow grew up and where she graduated from Wasilla High in 2005.

While he's gone, Lettow isn't sitting at home, she's been very vocal against a war she thinks is wrong. She joined the national group, Military Families Speak Out.

Last Sunday, Lettow stepped onto the podium at the anti-war rally and march at Loussac Library in Anchorage.

&#8220I want all of you to know, all of you standing here in the cold, that this is nothing compared to what they're going though over there,” she said.

Later, by phone, she said her fiance, Jonathan, supports her. She doesn't use his last name because of possible censure by the military. But he wants to come home too, she said.

&#8220He's in heavy weapons, he's the one who actually drives the truck,” she said. &#8220He's the one who gets the most exposure to IEDs (improvised explosive devices).”

While he's fighting there, she said, she's fighting here.

&#8220I do what I can to fulfill his needs while he's over there,” she said. &#8220I try to get dialogue started between families, soldiers and veterans.”

Last month, she met with Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

&#8220I made it really personal,” she said. &#8220I brought pictures. I wanted to get her in the gut, and she said several times that she faces ‘gut-wrenching decisions.'

&#8220We're saying, ‘No, you don't have to support the war to support the troops.'”

She is critical of Murkowski's recent visit to Iraq. Lettow felt that the senator should have left the Green Zone and gone and personally talked to the soldiers.

&#8220She didn't see what our soldiers see,” she said. &#8220She sees the turmoil, but in order for her to really experience it, I'd like to see her speak to soldiers in the war zone.”

One problem she sees is that many Americans aren't paying the price for the war.

&#8220Like in World War II, when people paid a price with rationing, not just slapping a 50 cent bumper sticker on their car,” Littow said.

She worries about the emotional toll the war is taking on soldiers' families, on newlyweds, and how the war is affecting the U.S. economy.

Most of all, she worries about the man she wants to start a life with.

Contact Dimitra Lavrakas at 352-2269.