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I am a Security Mom and I support John Kerry.
I worked as an intelligence and counterintelligence analyst under Presidents Reagan, Bush Sr., and Clinton, as an enlisted soldier, a reservist, and as a civilian for the army. I’ve flown to other countries to help write bilateral security policies for classified programs. I’ve given briefings in the Pentagon.
I severed my ties with the military in 2002, because it became increasingly difficult for me to reconcile my values with the direction we were heading in. I quit to take a job that paid less than half of what I had been making. (My salary has since been halved again because of layoffs.)
Before the Soviet Union broke up, I took my daughter, then 8 months old, to Moscow and Leningrad. We were welcomed as Americans with astounding warmth. On public transportation, we were told not to pay because we were guests of their country. In a restaurant, people we didn’t know passed my daughter from table to table, toasting her, making speeches about how important it was to repair relations between our countries after the damage of the Cold War.
The contrast between those days and now is grim. We disguise our nationality when we travel, making sure we don’t wear clothes that look “too American.” Worse yet, we need to disguise our political beliefs from our own government, in a climate where people can be arrested in a public space for simply wearing a shirt with the name of a candidate running for office.
The current administration has created an atmosphere of fear and intimidation, abroad and at home. As a direct result, both abroad and at home, my family is now less secure.
President Bush has treated diplomacy as if it were the punch line of a joke. I will be voting for John Kerry, because he understands the importance of diplomacy and international relations.
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