Tonight my husband lays his head down across the globe in the country of Afghanistan. Amidst my worries of if he will come home, keeping my children optimistic as they miss their dad, and maintaining my own life responsibilities of work and home, I now have the immense concerns of sequestration on my shoulders. When my Marine enlisted in 1997, as young as I was, I knew certain duties would come with such service. Similarly, I believe when you raised your hand in service to our United States, you too knew that with that great honor came responsibilities that you would have to perform, sometimes under duress, and perhaps compromising on the values engrained within you.
I am disappointed. As a proud American, as a woman who worries about my children's future, and as the wife of an American hero, you have let my community down. We do what you ask of us, year after year for 11 years. When those towers came down on September 11, 2001, we knew we would have to send our loved ones into harm's way with the unknown of if they would come back. We did not shy away from our responsibilities, we did not put our own personal comforts first, and we certainly did not take time off from our duty to country just because what was asked of us was tough. And now, after we have given the great sacrifice of 11 years of casualties, 11 years of children losing a parent, 11 years of our young men and women coming back changed forever, you have put us in a dire position because of your party's desire to plant their feet firmly in the ground on what issues are important to your political careers.
This isn't about being a Republican or a Democrat or the President of the United States, this is about being American first. Your legacy in history is about to be riddled with failure -- failure to act, failure to work with your peers, and failure to display a fraction of the integrity that those troops you sent into harm's way operate with. You are playing with lives, the lives of the 1 percent of America who always follow through on their responsibilities.
I am begging you on behalf of the 1.1 million of my peers to sit yourselves in a room with those you DON'T see eye to eye with and DO YOUR JOB. I am asking you as a representative of the greatest country in the world to give up your comforts until you reach a resolution. Bringing our nation to its knees in the final hours is unbecoming of a person fit to call themselves a leader. You can do better, you must do better.
We deserve better. TODAY. Stop taking vacations and lunch breaks because you have nothing to be tired over, you are failing.
DO YOUR JOB.
Signed,
Bianca M. Strzalkowski
Proud Wife of a United States Marine