To: First Lady Michelle Obama

We the undersigned,
* Appreciate your commitment to American military families and the mothers and fathers who have lost their beloved children to war...

* Appreciate your understanding how husbands and wives at home are keeping their families on track while their wives and husbands are deployed...and how grandparents, aunts and uncles, sisters and brothers are taking care of children while single moms or dads in uniform are away.

* Agree with you that our nation must do everything in our power to honor them.

* And we also recognize that there are hundreds of thousands of families - mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, aunts and uncles, sisters and brothers - in the Middle East and, now, Afghanistan and Pakistan in Central Asia, who have lost their beloved children to war and its aftermath. They also need our supportand our understanding.

* In Afghanistan, Fatima Akbar suggests:
The message Id like to share is that women who want to do something should never think that we cannot do it. If we are willing to try it, we are always capable of doing it.

* Israeli mother Nurit Peled Elhanan says:
Bush, Saddam, Milosovicthey are all the same. These politicians have a mafia logic and they use our kids like chips in a gambling gamethen, when our kids get killed they say, Oops, sorry! and they move on

* In a small south Lebanon village, Elham asks:
Why do American women send their children to die in Iraq? Is it for democracy? Shouldnt democracy be built by the people? Shouldnt it come from within and not be imposed from outside? If it is imposed by those outside, isnt that occupation?

These are just three quotes from more than 30 verbatim stories shared in the book, Time Passing: Mothers Speak about War and Terror.

We urge you to raise your own awareness - and that of your husband - about the plight of these families.

__ order an author autographed hardcover edition of Long Time Passing: Mothers Speak about War and Terror from the website http://www.mothersspeakaboutwarandterror.org/buy.php

__ order a hardcover edition from any bookstore or online at http://www.mothersspeakaboutwarandterror.org/buy.php

__ We the undersigned feel so strongly that you must read these stories to understand the "big picture" that we're sending copies of Long Time Passing: Mothers Speak about War and Terror to you at:
First Lady Michelle Obama
White House at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington DC 20500


Read these candid stories of mothers, fathers, troops, and bereaved families struggling with the effects of war and terror. And share it with you husband. After reading this book, we think both of you will agree that We the People of American must end the policies that perpetuate these wars.