Cold War Veterans Blog

Dear Vets for Freedom Member: Last weekend Vets for Freedom welcomed eight Iraq War combat veterans home as we returned from serving as embedded correspondents with U.S. combat units. The seven combat vets and myself met with top commanders, the lieutenants and sergeants fighting on the ground, their Iraqi counterparts and ordinary Iraqi citizens. We returned to Iraq as part of the Back--to--Iraq embed program sponsored by Vets for Freedom and National Review Online, The Weekly Standard and Blackfive. In doing so, each of us had the opportunity to assess the situation on the ground in cities like, Fallujah, Samarra and Baghdad. We posed tough questions to top commanders, scrutinized the implementation of General Petreaus' counterinsurgency plan and surveyed the impact that the Surge has had in Iraq. Read Our Dispatches and Watch our Videos from the Frontlines Here Pete Hegseth, VFF Chairman: Why Victory in Iraq Matters David Bellavia, VFF Co-Founder: Diyala Surge Ben Hayden, VFF Iowa State Captain: Interview with an Iraqi Translator Two things were evident after having just returned from Iraq as an embedded correspondent: the surge is incontrovertibly working and in order to succeed in Iraq we have a limited window of opportunity in which to sustain the security gains that Americans and Iraqis have fought so hard for. Immediately upon returning, Vets for Freedom co-founder and former Army Staff Sergeant David Bellavia and former Marine Corps Captain Erik Swabb participated in an Iraq Update Forum with one of Senator Barrack Obama's chief foreign policy advisors, Colin Kahl at the American Enterprise Institute. And, this morning David Bellavia was featured on C-SPAN's Washington Journal taking questions from viewers from around the nation. Today, we urgently need your help in order to educate the American people about the importance of achieving victory in Iraq. Please sign up on the VFF website and let us know how you will help to inform your friends and neighbors about the phenomenal progress in Iraq and the need for victory on every front of the Global War on Terrorism! Sign Up Today: Let America Know We Want Our Troops to Win With Confidence, Joel Arends Executive Director Vets for Freedom