While many of our spouses are fighting for their EARNED health care, I've tried to hold back my disgust on how Congress and DOD are treating our husbands and spouses. I have worked quietly within the Email Network the "guys" have established. It's not enough anymore!

I'm mad! I can't do enough to try to relieve the pain my husband and others feel at the rejection of their service by the country they so proudly served. I cannot forget my father's early death for service connected causes, leaving my mother and 5 brothers and sisters to survive on our own with eroded benefits and rules that seem to change every year.

I am tired of standing in line with a Military ID Card for a flu shot and being hassled over whether it's valid for TRICARE or not, while the ladies in front and in back of me proudly show their MEDICARE and MEDICAID cards and tell me I "need one of these."

I'm tired of begging Doctors to see my daughter when she needs medical attention at College and I'm tired of waiting for our family budget to allow my getting treatment and tests peculiar to my being a woman, because it's not allowed by TRICARE. I'm tired of being told I need 7 crowns to fix my teeth and my TRICARE Dental plan coverage doesn't allow them.

I'm tired of being told that 8,200,000 active duty and retired people and their families are being taken care of under DOD's TRICARE program ... OVER HALF OF THESE PEOPLE ARE US ... Dependents and Children!

It is time for US to enter this fight ... FOR OURSELVES and OUR CHILDREN! Especially Active Duty Spouses should get involved! DOD can't "censor" you!!!

Ladies and Gentlemen: WE have a lot at stake here. We need to have OUR voices heard as well. Remember, we can VOTE too and if we raise our voices in the same way the guys are doing, it will add strength to their arguments over their EARNED health care! Our Guys are fighting for US ... let's get busy and fight for them - using our own Words and our own Perspectives on the matter of how we and our families are being treated.

Let's WAKE up the SENATE and the HOUSE!!! You can set up your own 'free' Email addresses, like have done and write letters, make phone calls, send FAXES just like our Guys are doing!!! Join in our Spouses and Children's Auxiliary effort now!

If you've got questions on how to get started, and how to build and expand your Email Lists, drop me a line at caboonia@ hotmail.com, and I'll answer as soon as I'm able. Remember! What we are doing this IN ADDITION TO what the Guys are doing!

Let's tell Congress how WE FEEL!!! You too can write Letters to the Editor as well!!!

Carol Peterson
Email: caboonia@ hotmail.com