Posted by
Billy on Monday, December 01, 2008 11:18:05 AM
Lonnie Ford had one message for U.S. Sen. John McCain when the two met recently.
"Don't go withdrawing those troops," Ford told the then-presidential candidate in regard to the ongoing war in Iraq.
Ford's brief visit with McCain occurred last August in Sturgis, S.D., where Ford had gone to participate in that community's annual motorcycle rally, and where McCain had stopped to campaign.
"I don't want an immediate withdrawal. That will admit defeat," Ford said recently while seated at the kitchen table in the white, square farm-type house in Pender where he and his wife, Linda, raised their combined families.
It's the same house that is within a mile or two of the cemetery where his son, Joshua, is buried; the house that is just down the street from the brick building where Ford teaches and where Joshua attended school; the house that now sits on what has been renamed Sgt. Josh Ford Avenue.
Living on the street named after his late son provides a small element of comfort for the father who is still openly grieving. Tears well in his eyes as he talks about the life cut short by an explosive device that struck the vehicle Joshua was riding in during a mission in south-central Iraq.
(The media doesn't put this father on the 6:00 P.M. news too often because unlike Cindy Sheehan he supports what America is trying to do in Iraq. Read more about this dad, Father still grieves for son.)