The F-5 tornado that leveled a town in Kansas was horrible. Having lived through a couple major tornados, I can tell you how devastating they are first hand. One of my earliest childhood memories was when an F-5 tornado came through southern Ohio in 1974. Thankfully our house was untouched. The same couldn’t be said for a lot of our neighbors. Walking out the front door after the storm cleared, I quickly realized that most of my street was destroyed.

The amazing thing about that horrible April day was how quickly the National Guard responded. I was very young and don’t remember that part, but my mother reminds me of it. Sadly the same isn’t true for Kansas today:

The governor said the state’s response was limited by the shifting of emergency equipment, such as tents, trucks and semitrailers, to the war in Iraq.

“Not having the National Guard equipment, which used to be positioned in various parts of the state, to bring in immediately is really going to handicap this effort to rebuild,” Sebelius said.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency was bringing in travel trailers to house some of the town’s residents.

Because of Bush’s failed war, people in our own country can not get the necessary emergency services when the need arises. We saw that in Katrina and we are seeing it again today. This also provides another need for us to end the war now. The people of this country should come first. Unfortunately they don’t under Bush. Instead our needed services are stuck helping a government in a foreign nation that don’t even want to help itself. Ironic that the Iraqi government is getting ready to take a two month vacation, while the people in Kansas can’t even get the help needed to rebuild.