Ryan Jopek was 20, a member of the Wisconsin National Guard like his father. He deployed to Iraq in 2005, was killed there in 2006.
In February 2008, Ryan's mother Tracy and his sister Jessica traveled to Green Bay and waited in the cold for 45 minutes to give Obama her son's bracelet. A campaign staffer arranged it so they could meet him.
"I didn't get to say what I wanted to say. I just cried," Tracy Jopek told the newspaper. "It wasn't for anything but for him to know this is real, something he needed to know. . . I do believe (the war) needs to end, but I believe it needs to be done very carefully and very thoughtfully."
She said she was honored by Obama mentioning her son in his speech.
"I couldn't believe it. It was such an honor, such an honor," she said. "To know that he does know his name. It means a lot."
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But a month later, Ryan's father Brian -- who is no longer married to Tracy -- told Wisconsin Public Radio that his ex-wife had misgivings about Obama wearing the bracelet and mentioning their son on the campaign trail. It seems as though just as Tracy Jopek supports Obama and wants to end the war, Brian Jopek has a different take on what should happen in Iraq and may be more inclined to support McCain.
(You can listen to Brian Jopek about 10 minutes into THIS CLIP.)
After pointing out that he and Tracy are not married anymore, Brian says that "from what I understood from email exchanges with Tracy….she wanted to put a name, she wanted Sen. Obama to know Ryan's name...She wasn't looking to turn it into a big media event...She just wanted it to be something between Barack Obama and herself."
Bryan Jopek went on to say that "because of some of the negative feedback she’s gotten on the Internet, you know Internet blogs, you know people accusing her of… or accusing Obama of trying to get votes doing it… and that sort of thing, she has turned down any subsequent interviews with the media because she just didn’t, she just didn't want it to get turned into something that it wasn’t. She had told me that in an email that she had asked, actually asked Mr. Obama to not wear the bracelet anymore at any of his public appearances."
Conservatives are now criticizing Obama for exploiting a fallen soldier whose mother has asked him to stop wearing the bracelet or mentioning her son's name.
Funny how Obama has not honored her wishes....hmmm, you would think he would want to honor the wishes of the family, to not make this any more public. But, of course, it is Barack "Style over Principle" Obama, so is anyone surprised?
