http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/speakup.aspOrigins:
The piece quoted above was written by Lori Kimble, a 31-year-old California native who is now a teacher in Alabama and the wife of a serviceman. She contributes occasional pieces to The Washington Dispatch, and this item was her contribution for 14 April 2003, published under the title "The Price of Freedom."
As we explained in a previous version of this page, we could verify only that Lori Kimble is a real person, that she is the author of this piece, and that she asserts it is based upon a real incident. The article contains no details by which it can be independently verified, and our attempts to elicit more information from the author about when and where the events described took place received no response. We note now that the publishers have removed the article from the Washington Dispatch's web site because they, too, have been unable to verify its truthfulness and have been unable to obtain more information from its author:
Other than the fact that the person who wrote the story is real, nothing else has been verified as true. From what I gather this means that no one has stepped to say they bought the meal or they witnessed the meal being bought. And even more importantly, even the restaurant has not verified the claim.
Unfortunately these "heart-wrenching" stories get spread around and like the bible, they get re-edited in order to appeal more to the masses.
Edit Note: I would have gladly boought those 2 "shrill" women from the email a steak dinner any day of the week. Heck I sit in restaurants all the time and have no problems talking about why I'm against the war with my dinnermate(s)