Parents add voices to pleas for peace
Photo by Jerry Holt , Star Tribune
Colleen Hogan of Blaine, whose cousin is serving in the military in Iraq, attended Sunday's antiwar demonstration at the State Capitol. The event was sponsored by several organizations, including the Minnesota AFL-CIO, Sierra Club, Veterans for Peace, Wellstone Action and the Women's Political Alliance.
A mother and father of a veteran Reservist who died
in Iraq joined the crowd at the State Capitol on Sunday calling for an
end to the war.
So Sunday morning, Anderson and her husband, Claremont, drove 2½ hours from their home in Hoffman, Minn., to the front lawn of the State Capitol to protest the war that took their son's life.
Wearing T-shirts and buttons with a photo of their son, Stuart, they hooked up with several hundred banner-waving, sign-wielding war protesters to voice their opposition to the war in Iraq and lobby Minnesota's congressional delegation to help end it.
"We do support our troops, but they're just caught in a bad situation," Anderson, 65, said before the rally started. "I know those aren't any profound words, but it's the truth."
The hourlong rally, put together by dozens of organizations such as the Americans Against Escalation in Iraq, the Minnesota AFL-CIO, the Sierra Club and the Women's Political Alliance, featured several speakers, including former state Sen. Becky Lourey, whose son, Chief Warrant Officer Matthew Scott Lourey, 40, was killed in Iraq in May 2005 during his second tour of duty there.
In a brief but passionate speech, Lourey urged the audience not to be fooled by reports that the troop surge is working.
"The lesson of Vietnam should be that half of the American troops killed in Vietnam were killed after the generals knew the war was lost," she said.
Those words hit home for Anderson, who lost her son, a 22-year veteran of the Army Reserve, during his second tour of duty when a Black Hawk helicopter he was riding in crashed in bad weather.
Anderson said she noticed a dramatic change in her son's personality between his first and second tours in Iraq. Before he went over the first time, she said, "he was all rah-rah."
But the second time, "he was not that way at all. He was very subdued. He was very matter-of-fact. He knew what the deal was."
She said she knew then that the reasons for going to war and the strategy behind it were flawed.
"We never should have gone in there," she said. "We weren't prepared. When Bush stood on that aircraft carrier and said 'Mission accomplished' ... if that had been true, my son would have been alive today."
Some in attendance Sunday, such as Elizabeth Smith, 64, of Bloomington, and her husband, William Allen Smith, 74, are frequent participants at antiwar rallies and vigils. On Sunday, they carried and waved an orange and black peace flag.
Others, such as Vietnam veteran John Bramschere, 61, from North St. Paul, were first-timers.
"I'm appalled by this war," Bramschere said. "And I hate to see young men lose their lives in a country that doesn't want us there."
Bramschere, who wore his Army shirt and a veteran's hat, said he gave up an afternoon of watching NASCAR on TV to attend Sunday's event.
"I hope it does some good," he said.
Mary Hess, 44, of St. Paul, who held a U.S. flag with her son, Nathaniel Celeste, 9, by her side, hoped the same, saying, "This is a way to stand up and say 'Get out!'"
