Honor in a war for oil?

[S.R. Prozak]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/117391_mourn14.html

Monday, April 14, 2003

Mother sees no honor in death of her soldier son
Other parents also struggle to find meaning in loss

By MONICA DAVEY
THE NEW YORK TIMES

The night before her son left for Kuwait, Ruth Aitken argued with him on
the telephone for nearly three hours. From her living room in State
College,
Pa., she told him that a war with Iraq made no sense, that it was really a
scuffle over oil. Her son, an Army captain based at Fort Stewart, Ga.,
said
America needed to be protected from terrorists.

"Mother," he finally told her, "it's my job."

The argument -- a "major confrontation" in Aitken's memory -- was by no
means their first debate over the war, but it was their last. Capt.
Tristan N.
Aitken, 31, died on April 4 as U.S. soldiers fought for control of the
Baghdad
airport.

"He was doing his job," Aitken said. "He had no choice, and I'm proud of
who he was. But it makes me mad that this whole war was sold to the
American
public and to the soldiers as something it wasn't. Our forces have been
convinced that Iraqis were responsible for Sept. 11, and that's not true.
I
told Tristan that he should go to Saudi Arabia for that. All he would come
back to was, 'Mom, I have to do my job.' "

Since the start of the war, more than 100 American families, like Aitken's
family, have mourned the loss of a member of the services -- a son, a
husband,
a mother. Aitken's grief has an extra ingredient. She is one of a small
number
of these military family members who said they opposed the war. That
complicates her pain.

"It makes me more upset," Aitken, a job placement consultant, said. "We
shouldn't be there. We shouldn't have been there."

Last September, long before the fighting began, Aitken was writing
anti-war
notes to politicians and television talk show hosts.

"Why can't you stand up now and be a straight talker?" she demanded in an
e-
mail message to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

Since she learned of her son's death, she has careered from one emotion to
the next. She spoke of him with pride and sadness, weeping as she read his
last letter, in which he described six days of sleep in the stiff front
seat
of his Humvee, then laughing as she remembered the time her son, at 11,
had
shot arrows at trees from their front porch.

"This is proud mom," she said. "I love my kids a lot. And I raised my
children to think for themselves." Aitken's daughter, Terryl, was in ROTC
in
college, and will begin a residency in optometry at the Military Academy
at
West Point in June.

Many more families of service members who have died in Iraq have said they
support the war. In interviews, some said they took comfort, however
small, in
knowing that lives had been lost for a cause. "That's what makes me so
proud,"
one Mississippi mother said after her 22-year-old son was killed. "He went
so
we could be free and he could free his fellow man."

But for others, there was no comfort. In Baltimore, Michael Waters-Bey
held
up a photograph of his son, Staff Sgt. Kendall D. Waters-Bey of the Marine
Corps, for news cameras, and said, "President Bush, you took my only son
away
from me."

In Escondido, Calif., Fernando Suarez del Solar told reporters that his
son, Lance Cpl. Jesus A. Suarez del Solar of the Marine Corps, had died
for "Bush's oil."

Lillian Lake, 70, has been more soft-spoken about her dissent. After her
son, Chief Warrant Officer Eric A. Smith, died in a helicopter crash, she
met
some of his friends and fellow service members at a memorial.

"They felt his death was an honor," said Lake, of Lake Placid, Fla. "I
didn't see it that way, and they were upset about that. To me, as a
mother,
you know, it is not an honor. But they think it's an honor, and I respect
that. Eric would love that."

Lake, a Jehovah's Witness, said she told her son that her religious
beliefs
taught her that war and killing were wrong. Eventually, she and her son
came
to an understanding. Going to war was his choice. Not believing in killing
was
hers.

"You have to understand, I am not disrespecting the country either," she
said. "I'm not angry. I can't be angry. But I'm not happy that I can't
hold
him again."

Rita Russell said her feelings about the war in no way diminished her
pride
in her nephew, who died in an accident in Iraq. "We're proud of him,"
Russell
said of Lance Cpl. William W. White, 24, of Brooklyn. "I support his
efforts.
I have to support the troops. But I don't understand."

She said she hoped that the chemical and biological weapons that
administration officials said Saddam Hussein had are found. It would help
her
make sense of the war and of her family's loss, she said.

NO GODS          NO MASTERS
           -I-
NO SLAVES        NO MORALS


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