Posted on 01/18/2004 11:57:43 AM PST by Indy Pendance
B O O N E, Iowa, Jan. 17 — While much of the nation focuses on Monday's Iowa Democratic caucuses, people in one Iowa town are thinking of a battle much farther away.
When the ABCNEWS campaign bus rolled into Boone, Iowa, last week, people were less focused on politics than on all the familiar faces absent from the church pews. Nearly 400 members of the local National Guard are overseas, most in Iraq. From a town of 12,000, it is a substantial subtraction noticed everywhere, including a busy beauty salon.
"As far as in the community, I mean, it just pulls so many away from their jobs, normal jobs, everyday jobs," said Laura Mallas, a local resident. "And it just puts the crush on everybody."
Left behind is a town with little to do except wrap ribbons around trees and plant signs in their yards that say, "We support our troops."
What exactly does that mean? Well, probably the same sentiment that inspired a local monument to all of Boone's sons and daughters who ever served in the military over all the years — patriotism and pride. In this town — the birthplace of Mamie Doud, who married a soldier, Dwight Eisenhower, who became president, just as others passing through in advance of the Monday's caucuses hope to do — there's plenty of both.
‘We Pray Every Day’
Said Ted Hora, whose oldest son Ted has been gone since last summer: "We pray every day for his safety and those comrades that are with him."
It's not surprising, since Hora's a World War II veteran and former National Guardsman, like his father and three of his sons.
"They played Army from the time that they could carry a little wooden gun," said his wife, Pat Hora. "You know how boys are."
But Ted Jr. is 57 now, a grandfather. That's the tough part for his Ted Jr.'s wife, Linda Hora.
"It's hard when you've been married to a person for 36 years," Linda Hora said.
When her citizen soldier returns, she said, it won't be like Vietnam.
"We watched our friends come back from that and not be appreciated for the sacrifice they made," she said.
Not in this town. Few here oppose the war, though Guy Jones is an exception: "I asked the good Lord every night to end that cussed war," Jones said.
But there is a sense of weariness that too much has been asked of too few for too long.
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