Posted on 04/30/2004 5:42:34 AM PDT by Born Conservative
She didn't want him to go. What mother would? But Sherwood Baker, a sergeant in the National Guard, was an honorable man, and Celeste Zappala, a longtime Philadelphia peace activist, respected that.
When the call to Iraq came, she let him go.
Now he's gone forever.
Baker, 30, of Plymouth, was killed Monday when a suspected chemical warehouse exploded in Baghdad. He left behind a wife, a son, his parents, two brothers and countless friends. He was an Eagles fan, a rap music aficionado, and a technology fiend.
Yesterday, state flags in Luzerne and Lackawanna counties were flown at half-staff in Baker's honor.
At her Mount Airy home, where a sign in a window reads "Peace is patriotic," Zappala talked about "Sher" with love, and she talked about the war with anger.
"Hundreds of parents around the country are going through this. They love their kids just like I love my kids. There has to be a better way," she said through tears. "I'm angry at the U.S. government. I'm angry at the people who got us into this war. ... How do we get to peace in this world when we're making enemies faster than we can kill them?"
Monday, she remembered, began as a good day. She had talked with her son on Saturday, and he had sounded well. He had shipped off in March, and after weeks of being so upset, she had managed to concentrate at her job as executive director of the Mayor's Commission on Aging. She got home about 6 p.m., sat in her car and listened to the news. Iraq, it seemed, had been fairly quiet.
She was in the kitchen, washing mushrooms for her dinner salad, when the dog started barking. It was raining, the porch light was off, and she thought the man outside was a salesman.
Then she saw the Army uniform. The medals.
And she knew.
"I was laying against the door, and I started to scream and scream," she said. "I could hear myself screaming. I couldn't believe it would happen so fast. He just got there."
Baker was 13 months old when the Zappalas - Celeste and husband Al, now divorced - took him in as foster parents on Veterans Day, 1974.
He was their first child.
"We just fell in love with him," she said. "We were incredibly happy he was with us."
He was soon joined by two brothers the couple had: Dante, now 28, and Raphael, 25. They were simply brothers, no "foster" involved, Raphael Zappala said.
The Zappalas had stood up for civil rights and stood against the Vietnam War, and they continued their activism while raising their sons. Dante Zappala remembered the Christmas season when the brothers were armed with stickers that read "Warning: This toy is dangerous to your child's health" and were set loose inside stores to affix them on "war toys," such as plastic pistols.
"I was a kid, and I wanted a G.I. Joe," he said, laughing. "My buddy down the street had one, so I played with his."
Still, the Zappalas say they did not force their views.
"We just did what we did. They watched what we did. But we never told them there was one way of thinking, one way of doing things," Al Zappala said.
Baker grew to 6-foot-4 and 240 pounds, but he was gentle, Dante Zappala said. He now sees that same trait in Baker's 9-year-old son, J.D., a football player who doesn't really like to make tackles.
"He's a big kid, but he's afraid to hurt people," he said. "That's the way Sherwood raised him."
Sherwood Baker graduated from Roman Catholic High School. After getting his bachelor's degree from King's College in Wilkes-Barre, he stayed in the area, settling in Plymouth with his wife, Debbie. He was a popular local disc jockey, spinning at weddings, and worked with the mentally handicapped.
He joined the Army National Guard in 1997 to pay back his student loans and to help his community, where many of his friends were already guardsmen, his family said.
"I don't think this is how anybody thought this would end, when somebody joins the National Guard in Wilkes-Barre," Dante Zappala said.
The order to go to Iraq was a surprise, but Baker was ready. He went to Fort Dix for training, let his hair be shorn. Last month, before he shipped out, he assured his mother he would be fine.
After all, he said, his unit -First Battalion, 109th Field Artillery - had not lost a soldier in combat since 1945.
"I really banked on that," she said.
Family, friends mourn loss of serviceman killed in Mideast (Baghdad Warehouse Explosion)
I feel very sorry for this mother. But if we could ask her son why he left, I am sure he would say to protect all the people like his mother. The terrorists will not stop until they are dead or have install an Islamic veil on the world. There is no peace with them. And if we give the US Armed Forces a Non-PC environment, we will kill them faster than they can make them...
I'll go along with the 'but' part.
Her kid is probably still in route and she's making anti war speeches? The history given in this article makes it a bit hard to feel empathy toward someone who started her protest career while I was in green and can't let it go even now.
But,
thanks to Sgt. Baker for knowing there is more to citizenship than the rights we are constantly reminded of.
But, as to:
How do we get to peace in this world when we're making enemies faster than we can kill them?"
When they come here and kill our innocent civilians by the thousands, then we get to the "pezace in this world" by upping the rate by which we kill those who are absolutely and completely dedicated to our destruction until we take them out much faster than they can forment more against us. It is the awful reality of the animals that we face and no amount of hand wringing, whining, treating them nicely, peace activism or wishing it were otherwise is going to change it.
Others in the past have paid the bill, there are no exceptions now.
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