Cutting to the Quick: The mother a soldier who died in Iraq talks about John Kerry

The Weekly Standard ^ | 10/29/04 | Stephen F. Hayes

[Pokey78]

Canton, Ohio
ON MAY 5, 2004, Peggy Buryj, got the worst news a mother can get. Her son, Jesse, had been killed in Iraq. Jesse was manning the turret of a Humvee at a checkpoint in Karbala, south of Baghdad, when he noticed a dump truck racing towards his vehicle. Despite warnings, the driver did not stop. Jesse fired more than 400 rounds at the truck, killing the driver. But the truck didn't stop. It rammed his Humvee, tipping it over. Jesse suffered massive internal injuries and later died on the operating table.

Jesse's funeral got significant media attention in Canton. The military told Mrs. Buryj (pronounced "boo-dee") that her son's action saved the lives of at least three soldiers. "My son was a big hero in these parts," she says. "Canton really turned out for my son's funeral."

Six weeks later, Peggy Buryj claims that she received a phone call from a representative of John Kerry's presidential campaign. The caller identified herself as "Linda" and asked Mrs. Buryj, a registered Democrat, if she would appear at a Canton rally for John Kerry. Buryj agreed, but with a condition. She wanted to ask Kerry one question: "Why did you vote against the $87 billion for support troops in Iraq?"

"And I wanted to ask him--because I never hear journalists ask him, or anybody ask him--what was his reasoning for voting down the money?"

Buryj understood that her request was politically sensitive. So she told the Kerry campaign that she was willing to ask Kerry in

private, before the event, or in a phone call. She promised that she would not go public with his answer. She even offered to sign a confidentiality agreement pledging that she would not talk to reporters about Kerry's answer.

"They were inviting me because of my son," she says. "You know, they were using me for their benefit, you know? Local hero's mother, you know?" Buryj notes that the Kerry campaign did not invite the Rameys, parents of Staff Sft. Richard Ramey, who died in Iraq February 8, 2004. "They were Republicans," she says. "I'm a Democrat."

Nevertheless, she wanted to attend the rally. "I wanted to go. I just wanted an answer to my question."

She never heard back from the campaign.

A month later, Buryj received a call from the Bush campaign. President Bush wanted to meet her, in private, along with the families of two other fallen soldiers from Stark County. There would be no reporters in the room. She was not asked if she supported the president.

Bush spoke to a rally of 5,000 at the Canton Memorial Civic Center on July 31. Afterwards, he met for 20 minutes with Buryj, the Rameys and the family of Sgt. Michael Barkey, who had been killed in Iraq on July 7. Buryj says she cried when she saw Bush. "He cried on my shoulder as much as I cried on his."

I called Peggy Buryj after reading about the episode in a letter to the editor published Friday in the Canton Repository. The letter was written by Bob Ackerman, the father of a soldier now in Iraq who has become a close friend of the Buryj family. I asked Buryj the obvious question: Why go public with this story now, so soon before the election. "I didn't go the press about it," she says. "Bob Ackerman asked me if I would mind if he told the story. I didn't mind." I have no way of independently verifying Buryj's story. The parents of fellow Canton-area soldiers support her account. But the Kerry campaign strongly disputes it--suggesting she is lying on behalf of President Bush. "There is no evidence anyone from the Kerry campaign ever called her," said Jennifer Palmieri. I asked Palmieri if she had knowledge of a woman named "Linda" from the Kerry-Edwards office in Canton. Her response was immediate: "There is no one with the campaign named Linda."

Buryj spoke in halting phrases as she tried to articulate why, exactly, she wanted to speak with Kerry. "Basically, because I'm struggling with . . . why would he? . . . To me it was . . . As a military mother . . . Why? Why? What good reason could he have for voting against that money? There is no reason in my mind for him to vote down that money. And I will never understand that."

I asked if Kerry could have said anything that would have helped her understand his vote.

"I don't know. Maybe, if he would have answered the question. He voted for the okay to go to war. And then he voted down the money. As a military mother, you don't know how that offends me. That just offends me to the quick. And he's running for president. He wants to be our leader. He wants to be commander-in-chief. I think that's a fair question. I don't expect to get special treatment. But they called me. They called

me wanting me to attend."

She continued: "When John Kerry says wrong war, wrong time wrong place--you don't know how that cuts me to the quick. That's like saying my son died for nothing. That to me is just a slap in the face. I talk to several military mothers, you don't know how many, and that hurts us. That hurts us."

Buryj is not angry at Kerry. It is possible, she speculates, that her request for an answer to her question never got beyond the Kerry campaign's Ohio staff. "In all fairness to John Kerry, it might not ever have gotten back to him." Nevertheless, she is disappointed.

And she's still waiting for an answer from the Kerry campaign.

"They have my number. They've called it before."

[PistolPaknMama]

So she told the Kerry campaign that she was willing to ask Kerry in private, before the event, or in a phone call. She promised that she would not go public with his answer. She even offered to sign a confidentiality agreement pledging that she would not talk to reporters about Kerry's answer.

They refuse to answer her question, and then they call her a liar. Man, there just aren't any more filthy words left to describe these Kerry people.

I agree! Been there done that. The poor woman only wanted a phone call? You're right, there just aren't enough filthy words. I can't imagine just blowing off someone who had sacrificed so much, can you? Very sad.