Anti-war generation watches its children go to war

MILWAUKEE - John Treslley shakes his head in awe when he thinks about his 20-year-old son driving a Hummer through the minefields of Iraq.

Back in 1977, when Treslley was that age, the notion of military duty never crossed his mind. The draft ended in 1973, and two years later, so did the Vietnam War.

"I was busy in those days playing football, drinking lots of beer and chasing women," says Treslley, a pilot and former game farm operator in Hayward, Wis.

All across America, thousands of parents like Treslley, baby boomers with no military experience of their own, are watching anxiously as their children head off to war. Most are proud. Some are angry, either at their children for taking on such a potentially dangerous mission or at the military for recruiting their sons and daughters. Nearly all say they are scared. For many, frankly, they just don't get it.

"You see a lot of fathers at these ceremonies who look pretty confused," says Terry Bellis, an instructor with the U.S. Marine's Fox Company with headquarters in Milwaukee. "They have this look in their eyes, like, `Wow. My kid is going to do that? Why would he want to do that?'''

When the parents of many of today's soldiers were that age, America was losing or had lost in Vietnam, an unpopular war. Protesters held huge rallies on college campuses, and thousands fled to Canada to avoid the draft. The military was largely scorned, says Lt. Col. Tim Donovan, 53, of the Wisconsin National Guard.

"People would flip us the bird when we'd walk down the street in our uniforms," he says. "You knew that they didn't respect you or what you did."

In Donovan's early years in the National Guard, in the 1960s, the classic generation gap was defined as fathers, many of whom had served in World War II, disgusted at the insolence of youth. Today, military recruiters say, the 18- and 19-year-olds who are signing up are much more trusting of the establishment, much more willing to be part of a team. The gap now, they say, tends to be the parents' lack of understanding of their children's more bellicose leanings.

While their parents may have shunned the status quo and thumbed their noses at the military when they were young, plenty of young men and women today seem eager to join the armed forces. Enlistments soared after the attack on America on Sept. 11, 2001, though the numbers are starting to slow down.

Jeramy Ringwolski, 18, joined the Marines in his senior year in high school, wanting to serve his country and see the world. He says his parents were skeptical at first.

"They didn't know if I knew what I was getting myself into," he says. Now in basic training in Mississippi, Ringwolski says he is excited about the possibility of being shipped out to Iraq.

He says his father, Darrin, who did not serve in the military, tells him all the time how proud he is.

Occasionally, someone will sneer or make a snide comment about how stupid the military is, he says. "Usually, that's from old people in their 40s and 50s," he says.

Last year, the Army exceeded its goal in recruiting more than 77,000. The Marines beat their goal of 36,773 by 21. But National Guard numbers were down 30 percent in the last few months of last year, a trend that is expected to continue and spread to other branches of the armed forces. Military recruiters say that's largely because of the war and worried parents.

"We're seeing a lot of objections by the parents," says Lt. Col. Tim Lawson, commander of recruiting and retention for the Wisconsin National Guard, which fell short of its goal of 1,300 by about 6 percent last year. "There is a war going on, and no one wants to sign a paper that makes them responsible for what can happen over there."

Jittery parents are making recruiting efforts much more difficult, says Lawson. They tend to hover over their children, peppering the recruiters with questions. Recruiters say they used to tailor their appeal to the recruits. But that has changed.

"Not only do we have to sell the kid, now we have to sell his parents, too," Lawson says. "That's two or three for the price of one."

The new federal law known as the No Child Left Behind Act requires public schools to turn the names and addresses of high school juniors and seniors over to military recruiters. This bothers some people, especially some parents who don't like the idea of recruiters encouraging their 16- and 17-year-olds to join the military. Groups such as the Quakers are sponsoring seminars on how to offer alternatives to military duty, such as joining faith-based volunteer corps.

"We want to make sure kids know all of their options," says Mark Helpsmeet of the Eau Claire Friends.

Michelle Ringwolski, 38, of Milwaukee, Jeramy's mother, had just gotten used to the idea of her son in the Marines when her daughter, Tiffany, a high school junior, announced that she plans to sign up for the U.S. Air Force's delayed entry program when she turns 17 in June.

"I'm proud as hell of her, but it is tough to take," Michelle Ringwolski said. "There is a war on. So, of course I'm freaking out."

The anxieties of the families have spiraled with last week's helicopter crash that killed 31 Marines and the recent increase in deadly attacks by insurgents as today's elections drew near.

"We can't hardly bear to watch the news," said John Treslley. They learned late Thursday that their son, John IV, better known as Fridge, was not one of the Marines who had been killed.

His wife, Cindy, 46, says she has been on edge since Fridge came home one summer day in 2002 to announce that he had signed up for eight years of service in the U.S. Marine Corps. Two weeks after his high school graduation in June 2003, Fridge went off to boot camp.

At first, Cindy Treslley says, she was angry at her son for joining the military and at her husband for signing the papers allowing him to do so.

"I couldn't even talk for several days," she says. "I was the mom who had the post-prom party at my house so I could watch and make sure that these guys were all safe."

On the night Fridge came home from boot camp, he and his mother stayed up and ironed clothes and made breakfast for the rest of the family.

After infantry school and working for nearly a year as a recruiter in northern Wisconsin, Fridge was deployed to Iraq on Sept. 14, 2004.

"I remember everything about that day, the way he looked, the way he smelled," says Cindy Treslley. "I remember staring at the shape of his head as we were driving to the airport and memorizing every little detail. I didn't want to forget, you know?"

He is an infantryman in southwest Iraq, the area known as "the Triangle of Death."

Now the Treslleys hold a nervous vigil in their home as candles flicker next to Fridge's picture, the stuffed clown that he got from his grandparents on the day he was born and a picture book of the World Trade Center attack on Sept. 11.

"I hold my breath every time I turn into the driveway down there," says John Treslley. "I honestly don't know what I'd do if I came home one day and found two Marines parked up here. That's how they tell you, you know. You don't get a call. They show up at your door."

Fridge lives in temporary quarters where there is no easy access to e-mail. He gets to call home on a satellite phone about every 10 days.

"I dream that I'm hugging him, and then I wake up, and he's not there," she says.

"It's just like the day he left," she says, smoothing down the comforter. "I'm waiting for him to come home."

Even parents who are familiar with military tradition say they find it hard to watch their sons and daughters prepare for war.

Meghan Phillips, 19, of Hustisford, Wis., says her father, Pat, a 30-year veteran of the Army Reserves, had a hard time when she enlisted in the Army National Guard. Phillips said she signed up when she was 17 years old after she was recruited by a friend who let her drive the Humvee around the school parking lot.

Meghan is well-versed in the ways of the military. Both of her parents were in the Army. Her oldest brother, Austin, was in the Air Force, and her other brother, Matt, is in the Army National Guard.

"Still, my dad wasn't too happy about it when I signed up," says Meghan, a film student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who tends bar at nights and on the weekends. "I'm Daddy's little girl, you know? He doesn't want me to get sent over to Iraq."

Pat Phillips, 48, says he trusts his daughter and respects her right to make choices as an adult.

"My only concern is that she is making the choice for the right reason, because she wants to go, not because I went and her brothers."

Pat Phillips, who returned from Afghanistan last year at this time, says it has been fascinating to see soldiers his children's ages and compare them with the men and women he served with at the beginning of his military career in 1974.

"We went in for something to do," he said. "These kids today, they are on a mission. I think they're more like their grandparents than their parents. They remind me of soldiers who went in right after Pearl Harbor. They are very directed, very clear in their focus and what their obligation is to their country. We had peace and love and all of that. These kids have Sept. 11. It did something to them."

Occasionally, someone will sneer or make a snide comment about how stupid the military is, he says. "Usually, that's from old people in their 40s and 50s," he says.

9-11 swept everything but the essentials away. To my understanding the X and Y generations have been been told either that they stand for nothing or are inquisitive. Having your country attacked tends to provide focus for your life. It tends to answer those hard questions. I do not serve, but I will defend my friends here at home from those that would detract from their honorable mission. Seems to me that it is the Ted Kennedy's, John Kerry's, Michael Moore's, Howard Dean's and Jane Fonda's out of step with their country.

BTW, I do realize not everyone was a part of the anti-war scene. We have a President that was not. Those that went against that movement helped to set events in motion that led to a conservative revolution. My father served honorably in Vietnam. Had there been a medium to challenge the MSM it might have been different.

>>I'm sick of my generation being called the "Anti-War" generation.<<

I agree. These people who call a whole generation good or bad have the intellect of Robert Byrd's white-hooded morons. There are good and bad in every generation and if one begins to believe that a whole generation is bad, there is little doubt which side of their own generation they belong.

Muleteam1

Well, I know that my parents at least were not anti-war. My dad became draft-eligible in 1969 but had a college deferment. By the time he graduated, the war was mostly over. That doesn't mean he was a draft dodger or in any way anti-military...one brother-in-law was an Army doctor in the Vietnam era and my mother's brothers were both Marines who served in Vietnam (multiple tours).

He has said that in retrospect he wishes he had done a hitch in the service since it seemed to be a defining experience for so many of his peers. At the time, he had the chance to go to college and took it. He and my mother finished school, got jobs, raised two kids, and did a damned good job. They weren't involved in any of the hippie or anti-war crap.

My father was bursting with pride a few months ago as he watched his only son, my brother, graduate from Coast Guard boot camp and go into active duty service.

GOP has it right. The question here is %. I'm afraid that there was indeed a very vocal large minority of that generation who were not only shirkers, but detestors....openly despising the military and those in it.

We realize that those who fought Nam were the same generation, and many existed who had no problem w/it, but there was an *awful* lot of "protest" from the same. Unlike anything before certainly, and not really since, either.

So that's why the appellations "anti-war" and other stereotypes like "hippie" and "drug-ridden self-indulgent" generation.

I don't disagree with you on much of what you say, but and it's a big but, institute a draft and watch how eager the current generation is to go to war. Remember there were more Americans in Vietnam then there are in the United States Army today. Don't ascribe the patriotism of the men and women in the armed forces to their entire generation until that generation is called on as a group to answer the call. Thus far they haven't been called.

About the draft - as I recall, WWII had drafts and there were few if any protests.

I know, different situation (US attacked vs just going in to clean up the Frenchie's commie mess). But it's not all about a draft.

I stand by the % of dissenters being the main reason for this (think of just how many protests there were for both Bushes' Iraqs; MSM tried to hi-lite them but they were few and not very exciting either, so few stories were even generated).

Any idiot who judges a 50yo as 1 of those "anti-war" idiots because of those latter idiots is just that, an idiot. I don't think many of us judge individuals unfairly based on their group. But we're not afraid to call groups what they are as a whole (or at least all too much).

BTW, I've doubted the patriotism of my own later gen myself. Certainly when you live in MD, it's hard to be convinced. (OOps, another group characterization - but believe me, way too much of MD IS liberal.)

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