Posted on 03/22/2006 6:02:51 PM PST by caseinpoint
Tracy 's support for war may be waning
Phil Hayworth
Tracy Press
Have the deaths of five Tracy servicemen softened public support here for the war in Iraq?
It’s difficult to tell. Most of Tracy’s 80,000 residents are transplants from somewhere else, and their sentiments about the war seem as amorphous as Tracy’s ever-changing demographics.
The one stark fact is that Tracy has lost more servicemen per capita than any city in California: 6.25 per 100,000.
“My feeling is that the people who cheered and yelled when the thing first started are not as gung ho as they once were,” said John Treantos, a retired U.S. Marine and member of the American Legion Post 172.
Treantos was one of a handful of people recently interviewed for a Sunday San Jose Mercury News article, titled “A town’s sacrifice, a nation’s dilemma.”
The “town” was Tracy and the “dilemma” was the war in Iraq. The publication was timed to coincide with the third anniversary of the start of the war. Last weekend, people in cities around the country rallied to support — and protest — the war.
But neither happened in Tracy.
Instead, folks like Treantos readied themselves for the Monday funeral of Lance Cpl. Bunny Long, 22, a Modesto Marine who died March 10 in Iraq from a suicide bombing.
Treantos says he supports the troops, but he’s tired of the killing, particularly because so much of it comes at the hands of stateless insurgents on suicide missions.
“I wish we could just get out of there,” he said. “We’ve got the tail of the wildcat and we can’t let it go.”
Some of the deepest and most unwavering support for President Bush’s mission comes from those who’ve lost the most.
Julia Conover lost her son, Marine Lance Cpl. Brandon Dewey, to a suicide bomber in Iraq exactly two months ago to the day Monday. She, too, attended the Modesto funeral of Lance Cpl. Long. She’s an active member of the Gold Star families group and plans to travel to Iraq soon to visit the land she said Brandon heroically fought to liberate.
San Jose reporters spoke with her, she said, but didn’t use her comments.
“They didn’t like what I had to say,” she figured. “They said that because I had just lost my son, that I couldn’t be impartial about my feelings toward the war.”
While the pain of her son’s Jan. 20 death is still sharp, she’s convinced that there are good reasons for the war and that her son died for a noble cause. She still has a daughter in the U.S. Navy.
Connie Armellino’s son, Corey, returned healthy late last year from a stint with the U.S. Army in Iraq. She was in a barbershop in town recently when a policeman said that she should be proud of her son.
“I am proud,” she said. “But in the back of my mind I’m thinking, ‘The war is such a big waste.’ I didn’t argue the point with him.”
Marilyn Chorley, founder of Tracy’s Military Moms, a support group for women with children in the service, has heard both sides. She said her group of about 40 women exists to support mothers with children in the service, whether or not they are in Iraq. And they support the troops, she said, regardless of personal feelings about the war.
“People keep asking me about the numbers,” she said. “I don’t like the number thing. Nobody likes war, but I support what they’re doing.”
Chorley’s son, Mike, is in Iraq with the Army. Mike’s wife, Andrea, is in the Army in Iraq as well. Mike just re-enlisted in January and will probably remain in Iraq, she said.
“I wondered what he was thinking,” she said about her son. “He loves what he’s doing. I wouldn’t have talked him out of it. But it’s still scary.”
Armellino, who moved to Tracy from upstate New York five years ago, is unapologetic for her anti-war feelings, but she understands supporters of the war.
“You can’t think what your son or daughter is doing is wrong,” she said.
While Tracy’s five military deaths put it at the top of the death list for Northern California towns, it remains fertile ground for military recruiters.
Chorley figures there are at least 200 active-duty servicemen and women from Tracy.
Recruits from Tracy represent six of the 70-signed contracts registered to date since October by the Army’s San Joaquin recruiting company, which has stations from Turlock to Lodi and Sonora to Tracy.
From October 1, 2004, to Sept. 30, 2005, the company registered 135 signed contracts, 10 of which were from Tracy — as many as were from the much-larger East Bay city of Alameda.
Meanwhile, San Joaquin County produced 46 Marine recruits so far this year — nearly half of the 103 recruited last year.
It is sung by Derek Clark whom I had the pleasure of meeting at this Event in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago March 11.
Lance Cpl. Dewey's Mother Julia Conover is a brave woman to be planning to go to Iraq soon. God Bless her and all other Gold Star Families and Military Families.
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