Posted on 04/14/2003 8:23:37 AM PDT by Incorrigible
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AMERICAN IDENTITY
With the Iraq War, a New Generation of Gold Star MothersBY DELIA M. RIOS |
WASHINGTON -- As Dorothy Oxendine knows, the most dreaded words a parent can hear are "We regret to inform you ..."
She lost her only son, Pfc. Willie F. Oxendine III, to a land mine in Vietnam on May 30, 1968. His death at age 21 made her a Gold Star Mother -- an honorific no woman wants, and one that, with the war in Iraq, takes on a new generation of meaning.
The idea, dating to World War I, is that a gold star -- rather than the traditional black mourning -- should signify a son or daughter who has died in military service to the nation, honoring the fallen for giving "the last full measure of devotion."
There was a time when the blue and gold star banners displayed in the windows of homes across the country needed no explanation. Each blue star, representing one service member, was an emblem of pride and hopeful expectations of a joyful homecoming.
Now, with tens of thousands of U.S. troops deployed in the Persian Gulf region and new tallies of war dead, the American Gold Star Mothers' aging and dwindling membership is gaining new -- but not welcome -- strength.
"There's a lot of knocks on the door right now," said Peter Allegretta, vice chair of New York's Putnam County Joint Veterans Council.
Every year since 1936, the president, at the direction of Congress, has proclaimed the last Sunday in September as Gold Star Mother's Day. President Bush signed his first proclamation 17 days after the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon, and his second as the country braced for possible war with Iraq. Already, the Gold Star Mother roster reflected losses in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Beirut, Grenada, Panama, the Persian Gulf, Somalia and Bosnia.
But the symbolism of the blue and gold stars -- so familiar during the two world wars -- has faded. As many as 22,000 women belonged to the American Gold Star Mothers, the national organization of which Oxendine is president, when World War II ended in 1945.
An era has quietly passed along with women like Winifred F. Lancy, who died at 102 in Plantation, Fla., the November after the terrorist attacks. She was believed to have been the oldest active Gold Star Mother. Her son, Norman, 19, was shot down over Germany on Aug. 4, 1944, two months after D-Day.
Lancy had the consolation, as her grandson Robert Quinn put it, of knowing that her son perished in a good cause. At the site dedication for the World War II Memorial under construction in Washington -- where a field of gold stars will represent those who died -- she was seated next to President Bill Clinton and actor Tom Hanks, who starred in Steven Spielberg's World War II film "Saving Private Ryan."
But the pain never subsided. "She couldn't think of this or speak of this without being brought to tears," Quinn said.
Now that American men and women are again in harm's way, the House of Representatives wants to revive the blue and gold star tradition. On Tuesday, voting 418-0, it passed a resolution authored by Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., to encourage their display.
From the floor, Shadegg invoked what has become a contemporary image of the Gold Star Mother -- Spielberg's fictional Mrs. Ryan. She is also the model for a bronze statue commissioned by the Putnam County veterans for a park in Carmel, N.Y., which has the blessing of the national Gold Star Mothers.
The scene is 1944 on a rural American porch. Mrs. Ryan, the mother of four servicemen, crumples under the weight of sudden grief at the sight of the military officer and chaplain who have arrived with the news that three of her boys are dead, killed in action overseas.
Four blue service stars, one for each son, hang in the kitchen window.
The movie required an extraordinary loss to support the plot line, but it was not without precedent. The five Sullivan brothers were aboard the USS Juneau when it sank during the Battle of Guadalcanal -- even in her grief, their mother endorsed naming a destroyer "The Sullivans."
"Such acts of fate and fortitude in the face of tragedy convince me of the indomitable spirit and will of our people," President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote her.
The September after the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the first President Bush said in his proclamation that the Gold Star Mothers "shared in the sacrifices of their children, and they deserve a commensurate portion of our respect and thanks."
The first time Oxendine remembers hearing the term Gold Star Mother, she was a child listening to her family's player piano. She can recite the words to the 1926 song even now, at nearly 77 -- "I saw Gold Star Mothers, sisters and brothers/What a sacrifice they made/I saw one-legged pals coming home to their gals/In my dream of the Big Parade."
It was President Woodrow Wilson who endorsed the idea in 1918 that American women wear "a gilt star" on black armbands to symbolize family members killed in the first world war. At news of a death, a gold star was superimposed over the blue service star hung in the home -- and the term Gold Star Mother took hold.
The national organization was founded in 1928 by one of those mothers, Grace Darling Seibold, whose son, George, volunteered when America entered the war in 1917. His effects were forwarded to her on Christmas Eve 1918 with no word of his fate.
She volunteered in the hospitals hoping she might find him among the returning wounded. But finally word came that he'd been killed in aerial combat over France. From her example came the Gold Star Mothers' devotion to serving veterans, particularly those in hospitals.
In 1942, Oxendine was in high school and all too aware of the empty desks of classmates who had gone off to fight in Europe and the Pacific.
By May 30, 1968, she was 41 and her son, Willie, a Marine, was on a reconnaissance patrol near Da Nang. He was killed when the man in the lead stepped on a land mine. Oxendine was alone at her Long Island home when they came to tell her the news -- on June 6, 1968, the day, she will tell you, that Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated.
"I didn't even cry," she remembers. "I just backed up and backed up into the house, and I just sat down. The officers were standing at attention.
"I can hear them right now."
When Emogene Cupp of Alexandria, Va., joined the Gold Star Mothers national organization at 48, she was one of the young ones.
Cupp became the second Vietnam mother to serve as national president. Her son, U.S. Army Cpl. Robert William Cupp of the 196th Light Infantry Brigade, was buried on his 21st birthday -- June 17, 1968.
By 1995, when Judith Young became active in her New Jersey chapter, she was the youngest -- the old guard was by then made up of Vietnam mothers. They still comprise the largest number of members.
"I guess the next generation is more or less the terrorist type casualties," said Young, whose son, Sgt. Jeffrey D. Young, was killed in the Beirut bombing of the Marine barracks on Oct. 23, 1983. He was 22.
As the war in Iraq continues, the Gold Star Mothers can only keep watch, kept company by the memories of their own losses.
"I pray that the war will be over soon," said Oxendine. "And that we won't have too many blue stars turn to gold."
(For information on ordering blue and gold star banners, see the American Legion Web site at www.legion.org; the American Gold Star Mothers Web site is at www.goldstarmoms.com.)
Not for commercial use. For educational and discussion purposes only.
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Fallen soldiers Six pairs of boots, weapons, helmets and night-vision goggles -- representing the six crewmembers killed in the crash of a U.S. Army Blackhawk helilcopter -- are displayed in a hangar at the Baghdad airport during a memorial service on April 12. The cause of the accident is still under investigation, but U.S.commanders have said enemy fire was not believed to have brought down the aircraft. |
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| Sat Apr 12, 6:10 PM ET |
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Walter Scholl, a Vietnam War veteran, left, with his wife Nancy, salute at the casket of Army Sgt. George E. Buggs, prior to the funeral, Saturday, April 12, 2003, in Barnwell, S.C. Buggs, 31, was killed when Iraqi troops ambushed his convoy last month near the southern city of Nasiriyah, Iraq (news - web sites). (AP Photo/Lou Krasky) |
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| Fri Apr 11,11:36 PM ET |
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Simona Garibay receives a U.S. flag from Maj. Brian Dolan during funeral services for her son, Cpl. Jose Angel Garibay, at Riverside National Cemetery, April 11, 2003. Cpl. Garibay, who was awarded posthumous citizenship, was buried Friday with full military honors. He was also named honorary Costa Mesa policeman after Chief Dave Snowden learned Garibay hoped to become a police officer after completing his military duties. Cpl. Garibay, a native of Mexico, was killed March 23 near Nasiriyah, Iraq (news - web sites). REUTERS/Rose Palmisano-Orange County Register NO SALES, NO ARCHIVE, NO MAGS |
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| Fri Apr 11, 4:02 PM ET |
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Joan Curtin (C) cries as an unidentified man holds the flag for her son Army Cpl. Michael E. Curtin, at his funeral in Howell Township, New Jersey, April 11, 2003. Curtin, 23, died along with three other soldiers from his unit of the Third Infantry Division in the March 29 suicide bombing at a military checkpoint. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton |
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| Fri Apr 11, 3:23 PM ET |
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Amaryllis Hernandez, second from right, the mother of U.S. Marine Cpl. Robert Marcus Rodriguez, is aided with smelling salts at the funeral of her son at the Blessed Sacrament Memorial Church in Brooklyn Friday April 11, 2003. Cpl. Rodriguez was remembered Friday as a 'son of New York' who died in Iraq (news - web sites) . (AP Photo/Radcliffe Roye) |
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There is a water goblet half full, a plate with a spoonful of salt in the middle, a red rosebud off to the side and two small flags -- one American and one black-and-white for all of the prisoners of war and missing in action.
It's an honor table, a long Navy tradition and, at a moment when American troops are still in enemy hands, a place worth spending a little time looking at again.
The table is set for one to remember those absent. It's small -- could really only seat one -- to represent the fragility of the prisoner against his captor.
The rose is red to symbolize the blood shed for freedom. And the water to show that there is still thirst for that freedom.
Salt signifies their pain, lest this Navy forget. The china: bone white, to capture the purity of their mission.
"The place we sit for them is a special place," a display card reads. "As is the place we hold for them in our hearts, our minds and our Navy."
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| Mon Apr 7, 6:00 PM ET |
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Ellijah Mitchell stands in front of the flag-draped casket of his stepfather, Army Spc. Jamaal Rashard Addison, following a funeral service in Conyers, Ga., Monday, April 7, 2003. Addison was killed in an ambush attack on the 507th Maintenance Company in central Iraq (news - web sites) on March 23. (AP Photo/John Bazemore) |
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