Anti-war woman's trip to see son serving in Iraq has surprises for both

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | April 3, 2004 | Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer

[Cincinatus' Wife]

'Hey, Nick. Your mom's here.' Anti-war Alameda woman's trip to see son serving in Iraq has surprises for both

........Galleymore was more political as a young mother, taking her young children on protest marches during the Iran-Contra controversy of the mid- 1980s. Her children hung out with the progressive thinkers she met while working for a food policy organization. But Galleymore's activism faded as her children entered adolescence, her time eaten up by the demands of single motherhood.

And somewhere along the line, her children didn't absorb her political perspective.

After Nick finished his third year at San Francisco State University and had been accepted for transfer to UC Berkeley, he announced that he had joined the Army.

"It was a total surprise," Galleymore said. "It wasn't like he needed money for college. He was already three years in, so that doesn't hold water."

She dismissed Nick's volunteering as a phase; it wasn't. Her son not only wanted to be in the Army, he wanted to be in an elite unit. He passed up completing his college degree and left for boot camp on Independence Day weekend, 1999.

Galleymore still doesn't know exactly why. They could never fully discuss it.

In January 2003, Nick was shipped to Afghanistan. He had become an Army Ranger, a jump master for paratroopers and a sniper. He was in the thick of the action. Last Dec. 19, his 26th birthday, Nick called to say he was headed to Iraq. At that point, with U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians being killed almost daily, Galleymore began to panic. She couldn't sleep at night, "because I was thinking, 'My kid is going to get killed for something I don't believe in, and I don't think he knows what he's getting into.' "

She began talking with other military mothers, hoping to get their perspectives on how to cope. But many knew little about what was going on in Iraq. Frustrating her effort to learn more about Nick was that she felt the news reporting from the front lines was giving an overly rosy picture of the U. S. occupation.

At wit's end, she decided that the only way to calm her fears was to go to Iraq. She got in touch with Code Pink, which has led about a dozen parents to Iraq over the past few months. After holding a fund-raiser, which netted half of the trip's $2,200 cost, she left for Iraq on Jan. 24. ................

[Cincinatus' Wife]

***But reactions to her trip have been mixed -- especially after she began writing a Weblog and essays that have spoken frankly about shootings of Iraqi civilians, overcrowded hospitals and young GIs who may be suffering emotionally and physically. Some longtime friends, even a few who contributed to her Iraq trip fund-raiser, have stopped talking to her. She doesn't know why. ***

[Support Free Republic]

Rank	Location	Receipts	Donors/Avg		Freepers/Avg		Monthlies
40	Panama	25.00	1	25.00

Thanks for donating to Free Republic!

Move your locale up the leaderboard!

[Condor51]

Oh boy, first Ranger School, then Sniper School, then "hey Nick your mom's here"! Man do I feel for Nick, he's gonna get some ribbing.

Note to Nick -- GOOD HUNTING!

[independentmind]

In one essay, Galleymore asked for others to appreciate that the soldiers are in a dilemma, "caught in a military culture that encourages the numbing of most emotions but anger. Whip up enough anger in young men emotionally isolated, denied friends, family, lovers, even civilians clothes, physically exhaust them, nourish them inadequately, expose them to extreme temperatures and violent behavior, confine them to base and portray everyone else as murderous and you create impossible stress."

Nick told his mother that wasn't his experience. She doesn't know how they'll get along when he returns.

It sounds like Galleymore's son is more of an adult than she is. How embarassing.

[EllaMinnow]

I just read the whole article, even before I've had my coffee.

I am stunned by her lack of understanding towards her son. My son is about the same age as hers, and even when he and I have huge disagreements, we still understand each other.

In her complete self-absorption, she has embarrassed her son and revealed her own ignorance.

I'm pinging my son to this, because I really want to get his reaction.

[White Eagle]

Somebody needs to run a fundraiser to buy this woman a clue. She didn't get it then, and she doesn't know why now. "All my friends have changed, but I'm still the same..."

[kcvl]

War separates mothers of soldiers
By Josh Richman, STAFF WRITER

War measures the distances between us.

Susan Galleymore of Alameda is about 7,500 miles distant from her son, Nick, a 26-year-old paratrooper with the Army's 82nd Airborne Division stationed somewhere in the Sunni Triangle north of Baghdad.

Lifelong San Lorenzo resident Peggy Porter, now of Galt, is 7,723 miles from her son, Matt, a 22-year-old senior airman on the Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait, 39 miles from the Iraqi border.

And these two women are far more distant from each other than the 64 miles between their homes: Galleymore is a vocal anti-war activist, while Porter supports President Bush and the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

Their distance is the vast distance between those who will hit the streets today and Saturday to protest the war's first anniversary, and those who will watch the protests with disinterest or disdain.



It is the distance between those who will spend today commemorating the launch of an unjust war for empire and oil, and those who will spend it commemorating the launch of a just war for freedom and democracy.

It could be the distance between red and blue on the electoral map this November, a choice already in the wind blowing past all the flags and protest banners being waved today.

Galleymore visited Nick in Iraq last month -- perhaps every mother's dream, a few precious minutes with a son for whose safety she fears each day. But it also was a nightmare of war horrors for this peace activist, a tour of begging children on crutches and filthy hospitals and wailing women grieving over slain families.

So even when physically together, an unspoken distance still yawned between Galleymore and Nick, a silent strain on their relationship created by his choice to join the Army and his dedication to his work in Iraq. "We were just mother and kid, two adults together -- we didn't go into any ideological differences."

Porter has no such ideological differences with Matt. He's the third of her children to go to Iraq -- two older sons served in the first Gulf War -- and she just spoke with him this week for the first time since Christmas. The 10-minute call reminded her of the physical distance between them, and the closeness of their bond.

"I want my son home and everybody's child home, but at the same time I think were doing the right thing -- I think it's important and we should be there until it's done," Porter said, adding her son told her, "'Mom, I'm finally doing something that matters.'"

"That was comfort to me... These people have lived this horrible life and we're trying to better it for them. I'm very proud of my son.

"But I didn't want him to hang up."

Galleymore said Thursday she went to Iraq not only to close the distance between her and Nick, but between her and Iraqi mothers. She's researching a book about war's effects on mothers and children; she's logging her effort at www.motherspeak.org "I really do feel if we're going to have a peaceful world, at some point we need to be able to talk to one another."

As a South African native who has lived in Israel, Galleymore feels she's no stranger to war's horrors, yet she was stunned by a story told by the first Iraqi mother she interviewed. Anwar Kadhun Jeward said her husband, her 18-year-old son, her 14-year-old and 8-year-old daughters were cut down before her eyes by a hail of random gunfire from U.S. troops one night last summer. Her 10-year-old daughter, unwounded, played dead as a female soldier took her earrings and left her lying in the street, Jeward claimed.

"It was a shock. Some of the younger women in our group were totally traumatized by this story, they had no idea things like that could happen," Galleymore said.

Of course, truth is fluid in war, be it Iraqi truth or American truth.

Galleymore said her son -- whom she found after what could've been a wild-goose chase got lucky, and after a nervous, rifle-toting soldier looked past the hijaab she wore to notice her U.S. passport -- told her he hasn't been involved in patrols, arrests and ambushes in local towns, instead mostly doing guard duty.

Yet she acknowledges "it's perfectly possible my son has been out there doing these things... and even if he hasn't, the other troops have.

"War creates an environment where the troops feel free to do things like that... an environment that creates a devil-may-care attitude. If you create an environment where anything goes, then anything will go," she said.

"These troops will come back and they'll remember what they did forever... These guys are so sweet when you get them one-on-one, but in the groups when they're doing their jobs, they're scary as hell."

Porter on Thursday spoke of the room she keeps in her new home as a shrine to her sons' service, lined with photos and clippings, a red-white-and-blue spread on the bed, military-uniformed Beanie Babies and the like.

Matt told her this week he still doesn't know when he'll be coming home from his tour with the Air Force's 386th Expeditionary Air Control Squadron. "He's been doing a lot of missions in Baghdad and he can't tell me what that means. He sounds very worn out and tired -- he's healthy and everything, but he sounds worn out."

"As soon as I heard his voice, I started crying. And when I started crying, he started crying," Porter said. "But I still feel that we need to be there. It's bigger than just us and individual families. That's a whole country that has gone through stuff (under Saddam Hussein) we can't even imagine here in America, and I believe we need to be there until the job is done."

Galleymore said she'll be in San Francisco's Justin Herman Plaza at 7 a.m. today as people gather to engage in nonviolent direct action against the war and corporations they say are profiting from it. Then she'll be at an 11 a.m. rally at Oakland's federal building, where protesters will mourn more than 10,000 Iraqi civilians and more than 500 U.S. troops killed so far.

"If we don't turn the tide of this war, it will not be through lack of trying and working hard over time," she said.

Porter said her eldest son, Bobby, and his wife and daughters will visit her today. "They keep close tabs on me during times like something big happening in Iraq, and anniversaries of the war starting, or of Matt going in the service or Matt going 'over there.' They are my morale boosters."

"I will be working on the scrapbook I am keeping for Matt. I will be talking with his wife, Aleisha. And I will be in prayer for my son and all the sons and daughters still over there."

Friday, March 19, 2004


http://www.motherspeak.org

[rabidralph]

Yikes, if I was Nick, I would make sure I got stationed on base if I ever returned stateside to my home town. His mother is a nut.

[kcvl]

Susan tracks Nick down on a base near Baghdad, February 1, 2004

[Lee'sGhost]

Haven't seen you on "Survivor" lately.

What does your son do?

[I still care]

Her parting words were, "Don't do anything you'll be ashamed of in the future."

Sounds like she is from the John F'n Kerry school of how a GI behaves, even when her son told her she is wrong.

Notice the article doesn't give his response. I wonder what he said back to her. Mom, you're talking crazy? Mom, you've been listening to the antiwar kooks too long? Maybe just, "Yeah, Mom" with a sigh. Poor guy. Can you imagine his friends, "Hey man, your mom is nuts"

The heading said she learned something. Doesn't sound like it to me.

[AmericanMade1776]

God Bless You NICK.... You are a Saint!

[EllaMinnow]

I'm still a "Survivor" fan, but I'm also an "Apprentice" fan, so I'm spending my Thursdays in the TV room, and reading the thread on Fridays.

My son is about to graduate from law school at UGA. He'll be a prosecutor somewhere in Georgia. He's been interning as a prosecutor for 2 semesters, and has helped lock up a few bad guys.

He became a freeper last week. (YAY!)

[Hardastarboard]

God, I love your tag line.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

In a grassroots movement, moms of all political persuasions organize to oust Bush***"I looked around the table at my satin-cheeked boys - I mean, not one of them shaves yet - and saying I was damned if I was going to send any of them to Iraq.

"I think I actually cursed.

"Anyway, Theo, the 13-year- old says, 'Well, Mom. What are you going to do about it?'"***

Jacoby: What has gone right in Iraq***WITH ALL the news coming out of the Middle East, here is a detail you might have missed: A few weeks ago, the United Nations shut down the Ashrafi refugee camp in southwestern Iran. For years Ashrafi had been the largest facility in the world housing displaced Iraqis, tens of thousands of whom had been driven from their homes by Saddam Hussein's brutality. But with Saddam behind bars and his regime crushed, Iraqi exiles have been flocking home. By mid-February the camp had literally emptied out. Now, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees reports, "nothing remains of Ashrafi but rubble and a few stones."***

Despite fear, soldier believed*** "The bottom line is that he felt it was his duty to give back to his country, but God called him home," said his father.***

[NYpeanut]

"The only thing I told him was, 'Don't do anything in Iraq that you'll be ashamed of in the future,' " Galleymore said.

The sheer arrogance of this idiot's words to her son belies her stated purpose for the visit. In her pea-sized leftist head, she thinks she's in an Oliver Stone movie.

The proper answer to this would have been "FU, mommy."

[Tatze]

Anyone else get the John Kerry banner ad on SFGate site? Do you think they would even accept a Bush banner ad?

[biggerten]

begin quote

---

In January 2003, Nick was shipped to Afghanistan. He had become an Army Ranger, a jump master for paratroopers and a sniper. He was in the thick of the action. Last Dec. 19, his 26th birthday, Nick called to say he was headed to Iraq. At that point, with U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians being killed almost daily, Galleymore began to panic. She couldn't sleep at night, "because I was thinking, 'My kid is going to get killed for something I don't believe in, and I don't think he knows what he's getting into.'

---

end quote

Call me an optimist, but I figure a 26 year old, an Army Ranger, a jump master/sniper might know a thing or two about what he's getting into. Mama should realize that her little boy is now a man, a man's man. She should be proud and have confidence in such a son. I could ony hope for sons were like him.

Oh well. Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys.

[raybbr]

From her blog: It pleased me that my visit to my son was taken as a normal state of affairs, nothing odd, nothing suspicious, nothing oedipal about it...just a mom visiting her boy.

Apparently it's on her mind.

C'mon you other moms, get over there and visit your kids. Maybe we can get so many moms over there that we'll bog down the process...

What do you say about someone who would compromise the security of her own son by going over there and "bogging down" the process?

Last days in Baghdad....
Here are some saying floating around the city:
George Bush is Saddam's brother....
Saddam is Bush's pupil....
Saddam good, Bush bad...
Same donkey, different blanket.

No suprise there that she would focus on the negative.

This is really pathetic.