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