Gold Star Families

My heart has been heavy all day, just from the after effects of the week in DC. The image that sticks in my mind more than any other is the stretch limos driving by (endlessly, it seemed) as the names of the dead Americans and dead Iraqi were read on the steps of the National City Christian Church. I received a link to the following article from one of the mothers who belongs to the Gold Star Families, and this article sums up what I also have as a lasting reminder of the inauguration. Here is a bit of the article from the LA Times:

Mothers Mourn as the Elite Party On - by Steve Lopez

"The first mom I spoke to by phone Thursday morning was Celeste Zappala, whose sons used to hang around with my boys now and then in Philadelphia. Zappala was in Washington for President Bush's inaugural, demonstrating against the war that took her eldest boy. "I'm at Foundry United Methodist Church, where I just spoke about the cost of war," said Zappala, who carried a poster-size photo of her son, Sherwood Baker. Baker, a 30-year-old National Guardsman, was killed April 26 last year while searching for weapons of mass destruction. Baker, a husband and father, had gone to Iraq with a walkie-talkie and navigational device his family bought for him because they were not provided by the military."

And a bit on Cindy, who sent me the link:

"My son was regular Army, enlisted," said Sheehan, a full-time mom married to a hardware salesman. "We didn't want him to enlist, but he was 21 and it was something he wanted to do — to serve his country. He was always into service as an Eagle Scout, an altar boy." And yet Casey, her son, was against this war. "He didn't think it was a just war…. He didn't see Iraq as an imminent threat to the United States … but he felt he had a duty and a loyalty to his buddies. He told me he had to support his buddies by doing this job, and he told me, 'Mom, the sooner I go, the sooner I'll be home.' "

here's a link to the full article:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez21jan21,0,934743.column?coll=la-home-utilities