Mary Lyon, From The Left -- World News Trust
The woman stammered. She obviously knew she was still on the air and
had to maintain her composure. But it was clear to anyone's ear that
she was having a difficult time. Her voice clouded with emotion as she
struggled to tell the talk show host and his audience of her story, as
a mom whose son was in Afghanistan near the Pakistani border. She
hadn't heard from him in weeks. She had just written him an email --
"Son, I haven't heard from you in a long time. Are you okay?" And
amazingly, she was able to get through that recounting without crying.
I had a harder time. And hey, I have no horse in this race. I AM a mom,
however, so in one respect, I have thousands of horses and other
beloveds in it. Almost four thousand of them returning to me in long
neatly-wrapped, patriotically-covered boxes (because, as we all know
but still aren't allowed to see) the wrapping paper on these boxes is
always an American flag. We do know that the wrapping paper eventually
gets folded up in the finest military precision and handed to the
grieving survivor -- usually a widow or a mother -- as a consolation
prize. A party favor to take away from the big event. A lovely parting
gift. I'm sure the frantic mom on the radio was terrified at the
prospect of being one of those graveside mourners. Wowee -- she'd have a
front-row seat, too. My heart could only sob for her in her nightmarish
uncertainty.
But you won't see much of this examined in the media, even while
talking heads are talking about it on this Iraq War anniversary day.
The war coverage, and its true cost, have been thoughtfully sanitized
for your protection. And it's still going on that way, even while
public opposition to the war has grown substantially. I can remember
seeing exactly ONE such funeral. It was early-on. Maybe somebody at the
TV station or the parent network hadn't gotten the memo yet.
The woman there was photographed from the side -- in a medium shot.
Although we were never offered a scene-setting wide shot, we could
assume she was seated at a graveside service. Front row center. A
serviceman in crisply perfect dress uniform with decorated chest and
spotless white gloves bent down and handed her a folded flag. The
camera closed in for a tight shot as she accepted it tenderly and then
slowly collapsed over it. Even though she'd bent all the way forward at
the waist to cradle it in her lap, you could still see her face in
profile. It was swolen and red, the nose enlarged, the eyes bulging
with overflowing tears. You could tell from the way her upper body
heaved that she was fighting for air between sobs. Her son Branden
Oberleitner was being laid to rest before her eyes, just a few feet
away. He was 20, from Worthington, Ohio, a PFC with Company B, 2nd
Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne
Division. He'd been killed in grenade fire in Fallujah, June 5th, 2003.
As his mother ached and we watched her heart break on camera on the
evening news, the general sentiment about the war throughout the
country was still in resounding support. A relative few of us grieved
that day with Branden's mother, sharing her anguish, thinking about the
sacrifice that never should have been. Five years later, he's on page 5: CNN
We're weary as a nation now. It's been five full years of this stupid,
wasteful, ill-conceived, poorly-managed, deception-clad war, and we can
count almost four-thousand Branden Oberleitners. At least, we think so.
We're still never allowed to see that part of it. The best we get are
newsreels of John McCain on a sunny tour of Iraq, confusing which enemy
segment is where, and unable to revisit that nice open-air market this
time (too dangerous, he was told). There's scarcely even any coverage
of the continuing death toll in the media anymore. That doesn't mean it
doesn't still happen. Some of us are hoping the escalation, the
so-called surge, in Iraq is working to validate their longterm
faith-based beliefs that things are better over there now because of
what we did. Besides, our president says it's even sort of romantic --
fighting over there. He also once said that the moment the Iraqi people
wanted us to leave, that's what we'd do. At this war anniversary,
majorities of Iraqis tell pollsters that is what they want. General
William Odom says funding for the occupation should be stopped (and
Bush and Cheney impeached). And a former Iraqi government figure told a
British newspaper earlier this week that life overall was better under
Saddam Hussein.
We will soon be marking the four-thousandth American casualty from this
war we were lied into waging. It will only take a few days before we're
there. Ask Dick Cheney about the consistently large numbers of us who
want America out of there and now believe the war wasn't worth it, and
his generous, considerate response is -- "so?" Who cares, I guess, how
many more Branden Oberleitners there will be? I never knew Branden
Oberleitner, but I feel almost as though I did. Even if Cheney doesn't
care so much, I mourn Branden's loss as a mom, and pray for continued
comfort for his mother. And I resolve not to stay silent about the war
or my adamant, ongoing opposition to it.
If you REALLY care about our troops, whether you want them out of that
dead-end hell hole over there or not, then support them. As we limp
into Year Six, listen to their families. Listen to those mothers'
voices on the air -- who want nothing more than to hear from their
precious son or daughter -- missing and/or incommunicado on the front
lines. That's the only clear picture anyone among the rest of us will
get, to illuminate even a small part of their sacrifice. And honor
those who DO want this ended, and ALL our loved ones back in our arms
here at home.
www.militaryfamilies4peace.org
www.mfso.org
***
Mary Lyon
is a veteran broadcaster and five-time Golden Mike Award winner, who
has anchored, reported, and written for the Associated Press Radio
Network, NBC Radio "The Source," and many Los Angeles-area stations
including KRTH-FM/AM, KLOS-FM, KFWB-AM, and KTLA-TV, and occasional
media analyst for ABC Radio News. She began her career as a liberal
activist with the Student Coalition for Humphrey/Muskie in 1968, and
helped spearhead a regional campaign, The Power 18," to win the right
to vote for 18-year-olds. She remains an advocate for liberal causes,
responsibility and accountability in media, environmental education and
support of the arts for children, and green living. In addition to
OpEdNews, Mary writes for Democrats.us, World News Trust, and
WeDemocrats.org's "We! The People" webzine. Mary is also a parenting
expert, having written and llustrated the book "The Frazzled Working
Woman's Practical Guide to Motherhood.