thedrifter
03-09-07, 11:26 AM
Johnson: Marine mom protests as son trains for Iraq
March 9, 2007
Rocky Mountain News
It has been nearly a year since Pamela Osborne's only child, Daniel, now 20, enlisted in the Marines, only days after graduating from high school.
She respected her son's decision, given his reasons for wanting to join - the honor, discipline and dignity that comes with being a Marine, the money he would be eligible to receive for college after he completed his service.
"He just always wanted to be a Marine," Pamela Osborne, 52, said.
It is a curious thing to her still, she said, given her background and the way she had raised him. After all, she, for years, had carried him on her back during multiple protest rallies against everything from apartheid to you-name-it.
"I guess I raised him not very well to be a peace activist," she said.
"I am a practicing Buddhist who was raised in a Jewish family where I was taught that if you did not fight injustice and speak out against it, you condoned it."
The grandest irony, she says, is here she is, her only son a Marine scheduled to ship out for Iraq in July, and she is a founder of the Colorado chapter of Military Families Speak Out, an anti-war group based in Denver.
"Our group speaks out for our young sons and daughters who have no voice," Pamela Osborne said.
"We are calling for the de-funding of the war, to bring the troops home now and to take care of them when they get home."
I have lost count of the number of soldiers' mothers I have spoken with over the past four years. None has been more passionate - for or against the war - than Pamela Osborne.
She was an outspoken critic of the war long before Daniel enlisted. She marched with Cindy Sheehan in Washington, D.C., two years ago, an experience that so moved her she started the Denver chapter immediately after returning home.
At first, it was just she and two other women, both with Marine sons serving in Iraq. The Denver chapter now has more than 20 members, she said.
"Most are dealing with the day-to-day stress of their children being in Iraq," Pamela Osborne said.
"We often call each other in the middle of night to give emotional support. We cry a lot.
"Mostly we try to listen to the media and try to educate people who hear only the rhetoric about what is really going on."
When Danny enlisted, she held her tongue. And then the calls from her son began arriving.
He'd made it through boot camp and specialized training on a mortar crew when his new orders arrived late last year.
The Marines, he was told, no longer needed mortar men in Iraq. Rather, he would now be assigned as a scout for improvised explosive devices, the No. 1 killer of U.S. troops in the war.
"He was told he probably will die, that the casualty rate was 300 out of 1,000 for troops with his assignment, that if he died protecting his platoon, it was OK," Pamela Osborne said.
In recent weeks, her son has been reassigned as a Humvee driver in a mechanized squad, she said, his training in that job cut short by the U.S. military's "surge" in the Baghdad area.
"He . . . has assured me he is OK, that he will go, if only to make sure everyone in his platoon comes back home alive," she said. "I am just hoping he grows a bond and a trust with his new squad."
Her son, Pamela Osborne said, knows well what she is doing. She rejects any argument that her activism is hurting her son and other troops.
"We are the Americans who are actually listening to the troops, the ones who are providing them food, care packages, who are raising money to buy them armor. I know I will have to pay for armor for Danny," she said.
"I'm doing it for him and for his squad members - anything I can do to support them."
If her critics had teenagers or children actually in the military, perhaps they would see her work differently, Pamela Osborne said.
"If you are a parent of a soldier, you would do anything, too, to get the word out, to help people understand and say, 'God, maybe I should do something, too.' "
So she will see her son off, when his unit deploys from California. Like the other mothers, she will suffer the day-to-day worries. And she will continue to protest this war.
She prays, Pamela Osborne said, that her son will come home in one piece. She worries that maybe she will not recognize him.
"He's going to become a killer.
"He's going to have to become one, 100 percent," she said.
"I have to be OK with that. Otherwise, I know he will not survive."
Bill Johnson's column appears Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Call him at 303-892-2763 or e-mail him at johnsonw@RockyMountainNews.com.
Ellie
March 9, 2007
Rocky Mountain News
It has been nearly a year since Pamela Osborne's only child, Daniel, now 20, enlisted in the Marines, only days after graduating from high school.
She respected her son's decision, given his reasons for wanting to join - the honor, discipline and dignity that comes with being a Marine, the money he would be eligible to receive for college after he completed his service.
"He just always wanted to be a Marine," Pamela Osborne, 52, said.
It is a curious thing to her still, she said, given her background and the way she had raised him. After all, she, for years, had carried him on her back during multiple protest rallies against everything from apartheid to you-name-it.
"I guess I raised him not very well to be a peace activist," she said.
"I am a practicing Buddhist who was raised in a Jewish family where I was taught that if you did not fight injustice and speak out against it, you condoned it."
The grandest irony, she says, is here she is, her only son a Marine scheduled to ship out for Iraq in July, and she is a founder of the Colorado chapter of Military Families Speak Out, an anti-war group based in Denver.
"Our group speaks out for our young sons and daughters who have no voice," Pamela Osborne said.
"We are calling for the de-funding of the war, to bring the troops home now and to take care of them when they get home."
I have lost count of the number of soldiers' mothers I have spoken with over the past four years. None has been more passionate - for or against the war - than Pamela Osborne.
She was an outspoken critic of the war long before Daniel enlisted. She marched with Cindy Sheehan in Washington, D.C., two years ago, an experience that so moved her she started the Denver chapter immediately after returning home.
At first, it was just she and two other women, both with Marine sons serving in Iraq. The Denver chapter now has more than 20 members, she said.
"Most are dealing with the day-to-day stress of their children being in Iraq," Pamela Osborne said.
"We often call each other in the middle of night to give emotional support. We cry a lot.
"Mostly we try to listen to the media and try to educate people who hear only the rhetoric about what is really going on."
When Danny enlisted, she held her tongue. And then the calls from her son began arriving.
He'd made it through boot camp and specialized training on a mortar crew when his new orders arrived late last year.
The Marines, he was told, no longer needed mortar men in Iraq. Rather, he would now be assigned as a scout for improvised explosive devices, the No. 1 killer of U.S. troops in the war.
"He was told he probably will die, that the casualty rate was 300 out of 1,000 for troops with his assignment, that if he died protecting his platoon, it was OK," Pamela Osborne said.
In recent weeks, her son has been reassigned as a Humvee driver in a mechanized squad, she said, his training in that job cut short by the U.S. military's "surge" in the Baghdad area.
"He . . . has assured me he is OK, that he will go, if only to make sure everyone in his platoon comes back home alive," she said. "I am just hoping he grows a bond and a trust with his new squad."
Her son, Pamela Osborne said, knows well what she is doing. She rejects any argument that her activism is hurting her son and other troops.
"We are the Americans who are actually listening to the troops, the ones who are providing them food, care packages, who are raising money to buy them armor. I know I will have to pay for armor for Danny," she said.
"I'm doing it for him and for his squad members - anything I can do to support them."
If her critics had teenagers or children actually in the military, perhaps they would see her work differently, Pamela Osborne said.
"If you are a parent of a soldier, you would do anything, too, to get the word out, to help people understand and say, 'God, maybe I should do something, too.' "
So she will see her son off, when his unit deploys from California. Like the other mothers, she will suffer the day-to-day worries. And she will continue to protest this war.
She prays, Pamela Osborne said, that her son will come home in one piece. She worries that maybe she will not recognize him.
"He's going to become a killer.
"He's going to have to become one, 100 percent," she said.
"I have to be OK with that. Otherwise, I know he will not survive."
Bill Johnson's column appears Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Call him at 303-892-2763 or e-mail him at johnsonw@RockyMountainNews.com.
Ellie