To this mother, war is personal

By Nicole Brodeur
Seattle Times staff columnist

Linda Swanberg hadn't seen the front page of last Monday's paper, which sat folded between us like the proverbial elephant in the living room.

I slid it across the table and looked down as she opened it and took in the headline: "U.S. toll in Iraq hits 3,000."

A moment passed, and then another.

"The numbers, I have to say, don't mean anything to me," Swanberg, 56, said with a sigh. "I wonder what number Shane was, and then I think, 'What difference does it make?' "

Indeed, her son, Lance Cpl. Shane Swanberg, 24, is gone, killed Sept. 15, 2005, by an explosive device as he stood between the mess hall and the barracks at his base camp in Ramadi. He was holding two bowls of cereal — one for a friend who had ducked into the latrine.

The medic who got to him first told Linda Swanberg that her son looked peaceful in death: an abrasion on his forehead, a broken nose. He had been in Iraq for just 10 days, long enough to send just two e-mails home.

And on the anniversary of Shane's death, that same medic sent Swanberg flowers.

Swanberg tries to focus on things like that. It helps her brace against the nation's loud-and-clear call to get out of Iraq, and President Bush's plan to send another 20,000 troops.

I thought of Shane Swanberg when I heard of the 3,000th death.

I attended his funeral after members of the Westboro Baptist Church — not so much a church as a roving band of hatemongers — threatened to protest at his service.

They didn't show up. But many others did, to honor Shane, who seemed the epitome of everything America is sacrificing over there — a strapping son with an easy laugh and plans for college, sent into the maw of a civil war.

For Linda Swanberg, though, the war will never be political. It is personal, just as it was that day when she sat on the couch in her Kirkland home, listening to Shane tell her he felt "directionless," and that maybe he should join the Marines.

"I said I thought it was a good idea," she told me. "I encouraged him. I thought it would square him away and get him situated in life.

"I didn't think that if anything happened, it was going to happen to him."

But it did. And it was — and still is — surreal. The way they came to her office at the Redmond Fire Department to give her the news. The flag-draped coffin. The missing. The way the electronics department at Fred Meyer, where Shane used to disappear, can nearly bring her to her knees.

Not long after Shane's death, Swanberg figured she had two choices: to go inward and be depressed, or "tap into what Shane would want me to be or do."

So in a subtle way, she tries to remind people that the war should not be measured in numbers but in individuals. That means leaving his funeral program in restaurants and stores on Memorial Day, wearing a dog tag with Shane's face etched in it, and setting aside her grief to talk to me.

"I am using Shane to make the guys in Iraq move to the forefront of our minds," she said. "Not the war, not the numbers, not the politics. I want people to stop and realize that Memorial Day is not just a day off from work to go to the mall.

"I used to be one of those people. Not anymore."

There are two sides to her grief: The private one, which I dare not delve into, and the public one she shows when people ask how she's doing.

"I say, 'We're OK,' but we're not OK."

She's been told that death hits differently when it occurs in another place.

"A cross on the side of the road is something you can reckon with," she said. "But this is a land far away, some place we'll never see."

She and Shane's father, who lives in Tacoma, are divorced and grieving separately.

Her daughter, Nicole, 19, lives with her in Kirkland; her other son, Travis, 23, lives nearby with his wife and two children.

And Swanberg gets much strength from belonging to the American Gold Star Mothers, a national organization for those who have lost their sons or daughters to war.

Much as she tries, though, Swanberg can't fill the space her son left.

"I am still in the disbelief stage," she said the other day. "If Shane called tomorrow, I wouldn't be surprised."

In March, Swanberg was invited to Twentynine Palms, Calif., to attend the homecoming of Shane's unit.

Another mother had asked her to go; so had some of Shane's friends.

She went for all of them, but also this: "I needed to make sure that Shane wasn't getting off the bus."

We opened the paper again, this time to a full page of those who had died, and had ties to Washington state.

Swanberg pulled it close and ran a finger down the side.

"Joseph Bier ... His mother is from Centralia. I went to Twitchell's service. Matheny ... His mom's in our group."

It took a moment, but we finally found Shane's listing and his official — stern-looking — Marine portrait. Swanberg folded the paper and put it in her purse.

Nicole Brodeur's column appears Wednesday and Sunday.

Reach her at 206-464-2334 or nbrodeur@seattletimes.com.

More troops? Is he kidding?

Ellie