thedrifter
02-04-07, 04:15 AM
Iraq debate adds to burden of fallen GIs' kin
Web Posted: 02/04/2007 02:09 AM CST
Sig Christenson
Express-News Military Writer
It's been more than three years since her son was killed in Iraq, but Hilda Guardiola still keeps his Ford pickup outside her house.
Another new year has begun with the truck still registered to Army Sgt. Michael Paul Barrera, who lost his life at 26 to a roadside bomb in Baqubah, Iraq.
"I think that the hardest part is to erase the name," said Guardiola, 49, of Von Ormy. "It's not there anymore. That kind of bothers me."
The holiday season was tough for families of troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, in wars that rage with few signs of progress long after they began. Far from joyous, the passing of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's is one of the hardest times for the loved ones of 309 Texans who have fallen — 29 of them from Bexar County. The numbers grow almost by the day.
Anniversaries and birthdays are tough as well, but the political firestorm over Iraq has made it even harder for many families to get past their loss nearly four years after President Bush declared an end to offensive operations, his speech punctuated by a banner proclaiming "Mission Accomplished."
In the weeks since the 3,000th GI was killed in Iraq, Congress and Bush have sparred over his plans to add 21,500 troops in Baghdad and Anbar province.
Americans have soured on him and the war, and the launching of presidential campaigns by several candidates is certain to electrify the debate, and the angst.
"As war families, I feel that we carry an extra-heavy burden along with the grief because of all the negative media that we have to deal with and with no great amounts of positive coming through. It's as though people want this war to be lost instead of letting our loved ones who died be the true heroes they really are," said Deborah Tainsh, 52, a Midland, Ga., writer who wrote a book about grief over her son's death.
Patrick Miller, 50, a war supporter from the Northwest Side whose son was the first native San Antonian killed in Iraq, said the condemnation of the war is difficult to take.
"So when soldiers are criticized, you hear things, it hurts because it dishonors my son. It dishonors our sacrifice," he said.
With the fourth anniversary of the invasion looming, grief grips the consciousness of war parents with a snake-like squeeze. A standard-issue rucksack full of memories awaits them all in the wake of folded American flags, rifle volleys and the bugler's call of taps.
Talk with Alamo City-area parents who have buried their warriors, and courage amid deep sadness emerges. They have been left to move on — indeed, they're expected to by a society that doesn't understand them.
"There's a ripple effect in it," said Joe Graham, a 53-year-old San Antonio police officer whose son, Lance, was killed May 18 by a Baghdad suicide bomber. "People don't understand how it affects you. In a split second, your life changes."
Miller's nightmare began in the wee hours of the morning on the day he was to go on vacation.
After the phone rang, he never worked again as a customer support technician and today gets a $1,200 monthly Social Security disability check.
Haunted by the loss of his son, Army Pfc. Anthony Scott Miller, 19, he has struggled with his weight, diabetes and a short temper. There have been visits to a psychiatrist, pills designed to calm him that made things worse, mood swings and lethargy.
A profound sense of isolation closed in on Miller after the big military funeral, when students lined the road connecting the old and new sections of Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery.
Friends and co-workers who'd expressed sincere condolences avoided him.
Sympathy turned to scorn at his wife's office.
"People say I should be back at work, I should be over whatever is wrong with me," said Miller, who is livid that death has denied him the chance to grow closer to his son. "Several of her bosses have told her she should divorce me, I'm not worth it, I'm just sponging off her and all these other things. They just don't understand.
"They don't get it."
Still painful
Denial and isolation, followed by anger, are the first two stages of grief outlined by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her book "On Death and Dying." The other stages are bargaining, depression and acceptance.
San Antonio psychotherapist Gordon Hudson said the stages don't necessarily fall in that order but are accepted waypoints. The conflict in Iraq, he said, has created a different class of sorrow — almost as if the troops are dying twice.
"The ones who have lost the child and were in favor of the war I would say would be real angry with those who are protesting it because it becomes more personal, as if they are discrediting why their sons were killed," said Hudson, who has counseled the families of children killed in war.
"It inflames (war opponents) because their child was killed for something they're not believing in," he added. "They feel like their son was sent over there for a cause he doesn't agree with and ends up getting killed. So nobody wins."
Guardiola, Graham, Kim Smith and Susie Hernandez are closer to acceptance three years after their sons fell in Iraq. If further along than Miller, their effort to find comfort has been no less painful.
Hernandez, a 53-year-old bookkeeper, hasn't cleared four stereo systems owned by her son from the closets of her home in north-central San Antonio. She has returned to work and now attends her husband's church, even though she isn't that religious.
But the path to some semblance of a normal life has been bumpy. She's on antidepressants and thinks Steven, her husband, ought to take them as well. Group therapy offered by a local funeral home wore on the their nerves, and they soon quit. A few had been in the group 10 years.
Hernandez said they didn't fit in.
"My son's a hero. He was fighting for freedom," she said. "He wasn't hit in a car wreck or overdosed on drugs."
Her son, Lance Cpl. Franklin A. Sweger, 24, of San Antonio, joined the Marines before 9-11 at Steven's urging. Sweger was a cranky, rebellious boy who didn't like his name. He went to boot camp only after flunking out of college in his first semester.
No one saw the war coming or his death in Anbar province on Dec. 16, 2004, by an enemy bullet, but the remorse weighs on Steven anyway.
"He is just very, very depressed all the time, and he cries a lot, and he feels responsible," Susie Hernandez said. "I try to talk him out of it. I put on my cheerleader's outfit and stress he is in a better place, he is a lot better off than we are, so we should be happy for him."
Graham, a motorcycle cop, is something of a counselor himself in his role of confidant to several Marines who served with his son. He attended a ceremony in Brook Park, Ohio, on Independence Day in which Sgt. Jeff Schuller and Cpl. Todd Corbin received the Silver Star and Navy Cross, respectively, for their role in the Iraq clash that claimed the life of Graham's son.
Two other survivors of that battle live near San Marcos and have gone dove hunting with him, but it is Graham who acts as counselor.
"It's just a psychotic way to fight because you don't know who the enemy is," Graham, a Vietnam veteran, said of the war in Iraq, where people who wave at you by day can be insurgents at night. "And then it's hard to come back to the world and face people and try to explain to them what happened to you, what it feels like, the nightmares you have at night."
Smith, 42, of San Antonio, is a familiar figure at Fort Sam's cemetery. When she isn't putting flowers on the headstone of her son, Army Pvt. Robert L. Frantz, 19, of San Antonio, she greets families there who have just buried their children. She's also talked with wounded troops twice at Brooke Army Medical Center and more than 100 other survivors from around the country.
There is no local chapter of Gold Star Mothers, a national organization for people who have lost anyone in the military. But Smith, a member of that group, had a picnic last fall that drew the families of 11 dead American troops and led a "grief meeting" last month, calling it Gold Star Families.
"For me to give back has been what's gotten me through, and to stay involved and help other families," she said.
The single biggest problem for some families may be media coverage of the war. Miller welcomed reporter interviews about his son's death, as did Guardiola. But as the war's popularity has faded, families have been less receptive to reporters who want to write stories about fallen troops.
Signs of progress
Like many parents, the Tainshes didn't know where to turn after the Feb. 11, 2004, death of their son, Army Sgt. Patrick Tainsh, 33, of Oceanside, Calif., outside Baghdad International Airport. A Humvee gunner, he was hit by a roadside bomb but managed to fire 400 rounds from two weapons, saving 10 fellow soldiers before dying in the arms of his commanding officer.
A year passed before his parents learned of the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors. TAPS, as it is called, bills itself as a one-of-a-kind nonprofit group for families of fallen U.S. troops.
The group made such a difference that Deborah Tainsh donates to it the proceeds from her book "Heart of a Hawk — One Family's Sacrifice and Journey Toward Healing," which chronicles life after her son's death.
"Friends just melted into the woodwork," Tainsh said. "I would try to get lunch or dinner planned to put life to some sort of normalcy, and people weren't comfortable, and that is the story of many, many families."
For Guardiola, hugs were always a big part of her life with the boy she calls "Mikey." Guardiola recalls Barrera didn't cry much as a child but wanted to be kissed and embraced. Even in Iraq, he tried to stay close, calling home over a distant, scratchy line.
"What hurt me the most was I was not going to get to hug him anymore," Guardiola said. "And that's what I miss more than anything."
Things have slowly gotten better since his death Oct. 28, 2003. Guardiola has turned to fellow San Antonio Independent School District workers. Unlike Smith, she isn't up to visiting wounded troops at BAMC; she cannot see herself in the role of counselor or adviser. Still, she is happier than three years ago, her voice upbeat more often than not.
As Miller reaches deeper into his anger, gaining weight, fighting a resurgence of diabetes and frequently visiting his son's grave, Guardiola is buoyed by faith in another, eternal life with her son.
Like the Tainshes, who have kept their son's car, music and uniforms, she hasn't let go of Barrera's truck or even changed the title, but recently brought herself to disconnect his cell phone and its most precious legacy — his voice.
"When no one would answer he would say. 'Hey, this is Mike. I'm not in right now. Leave me a message and I'll get back to you,'" said Guardiola, who believes she has felt his presence, once four months after the funeral — when he gave her a hug.
"We would hear it and my daughter said, 'Hey, mom, I can record the message,' and I said, 'No, C'Lina, it's OK.' I think it's time. I think Mikey thinks it's time for me to slowly let him go."
sigc@express-news.net
Ellie
Web Posted: 02/04/2007 02:09 AM CST
Sig Christenson
Express-News Military Writer
It's been more than three years since her son was killed in Iraq, but Hilda Guardiola still keeps his Ford pickup outside her house.
Another new year has begun with the truck still registered to Army Sgt. Michael Paul Barrera, who lost his life at 26 to a roadside bomb in Baqubah, Iraq.
"I think that the hardest part is to erase the name," said Guardiola, 49, of Von Ormy. "It's not there anymore. That kind of bothers me."
The holiday season was tough for families of troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, in wars that rage with few signs of progress long after they began. Far from joyous, the passing of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's is one of the hardest times for the loved ones of 309 Texans who have fallen — 29 of them from Bexar County. The numbers grow almost by the day.
Anniversaries and birthdays are tough as well, but the political firestorm over Iraq has made it even harder for many families to get past their loss nearly four years after President Bush declared an end to offensive operations, his speech punctuated by a banner proclaiming "Mission Accomplished."
In the weeks since the 3,000th GI was killed in Iraq, Congress and Bush have sparred over his plans to add 21,500 troops in Baghdad and Anbar province.
Americans have soured on him and the war, and the launching of presidential campaigns by several candidates is certain to electrify the debate, and the angst.
"As war families, I feel that we carry an extra-heavy burden along with the grief because of all the negative media that we have to deal with and with no great amounts of positive coming through. It's as though people want this war to be lost instead of letting our loved ones who died be the true heroes they really are," said Deborah Tainsh, 52, a Midland, Ga., writer who wrote a book about grief over her son's death.
Patrick Miller, 50, a war supporter from the Northwest Side whose son was the first native San Antonian killed in Iraq, said the condemnation of the war is difficult to take.
"So when soldiers are criticized, you hear things, it hurts because it dishonors my son. It dishonors our sacrifice," he said.
With the fourth anniversary of the invasion looming, grief grips the consciousness of war parents with a snake-like squeeze. A standard-issue rucksack full of memories awaits them all in the wake of folded American flags, rifle volleys and the bugler's call of taps.
Talk with Alamo City-area parents who have buried their warriors, and courage amid deep sadness emerges. They have been left to move on — indeed, they're expected to by a society that doesn't understand them.
"There's a ripple effect in it," said Joe Graham, a 53-year-old San Antonio police officer whose son, Lance, was killed May 18 by a Baghdad suicide bomber. "People don't understand how it affects you. In a split second, your life changes."
Miller's nightmare began in the wee hours of the morning on the day he was to go on vacation.
After the phone rang, he never worked again as a customer support technician and today gets a $1,200 monthly Social Security disability check.
Haunted by the loss of his son, Army Pfc. Anthony Scott Miller, 19, he has struggled with his weight, diabetes and a short temper. There have been visits to a psychiatrist, pills designed to calm him that made things worse, mood swings and lethargy.
A profound sense of isolation closed in on Miller after the big military funeral, when students lined the road connecting the old and new sections of Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery.
Friends and co-workers who'd expressed sincere condolences avoided him.
Sympathy turned to scorn at his wife's office.
"People say I should be back at work, I should be over whatever is wrong with me," said Miller, who is livid that death has denied him the chance to grow closer to his son. "Several of her bosses have told her she should divorce me, I'm not worth it, I'm just sponging off her and all these other things. They just don't understand.
"They don't get it."
Still painful
Denial and isolation, followed by anger, are the first two stages of grief outlined by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her book "On Death and Dying." The other stages are bargaining, depression and acceptance.
San Antonio psychotherapist Gordon Hudson said the stages don't necessarily fall in that order but are accepted waypoints. The conflict in Iraq, he said, has created a different class of sorrow — almost as if the troops are dying twice.
"The ones who have lost the child and were in favor of the war I would say would be real angry with those who are protesting it because it becomes more personal, as if they are discrediting why their sons were killed," said Hudson, who has counseled the families of children killed in war.
"It inflames (war opponents) because their child was killed for something they're not believing in," he added. "They feel like their son was sent over there for a cause he doesn't agree with and ends up getting killed. So nobody wins."
Guardiola, Graham, Kim Smith and Susie Hernandez are closer to acceptance three years after their sons fell in Iraq. If further along than Miller, their effort to find comfort has been no less painful.
Hernandez, a 53-year-old bookkeeper, hasn't cleared four stereo systems owned by her son from the closets of her home in north-central San Antonio. She has returned to work and now attends her husband's church, even though she isn't that religious.
But the path to some semblance of a normal life has been bumpy. She's on antidepressants and thinks Steven, her husband, ought to take them as well. Group therapy offered by a local funeral home wore on the their nerves, and they soon quit. A few had been in the group 10 years.
Hernandez said they didn't fit in.
"My son's a hero. He was fighting for freedom," she said. "He wasn't hit in a car wreck or overdosed on drugs."
Her son, Lance Cpl. Franklin A. Sweger, 24, of San Antonio, joined the Marines before 9-11 at Steven's urging. Sweger was a cranky, rebellious boy who didn't like his name. He went to boot camp only after flunking out of college in his first semester.
No one saw the war coming or his death in Anbar province on Dec. 16, 2004, by an enemy bullet, but the remorse weighs on Steven anyway.
"He is just very, very depressed all the time, and he cries a lot, and he feels responsible," Susie Hernandez said. "I try to talk him out of it. I put on my cheerleader's outfit and stress he is in a better place, he is a lot better off than we are, so we should be happy for him."
Graham, a motorcycle cop, is something of a counselor himself in his role of confidant to several Marines who served with his son. He attended a ceremony in Brook Park, Ohio, on Independence Day in which Sgt. Jeff Schuller and Cpl. Todd Corbin received the Silver Star and Navy Cross, respectively, for their role in the Iraq clash that claimed the life of Graham's son.
Two other survivors of that battle live near San Marcos and have gone dove hunting with him, but it is Graham who acts as counselor.
"It's just a psychotic way to fight because you don't know who the enemy is," Graham, a Vietnam veteran, said of the war in Iraq, where people who wave at you by day can be insurgents at night. "And then it's hard to come back to the world and face people and try to explain to them what happened to you, what it feels like, the nightmares you have at night."
Smith, 42, of San Antonio, is a familiar figure at Fort Sam's cemetery. When she isn't putting flowers on the headstone of her son, Army Pvt. Robert L. Frantz, 19, of San Antonio, she greets families there who have just buried their children. She's also talked with wounded troops twice at Brooke Army Medical Center and more than 100 other survivors from around the country.
There is no local chapter of Gold Star Mothers, a national organization for people who have lost anyone in the military. But Smith, a member of that group, had a picnic last fall that drew the families of 11 dead American troops and led a "grief meeting" last month, calling it Gold Star Families.
"For me to give back has been what's gotten me through, and to stay involved and help other families," she said.
The single biggest problem for some families may be media coverage of the war. Miller welcomed reporter interviews about his son's death, as did Guardiola. But as the war's popularity has faded, families have been less receptive to reporters who want to write stories about fallen troops.
Signs of progress
Like many parents, the Tainshes didn't know where to turn after the Feb. 11, 2004, death of their son, Army Sgt. Patrick Tainsh, 33, of Oceanside, Calif., outside Baghdad International Airport. A Humvee gunner, he was hit by a roadside bomb but managed to fire 400 rounds from two weapons, saving 10 fellow soldiers before dying in the arms of his commanding officer.
A year passed before his parents learned of the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors. TAPS, as it is called, bills itself as a one-of-a-kind nonprofit group for families of fallen U.S. troops.
The group made such a difference that Deborah Tainsh donates to it the proceeds from her book "Heart of a Hawk — One Family's Sacrifice and Journey Toward Healing," which chronicles life after her son's death.
"Friends just melted into the woodwork," Tainsh said. "I would try to get lunch or dinner planned to put life to some sort of normalcy, and people weren't comfortable, and that is the story of many, many families."
For Guardiola, hugs were always a big part of her life with the boy she calls "Mikey." Guardiola recalls Barrera didn't cry much as a child but wanted to be kissed and embraced. Even in Iraq, he tried to stay close, calling home over a distant, scratchy line.
"What hurt me the most was I was not going to get to hug him anymore," Guardiola said. "And that's what I miss more than anything."
Things have slowly gotten better since his death Oct. 28, 2003. Guardiola has turned to fellow San Antonio Independent School District workers. Unlike Smith, she isn't up to visiting wounded troops at BAMC; she cannot see herself in the role of counselor or adviser. Still, she is happier than three years ago, her voice upbeat more often than not.
As Miller reaches deeper into his anger, gaining weight, fighting a resurgence of diabetes and frequently visiting his son's grave, Guardiola is buoyed by faith in another, eternal life with her son.
Like the Tainshes, who have kept their son's car, music and uniforms, she hasn't let go of Barrera's truck or even changed the title, but recently brought herself to disconnect his cell phone and its most precious legacy — his voice.
"When no one would answer he would say. 'Hey, this is Mike. I'm not in right now. Leave me a message and I'll get back to you,'" said Guardiola, who believes she has felt his presence, once four months after the funeral — when he gave her a hug.
"We would hear it and my daughter said, 'Hey, mom, I can record the message,' and I said, 'No, C'Lina, it's OK.' I think it's time. I think Mikey thinks it's time for me to slowly let him go."
sigc@express-news.net
Ellie