War and Remembrance

Despite their desire for privacy, they're taking up the task of telling the other side of the war story and offer support

They had already sacrificed enough, the men and women gathered around the table Tuesday morning in Northeast Portland. Rex Rogers, M.J. Kesterson and Elfriede Plumondore lost sons in Iraq. Randy Johnson and MariLynn Ogburn-Sipe had brothers who died there. Betsy Jeffries lost her husband, and the father of her then-unborn baby, in Afghanistan.

They had already given so much to their nation -- the loved ones whose deaths earned them the designation Gold Star family. They earned the right to retreat into their private grief and heal their own wounds, if that's even possible.

And yet, fragile and unsure, they are stepping forward and entering the war over the war here at home. With the help of the political group Progress for America, these Oregon Gold Star families and other Gold Star families across the United States are determined to see that Cindy Sheehan doesn't come to represent them and their lost loved ones.

So we met last week. Some in the "Oregon Families United for Our Troops and Their Mission" contingent wore their soldier's dog tags. Others, their sons' black and green physical-training jackets. "I always told him I wanted one of them. But I didn't think it would be his," says Plumondore who marked the anniversary of son Adam's death 10 days ago.

This isn't easy for any of them. They're largely private people, and their pain is still extreme. Tears come quickly and often. They're also wary of the media and aware of the political firestorm they're heading into by the simple act of coming forward.

So why come forward now? To honor their dead and present a more accurate picture of their service in Iraq. And to support the troops in Iraq and their families here at home.

They believe the public is not getting a true picture of the progress and good works taking place in Iraq, and they blame the media. They're not Pollyannas by any means. Randy Johnson, whose 37-year-old brother, David, died in Baghdad, also served in Iraq. "Trust me," he says, "everyone over there can give you 300 ideas on how it could be better."

But he thinks the negative focus hurts the troops and families. "It's apolitical to me," he says. "The people who are there need our help . . . as opposed to dragging them through all the negativity."

Plumondore keeps in constant touch with the soldiers in her son's unit. Her past and present belief: "We hear more negatives than positives. There are so many good things that are happening."

MariLynn Ogburn-Sipe's 45-year-old brother, John Banks Ogburn, died last May. The soldiers there, she says, "see the progress" -- the purple-fingers from free elections and the work to help build a civil society.

These families also fear the public is receiving a warped picture of the soldiers. They're often treated as gullible kids who signed up under false pretenses or for GI benefits and really didn't believe in what they were doing. "Do you know how insulting that is?" says Johnson. "My brother was a 37-year-old kid?"

"Especially for a wife," chimes in Betsy Jeffries, whose husband, Joseph Jeffries, was killed on an Afghan mountain pass in May 2004. "I did not marry a child. I married a man."

"He strongly believed in what he was doing in Iraq," Rex Rogers says of his son, Philip. "He told me that most every time he called." The last time he called was early on Palm Sunday two years ago. He'd volunteered for a convoy. An hour later a roadside bomb claimed his life. Early that afternoon, representatives of the U.S. military knocked at Rogers' front door.

It's hard enough to lose a husband or son or brother in war, but to be told by strangers that your loved one really didn't believe in what he was doing or was too young to know better -- or that you're just trying to make sense of his death -- is the final cruelty.

"Our loved ones volunteered," says M.J. Kesterson, whose son Erik joined the Army to fly Blackhawk helicopters after serving eight years in the Marines. "Do we really have the right to second-guess what they volunteered for? Cindy Sheehan really doesn't represent her son Casey."

Sheehan's name comes up often. She is a sore spot and spur to action for them. First, there's her status as a media darling. Why is she known -- why is she accorded a kind of moral authority -- but not moms who've lost sons and back the war? And Sheehan has used her son's death to advance her views on the Iraq War -- not his. It's an experience some around the table have seen played out in their own families. Erik Kesterson's birth mom never accepted his career in the military. Neither did David Johnson's mother.

Their fear is that a warped view of the war and a Sheehanized view of Gold Star families will lead to a final indignity: the pullout of U.S. troops before the mission is accomplished. "As a mom, I say that you've got to let them finish the job," Plumondore says. "I feel that as much now, maybe even more. Otherwise it would all be for nothing."

It's impossible to sit around the table with these Gold Star families and not ask how they manage? What is life like in the weeks and months and years after the newspaper notices, funerals and memorial services? Plumondore and Ogburn-Sipe are working to set up scholarship funds in their loved one's name. Kesterson is working to establish a state memorial for this war's fallen.

They all do things -- bake cookies, conduct toy and supply drives -- to support the troops. Betsy Jeffries has toddler to care for, and life is hard for the 22-year-old widow and mom. She and Joseph Jeffries III are at the table largely because she finds comfort in the company of these families.

And they all grieve. Indeed, several said the grief grows more intense in some ways. The permanence, the finality of it all sets in hard. Rex Rogers is the quiet one in the group. Philip was one of three children he raised as a single parent. "No, it doesn't get any easier," he says in almost a whisper. "I think about him all the time. It never gets easier. I don't think it ever will."

But they're not asking for anyone's pity. And they're not asking to speak for every Gold Star family -- every mom or dad, husband or wife, brother or sister or child who's lost a loved one in this war. But they are asking to be heard.

We owe them that much. And so much more.