G.I. Families United in Grief, but Split by the War

By MONICA DAVEY / The New York Times January 2, 2005

They have met on the Internet and on cross-country road trips. But mostly they find one another at the funerals.

As the number of American troops killed in Iraq has risen above 1,300, mothers of the dead have built a grim community of their own, mostly invisible to outsiders and separated by geography, but bound together by death. Some have met in pews, recognizing one another from newspaper photographs or with the simplest introduction: I lost my son, too.

"My closest friends now are three other mothers I have met who lost their sons," said Cindy Sheehan of Vacaville, Calif., whose son, Specialist Casey Sheehan, died in an ambush on April 4. "I feel closer to them, even the ones who live far away, than I do to the people I have known for years. I feel closer to them than to the people who knew Casey. Us moms are really the only ones who know what we're going through."

In this network linked by sorrow and empathy, however, one issue divides them: the wisdom of the war.

Relatives who believe the war in Iraq was necessary tend to gravitate toward one another, talking little of politics and more of pride, sacrifice and loneliness. And those like Ms. Sheehan, who questioned the need to invade Iraq, find one another too, wrestling with their doubts about the war and the meaning of their losses.

People on each side say they respect those on the other. Still, flashes of tension have crept up at small gatherings and group interviews, and even after condolence sessions with President Bush.

This fall, on a conference call of mothers who shared their experiences for a book project ("A Mother's Tears: Mothers Remember Their Sons Lost in Iraq," by Elliot Michael Gold) several hung up in anger after disagreeing about whether the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks had made the war in Iraq necessary.

And this summer, one mother, Nancy Walker of Lancaster, Calif., said she found herself awkwardly starting to describe why she believed the war was wrong at her first dinner meeting with a couple in Iowa, whose marine son had died the same day as her own and whom she had driven many miles to see. Clearly, she said, the couple did not agree with her.

"I think what I told her was, 'Let's not go there with the politics,' " said Nelson Carman, the father from Jefferson, Iowa, a farming town of 4,500, who met with Ms. Walker that day. "I do believe firmly in this war. Those terrorists are going to bring the war to us. They hate you. They hate me. They hate our life. They hate what we stand for.

"To bring politics into our son's sacrifice is just something that is not conceivable to me," Mr. Carman said, adding that he felt a special sorrow for those families who felt as Ms. Walker did. Coping with the death of a child, he said, was challenge enough. "If you have another set of issues, especially political, that you're dealing with, that's just another hurdle you have to get over."

Similar webs of shared mourning have grown out of other wars and disasters. Many families of those killed in the Sept. 11 attacks came together for comfort and support. But their unity fractured over questions of the nation's domestic security and intelligence needs, and who should be president.

During the Vietnam War, in which 58,000 American service members died, veterans themselves became sharply polarized, and the divisions surfaced even in the past presidential campaign. Still, the families of the dead came to lean on one another.

Ann Herd, national president of the American Gold Star Mothers, a group for mothers of slain soldiers that dates from the 1920's, said she recalled that at least by the end of the Vietnam War, "I think many of us were angry: we had the sense that they just didn't try to let those boys win." Ms. Herd's son died in Vietnam in 1970.

Once again, with the war in Iraq, the question at the heart of the divisions between families - mothers especially, but also fathers, siblings and spouses - is fundamental: Was their loss for a noble cause or might it have been in vain? For some, even posing the question diminishes and disrespects their soldier's service to the country. For others, it is a terrifying question to ponder, but one they say they cannot shake.

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