My Son's Grave (by Celeste Zappala)
The sorrowful convergence of the fifth anniversary of the war and the observation of the 4000th fallen U.S. soldier in Iraq looms sadly ahead. Soon candles will be lit and vigils held, arguments will ensue as to who was right, and the meaning and value of sacrifice and the chorus of whispers, wails, and anger will be carried on wind sweeping across this country and all the gravestones of war.
The stones are silent witnesses to the failure of humans to follow the commands of the Lord of Love. The stones are places where U.S. families gather, as far as can be from the bombs and desert fears.
It is in that cold silence that my grandson and I visit his father's grave. He throws chunks of snow around the fully decorated gravesite. "My dad loves to have snowball fights" he tells me in present tense. "My dad and me always team up against my mom; she doesn't like snow." He laughs; and in this moment of transcendent playfulness I look at him with great love and will not speak of horror and lost hopes.
Head bowed, snow tears on my face, I let the chill of the day overtake me - but I do not want my grandson to see my thoughts. In spite of all my protests, I could not protect him from losing his playful, tender father. I can only hope now to be a witness to the good life lost - to all the good lives lost. I will add my voice to the wind of remembrance and faithfulness.
And I know for the rest of my life I will come to this country cemetery and visit my son who will never be older than 30. And I, like so many mothers and grandsons in this cold season, will stand amidst the stones of this country to listen in the snow for the laughter and forgiveness of our lost.
Celeste Zappala is the mother of Sgt Sherwood Baker, who was killed in action on April 26, 2004. Sherwood was killed while protecting the Iraq Survey group as they searched for the weapons of mass destruction in Baghdad. He was the first Pennsylvania National Guard solider killed in Iraq.
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Dear Mom:
The other day while grading papers from a history class, I came across what I considered to be some short-sighted comments re the Iraq war and it was all I could do to suppress my anger and not allow it to affect the way I graded the paper.
I was somewhat troubled by my spontaneous anger but sensed as I read your piece today that it is largely attributable to the kind of sentiments you've expressed here.
I pray to God that your grandson will continue to keep the memory of his father and your son current for both of you.
Posted by: canucklehead | March 3, 2008 4:34 PM
This war has to end. Nothing has been accomplished save a few humanitarian efforts and the replacement of some halfway reasonable zealots with completely unreasonable zealots. The enemy has retreated to Pakistan. They are hiding out there, and the US government in its gall has chosen to not respect that international boundary and has shot missiles into Pakistan without first informing that government. What if Canada shot a missile into North Dakota without warning us first? Would that be okay? Pakistan is the only Muslim nation that has nukes. But their government is very fragile. That is why they have had a dictator, because no one else could peaceably hold together a government. People in one village hate the people in the next village over. And we are bombing these people. Nice.
I'm just glad I'm too old to get drafted, because neither Hillary or McCain are going to end this war. McCain says it could last 100 years!
And who knows what Obama will do? I hope he will end the war. But will he bring our troops home? From Afganistan and Iraq? And what about Saudi Arabia and all the other places we have our boys scattered about breaking things instead of building things? How much longer can the military even hold out without having to take the whole thing areal and bombing citizens.
We've lost 4,000 lives. Big Fat Hairy Deal. How many innocents have died?
We've spent enough on this war to give every man, woman and child Iraqi $16,000 to make a new life somewhere else. Anywhere else, even here (if we were hospitable, but we won't even welcome Mexicans) to live among us and help our returned soldiers to build new things.
If not Ron Paul, then Obama. But he's so wishy washy, and so focused on "doing something," or "changing things" with government that I get scared. I'm just glad this is still a republic and there's only so much one individual can do to mess things up.
Nathanael Snow
ndsnow@gmail.com
Posted by: jurisnaturalist | March 3, 2008 5:44 PM
This brings such tears of frustration - of the anguish and futility of one more precious life cut short and countless other innocents wounded in body and soul.
Dead for a lie? To protect the people performing a charade of looking for WMD to cover mendacious politicians' butts?
"How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"
"Sherwood was killed while protecting the Iraq Survey group as they searched for the weapons of mass destruction in Baghdad."
The Boss sung it heartrendingly best:
"We took the highway till the road went black
We marked Truth Or Consequences on our map.
A voice drifted up from the radio
We saw the voice from long ago
"Who'll be the last to die for a mistake
The last to die for a mistake
Whose blood will spill, whose heart will break
Who'll be the last to die for a mistake?
"The kids asleep in the backseat
We're just countin' the miles you and me.
We don't measure the blood we've drawn anymore
We just stack the bodies outside the door.
"The wise men were all fools -
What to do?
"The sun sets in flames as the city burns
Another day gone down as the night turns
And I hold you here in my heart
As things fall apart
"A downtown window flushed with light
Faces of the dead at five (faces of the dead at five)
A martyr's silent eyes
Petition the drivers as we pass by:
"Who'll be the last to die for a mistake
The last to die for a mistake?
Whose blood will spill, whose heart will break
Who'll be the last to die?
"Darlin' your tyrants and kings form the same fate -
Strung up at your city gates.
"And you're the last to die for a mistake..."
Posted by: Sojourner Truth | March 3, 2008 5:58 PM
Dear Celeste,
I'm so very sorry for your loss. A very touching post.
Now, to correct Mr. N. Snow and all of the others who wrongly quote Senator McCain, here's the truth:
When McCain was asked about Bush's theory that U.S. troops could be in Iraq for 50 years, the senator said: "Maybe 100. As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed, it's fine with me, and I hope it would be fine with you, if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where al-Qaida is training, recruiting, equipping and motivating people every single day."
A troop presence that does not involve Americans being harmed is, by definition, not a war. The caveat that starts with "As long" is very important and should not be ignored if you care anything about trying to present things fairly.
Posted by: Cads | March 3, 2008 6:42 PM
Thanks for the correction. I did go and watch the video of that town hall meeting.
Why should it matter to Christians whether the people being harmed are Americans or Iraqi's? Why should I be happier about the US Government merely maintaining a military presence on foreign ground rather than actively engaging in combat? Should I be happier if someone is just pointing a gun at me than I am if they are actively pulling the trigger? The imposition of force is the same. The consequences are more palatable, but the ethics are equivalent.
Since it would not entail an actual war, why not invite troops from Pakistan, North Korea, Venezuela, Russia, and Iran to set up bases in every Springfield in America?
I don't think so. We are too elitist.
Nathanael Snow
ndsnow@gmail.com
Posted by: jurisnaturalist | March 3, 2008 7:03 PM
Celeste,
A very moving and powerful post. Thank you.
As a parent, I cannot imagine anything more painful than outliving one or both of my children.
And to lose one because of this shameful, contrived war--surely God's hand must be upon you or you would be shriveled up with bitterness and rage.
I will be praying for you, sister.
Posted by: carl copas | March 3, 2008 7:15 PM
As a parent, I cannot imagine anything more painful than outliving one or both of my children
Posted by: carl copas
Was not going to post here for lack of words , Thanks carl for your words , I can not imagine that grief either . Prayers for this lady and her family and those like her .
Posted by: Mick | March 3, 2008 7:22 PM
N. Snow,
McCain was clearly talking about a continuing presence like we still have in Japan and South Korea, because he mentions these two countries in his response. If you want to imply his words meant anything different and if you want to continue to believe that al-Qaida poses no threat to our country, you go ahead. And I apologize for trying to set the record straight on Ms. Zappala's tribute post to her fallen son.
Posted by: Cads | March 3, 2008 7:56 PM
American troop presence in both Japan and South Korea is enormously unpopular with the publics there. Red-light districts go along with these large installations, hardly the kind of positive cultural contribution that we as Christians would like to see as representative of America. Riots in Okinawa recently broke out over the tensions of having 50,000 American troops stationed there, this time once again over the rape of a young girl by an American soldier and the lack of any legal accountability. The troop presence on Okinawa in itself is the Japanese government's attempt to "offshore" and sequester the unpopular America presence away from the politically more sensitized home islands.
There is a transforming cost to being an imperial power, and it is the metamorphosis of the nation itself into something other than a republic. The United States has only a history of independence of just over 200 years and its morphing over the last century into an imperial power mimics just the same tendencies that have brought the sorrows of empire to all other nations before it.
The Founding Fathers despised a standing army, regarding it as the greatest threat to a democratic republic's freedom, by its availability for use by a commander-in-chief tempted to make war with it and invoking the prerogatives of an autocrat during the time of war. With just such a non-citizen, non-draft army, we now have that convenient army and we concomitantly have the endless war declared to use it as that executive alone wills.
Posted by: N.M. Rod | March 3, 2008 10:41 PM
Cads,
Like I said, I did watch the video of the townhall meeting, and I don't think I am spinning anything here. I am concerned about what some Christians believe is an appropriate policy position concerning war and American Imperialism. I am just as uncomfortable with American troops in South Korea and Japan (I lived in Okinawa as a child when my father was a Marine), as I am with American troops in Iraq. Well, I don't care so much what the pagans want to do with their troops, but I am concerned about what Christians think is legitimate.
The pagans may legalize abortion, but should we abort our babies? No. Should we work to make abortions for pagans more available? Should we manipulate the political mechanism so that people who do not believe in abortion are forced through tax dollars to pay for other people's abortions? No.
Christians should oppose the war because innocent people die. But we should own the problem. Just as in abortion the only action Christians can take that is really constructive is to adopt more babies and support more troubled mothers, in war the position we can take is protection of innocents.
McCain doesn't care about the innocents in Iraq. He cares about "American interests," and so does Clinton and so does Obama. They have to, because only American interests can elect them.
I propose ending American Imperialism by abandoning every foreign military presence in the world, bring our boys home to be productive in enterprise and inviting anyone who can pay their own way and live peacefully to immigrate here, with no quotas whatsoever.
Can't be done? Only because people are protective of their privileges, and more intent on being American than Christian.
Nathanael Snow
ndsnow@gmail.com
Posted by: jurisnaturalist | March 3, 2008 11:29 PM
Well said N. M. Rod.
Posted by: pastor jeff staples | March 3, 2008 11:30 PM
As far as threats are concerned, they exist wherever you make them. The US Government has been trying to impose a system of Democracy on peoples who don't even believe in the common law. Small "r" republicanism is only good so far as it is a shelter for the law. If the state is limited to the judicial, to discovering and enforcing the law, to protecting rights and enforcing contracts, then it works well. As soon as the law is distorted into a tool to take some of your goodies in order to give them to me, it becomes a protector of privilege and will eventually cave on itself. Today populists are all about expansion of the franchise instead of eliminating it. We are blessed to be wealthy enough to afford this nonsense. But it is unethical, and it is sin.
NS
Posted by: jurisnaturalist | March 3, 2008 11:41 PM
OK, you've worn me down. Get rid of the United States military and the world can live as one. Just make sure you get the leaders of al-Qaeda, Hamas, the Taliban, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, The Sudan and all the other crazies of the world to lay down their arms at the same time and this just might work.
All I tried to do was try to set the record straight as to what McCain truly said and it turns into a discussion on the evils of war and imperialism. I'm done arguing. On to the next topic.
Posted by: Cads | March 4, 2008 12:14 AM
All I tried to do was try to set the record straight as to what McCain truly said and it turns into a discussion on the evils of war and imperialism
Posted by: Cads
Cads I got your point , and am glad you made it . The others are arguing to another point I believe .
I understood what McCain meant .
Obama and McCain went tit for tat lately because of the way Obama answered a question about if Iraq was threatened after he withdrew our forces ,if he would go back in .
I think the only candidates who would say no way ever would be Kucinch and whats his name on the republican side .
Posted by: Mick | March 4, 2008 1:07 AM
Okay we get what McCain meant. I pointed out that it was no better in principle than what I implied. Bring our guns home and point them outward. Just don't get stretched out like the Roman Empire.
So Ron Paul said no way going back in. Too bad Christians can't get behind that ethic. Not even Jim Wallis will get behind that. It is the only consistent response.
NS
Posted by: jurisnaturalist | March 4, 2008 1:16 AM
"As far as threats are concerned, they exist wherever you make them. The US Government has been trying to impose a system of Democracy on peoples who don't even believe in the common law."
I agree partially with the first, but sometimes threats are real as well as self-created. The issue for me is what kind of approach is truly practical.
As G.K. Chesterton quipped, "Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried." This is just why the non-violent way of conflict resolution is rejected; violence appears to offer quicker, easier resolutions that are well-defined. But in practice it has never been so, and each war sows the resentments and heaps up greater injustices for the next.
I think we are committed to democracy in other lands only as long as it gives us the outcome of a government that shares or is compliant to U.S. financial interests in or over that land. If that result is not to be forthcoming, our choice - and we impose our choice, not the local population's where possible - has always been favoring non-democratic governments which do share our elites' interests.
Those governments could be said to reflect democracy only in that the democratically-elected, if not democratically-financed U.S. government is deciding for them - U.S. voters get to influence their fate by who they elect to conduct Presidential foreign policy singlehandedly.
Therefore the people of satrapies pay what only seems like paradoxical attention to U.S. electoral contests. It's not because they want to see the U.S.as the center of their world, but because they have to see it that way in lieu of a locally accountable politics of their own.
If only we could see that this brings their dysfunctional politics closer to us as well, with all the potentialities for blowback.
Posted by: N.M Rod | March 4, 2008 1:20 AM
Dear Ms. Zappala,
You, your grandson, and your entire family are in my thoughts and prayers. I cannot begin to imagine the pain of your loss. Thank you for speaking out.
Peace,
Jim
Posted by: JamesMartin | March 4, 2008 5:16 AM
"Soon candles will be lit and vigils held, arguments will ensue as to who was right, and the meaning and value of sacrifice and the chorus of whispers, wails, and anger will be carried on wind sweeping across this country and all the gravestones of war."
Your loss is our loss. Thank you for the dignity of your words. Gravesites are a place I find myself able to place one foot on Earth and one in Eternity. They are sacred places.
I don't find them courtrooms from which to judge all matters of evil on Earth or, as you put it, "argue...as to who was right, and the meaning and value of sacrifice."
I find them as places to reorient my life; to refix my gaze; to grab onto the purposes for which God created this person who has passed and for my life. A time to embrace the sacred.
It would be my honor if I could dedicate this day of my life (which I cannot take for granted) --to walk in the sacred purposes to which God has called me--in the memory of your son.
Blessings.
Let justice roll down like a river;
and righteousness like a quiet stream.
Posted by: letjusticerolldown | March 4, 2008 8:37 AM
N.M.Rod,
Somehow these discussions inevitably circle around to practicality. But Chesterton also quipped that often the most practical man to have about is the theoretician. If the ideal is not clearly articulated how can we know in which direction we ought to be moving? Pure practicality, “whatever seems necessary” is the root of fascism.
That said, I don’t believe Americans rightly appreciate the fragmented nature of international politics. Other nations have 10 to 20 or more political parties, each representing a special interest group which desires to control the monopoly force of the state. Coalitions are fragile and fraught with conspiracy and espionage on every level. People remember feuds from centuries ago, with the inhabitants of the next village.
As Christians, how are we to respond to threats? Are we to adopt a pre-emptive strike policy? That runs counter to the sermon on the mount and just war theory. We behold the gun and fear it not. We only employ force in defense, perhaps only in defense of innocents and not ourselves, and only until the threat has been neutralized. The threat in Iraq was not imminent. It has been neutralized. The threat in Afganistan was imminent, though provoked by the US government to begin with, it has not been neutralized, rather mobilized, and aggravated. We would be better off bailing out of there.
Britain in WWII was only vulnerable because their military was everywhere else in the world but in Britain.
Nathanael Snow
ndsnow@gmail.com
Posted by: jurisnaturalist | March 4, 2008 10:09 AM
thank you to each of you who read this and who remember the life of my son Sherwood.
Within the swirl of discussion about the war I would ask you to keep in your heart that each and every person is a child of God, -each- who died, who was maimed or burned, whose home was lost, or who lost someone dear to them or now lives in a tormented soul- Please let us never allow ourselves to be academic in the face of such enormous sadness and tragedy for our fellow human beings.
peace be with you
Sherwood' Mom
Posted by: celeste zappala | March 4, 2008 11:26 AM
Wish we could have seen a picture of him.
Posted by: Sojourner Truth | March 4, 2008 12:47 PM
"Within the swirl of discussion about the war I would ask you to keep in your heart that each and every person is a child of God, -each- who died, who was maimed or burned, whose home was lost, or who lost someone dear to them or now lives in a tormented soul- Please let us never allow ourselves to be academic in the face of such enormous sadness and tragedy for our fellow human beings."
What a beautiful, godly, Christlike woman.
letjusticerolldown (who name references either Amos or MLK): "It would be my honor if I could dedicate this day of my life . . . to walk in the sacred purposes to which God has called me--in the memory of your son."
A wonderful thought. I will do the same thing tomorrow, so as to dedicate the entire day.
Pray for peace.
Carl
Posted by: carl copas | March 4, 2008 2:48 PM
http://www.gsfso.org/SgtSherwoodBaker.html
this is a link of pictures and information about my son.
Also, for those who may be attending the Interfaith Peace Witness this Friday in Washington, DC - I will be speaking at the Lincoln Temple at 11th and R street before the gathering at the Capitol. I will be grateful to meet with other religious folks at the events that day.
peace, Celeste Zappala
Posted by: celeste zappala | March 4, 2008 3:22 PM
We send young men off to war, telling them and ourselves that soldiering is noble and honorable.
I wonder, is there really anything that a young man will accomplish in his career as a soldier that can ever amount to anything near the worth of what that man has the potential to accomplish with the rest of his life, should he keep it?
PX
Posted by: neuro_nurse | March 4, 2008 5:38 PM
My tears join those of the author and the countless thousands of others.
What we need to remember and shout from the rooftops is that this WAS NOT, and IS NOT a WAR! ! ! ! It was an illegal attack and now an unwanted occupation of a sovereign foreign nation.
How wonderful it would be if our 'elected liars' were as noble and self sacrificing as our troops and their families.
There is a judgement day coming which one cannot LIE their way out of.
Posted by: old teacher | March 4, 2008 7:21 PM
Why is it that we talk about and read about this war every day, but when one American woman writes about her son and grandson, I am undone.
Weeping for my country, weeping for all the boys who will never see their Daddy's again, and the many many others who will see their Dad's again, but not recognize them as they are so physically or mentally changed, scarred by the actions they took on behalf of our country.
Let us all ask ourselves "WHAT MORE CAN I DO TO END THIS EVIL?"
As Dr. King said, "Our lives begin to end the day we are silent about things that matter."
Posted by: Lisa | March 4, 2008 7:51 PM
Celeste, such a deeply moving tribute to your son; your loss is great and we surround you and all those who have lost sons and daughters in this dreadful, so-wrong war with our gifts of caring and supportive love. Each of us is diminished, our world is surely poorer in uncountable ways because those four thousand young Americans dead in a war that has established nothing good and lasting but left cities and towns in ruins and a proud civilization in tatters. Today's news reminds us of the horrific cost in materiel- the dollars beyond dollars, an unthinkable amount. But, like you, I grieve for the sons, daughters, husbands, fathers, wives, mothers, friends, and friends who-will-never-be. What might they have accomplished had they lived their four score and ten? Art, music, scientific advances, poetry, civil leadership, powerful and life-changing teaching and mentoring: my soul weeps for those empty chairs at family gatherings and all the might-have-beens. May you find some comfort in the love that we extend to you, to your grandson, to all who are suffering in this war begun in lies and carried on in prevarications and subterfuge. It seems such a small gift to you who have lost so much. God bless.
Posted by: Katherine | March 5, 2008 2:51 PM
Celeste, Thank you for posting your remembrance of your son and of your visit with your grandson to his father's grave. Your broken heart and eloquence are powerful; they rip at all our hearts, mine in particular.
Per this discussion, I happen to be both an academic (specializing on Mideast matters) and a father of a son in the Virginia Army National Guard who was just activated for duty in Iraq. This morning, I also was rocking his infant daughter, my grand-daughter.
I was long ago opposed to the ill-advised US unilateral invasion that has opened Pandora's box in Iraq. Academics then were generally ignored, except for those with the approved beltway think tank.
Colin Powell's jar is now broken; we "own" responsibility for the mess we made. But the the longer we stay, the greater the danger will be of making more enemies for ourselves (especially in the mideast). It's the nature of unwanted occupations -- ask the residents of Pennsylvania and New Jersey in 1776-1778.
Even the loose hint of an imperial American presence gives life to the most fetid conspiracies as to our intentions. Expeditiously drawing down and removing our presence, ironically, is the best way to "drain the swamp." Hints that we might "stay" indefinitely are foolishly unwise -- and the antithesis of the Eisenhower Republican tradition I follow.
My son dearly wishes to believe he's not being sent on a fool's errand - that he won't be the last to die for a Faux cause that keeps changing.
His skill happens to be as an engineer, bridge-building to be exact. Alas, he's more likely to be sent to clear mines (the euphemistic "IED's"), to build earthen walls around cities, moats of old to divide the sects, tribes, and families.
I shall respect and honor his devotion to what he sees as his duty. May heaven protect him and his family -- and may he also not lose his own moral compass amid the fires of conflict.
I only wish he could be deployed one day to build bridges between peoples, instead of dividing them.
Posted by: W. Scott Harrop | March 6, 2008 5:32 PM
Celeste,
I was behind and it took me several days to read this post. I am so sorry for your loss and for all the terrible losses. Thanks for your courage in continuing to speak the truth with so much humility and grace. You and your family are always in my prayers. Every time I read something you have written, I just think: I will do a little something more for peace today, or this week. I have to.
Beth
Posted by: Beth Stroud | March 13, 2008 12:56 PM
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