I knew Aaron Holleyman- He attended the local school and played sports with my son..His mother was my daughters' volleyball and basketball coach- His dad, who was a local minister, was an assistant football coach. His sister attended prom with my son and his friend on a double date... A very nice family.....Aaron made his choice to be in the army when he was still in high school and was always very proud of it..
Area parents of fallen soldiers take issue with war protesters
By LINDA HALSTEAD-ACHARYA
Of The Gazette Staff
Judy Childers of Powell, Wyo., had her fill of the new media two years ago when her son Shane was killed in Iraq. She and her husband, Joe, granted dozens of interviews - to local media, The New York Times and major television stations.
She thought that was all behind her until Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey also died in the war, spawned a camp of war protesters outside President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas. Sheehan has vowed to remain there until Bush meets with her.
"As sick as I am of talking to the media, I said the other day I wish one of them would call," Childers said, when contacted by The Gazette.
Childers wants to let the nation know that not all mothers of fallen soldiers side with Sheehan.
"There needs to be another voice," she said. "The media has put the spotlight on her."
Childers is not alone. In fact, her words are echoed - sometimes even verbatim - by other area mothers who have lost their sons to war.
Of the seven Montana soldiers and six Wyoming soldiers who have died in the conflict, five have ties to the Eastern Montana/Northern Wyoming region.
Many of the parents spoke about a cause greater than their own personal loss.
To describe their feelings about Sheehan, they use words like disgust, disgrace, dishonor and sadness, yet they all support her right to protest.
"I feel she is disgracing her son's memory," Childers said.
The protest became too personal for Childers when she learned that her own son's photograph and a cross bearing his name was part of a display at Camp Casey near Crawford. At her request, son-in-law Richard Brown, stationed with the Army at Fort Hood, drove up to Crawford to remove the "mementos." He retrieved the cross and was told that the photo would be taken down or covered up. When he returned a day later, nothing had changed, Childers said.
"I really don't care what she (Sheehan) does with her son's memory, but it really burns me that she uses that picture and (Shane's) name for her cause, because that's not what he stood for," she said. "I felt she should have asked us for our permission."
When Childers remembers Shane, she remembers the boy who, since the age of 5, wanted to be a Marine.
"He loved the Marine Corps. That was his life," she said.
Shane was 30 years old when he became the first ground casualty in Iraq. He died of gunshot wounds to the stomach after his platoon took enemy fire. The war was less than 24 hours old.
Joe Childers is also upset by the protest.
"One of the first things when Shane was killed was we hoped there wouldn't be any more or many more," he said. "They (protesters) seem to think they're saving lives by withdrawing the troops. I think if that would happen, it would be further from the truth."
* * * *
David and Karen Witt of Sand Springs lost their son Owen on May 24, 2004, when his armored vehicle rolled in a ditch in Ad Dwar, Iraq. He was the second soldier from Montana to die in the war. They'd like him to be remembered for his way of making people laugh.
The Witts, too, support President Bush and the war in Iraq. Like Sheehan, Karen said she would like to meet with the president, but she'd have a different message to offer.
"I'd tell him I'd pray for him a lot and I'd give him a big hug," she said. "I'd tell him I didn't hold it against him that my son was killed."
When Karen thinks about Sheehan, she wonders if she will be remembered something like Jane Fonda, who was disparaged for visiting North Vietnam during the Vietnam WAr.
"I don't want to be remembered like that myself," she said.
Instead of marching in the streets, Karen would like to see protesters direct their efforts to visiting veterans, writing members of Congress or even doing "some hard praying."
"The media feeds on it (protest)," she said. "It makes everyone upset and doesn't accomplish anything."
The evolving headlines - reports questioning the president and the lead-up to war - also haven't changed Karen's resolve. If a person listens to enough conspiracy theories, she said, he or she could believe anything.
Instead, Karen turns her thoughts to the wounded.
"They'll have a lot tougher time than those who haven't come back," she said.
David Witt said the protesters are not only making it more dangerous for soldiers in Iraq, they're endangering people at home.
"(They're) just showing the terrorists we have a weakness here, the same as in Vietnam," he said. "People made fools of themselves then and they're still doing it."
* * * *
Ross and Glenda Holleyman's son Aaron died a year ago when his vehicle struck an explosive in Khutayiah. The Holleymans now live in Carthage, Miss., but Aaron graduated from high school in Glasgow, where they lived in the mid-1990s.
Glenda cherishes hearing from those who were touched by Aaron in Iraq.
"When they would interrogate prisoners, they asked for Aaron," Glenda said, quoting a friend of his. "He treated them like human beings."
Glenda describes herself as "not a vocal person," but the past few weeks have made her reconsider. She's given thought to writing a letter to Fox News to speak her mind.
"I got fired up about this stuff in Texas and the men in politics saying we shouldn't be over there in (Iraq)," she said.
At first, Glenda paid little attention to Sheehan's protest, allowing it as an expression of a mother's grief. But, as the days wore on and Camp Casey swelled, her frustration grew.
"I feel bad for her. I know she's grieving, but it got drug out," she said. "I got frustrated because there were so many people jumping on the bandwagon."
Holleyman believes Sheehan is doing her son and her country a disservice.
"Sometimes we may have an opinion, but that doesn't mean we have to express it," she said. "But if you say it, say it and be done with it."
Glenda questions why Sheehan has made such an issue of speaking face-to-face with Bush, especially since Sheehan has already spoken with him once. Glenda herself has not spoken to the president, but she's confident he is aware of her loss.
"I know he knows. He doesn't know Aaron by name or me by name, but every time a soldier gets killed, he knows and he grieves," she said. "I believe he does that every time we lose a soldier."
Ross has weighed their loss from every angle. He said he becomes wary when someone's personal loss changes their convictions. That's a sign someone is thinking with their emotions, he said, and that's a narrow perspective he'd rather avoid.
"If the cost of your investment is so great that it makes you change your mind about what it has cost you, you were making the wrong decision in the beginning," he said.
* * * *
Robbie McNary's mother did not live to hear about her son's death in Iraq. But McNary's widow, Annette, shares her grief with their three children and Robbie's father. They remember Robbie as a man with a sense of humor who was a friend to all.
"In his eyes, nobody was a stranger," she said in a interview soon after his death in a combat-related accident on March 31, 2005. "They were just somebody he didn't know yet and he would get to know them."
Since Robbie's death, his Lewistown family has not wavered in its support of the war. If anything, their convictions are stronger. That's why Sheehan's actions trouble them.
"It embarrasses me that she would do that," Annette said. "She's making a mockery of everything her son was working for - and my husband. It's almost like making the reason he died not a reason anymore."
McNary's older son, Ryan, is stationed in Kansas. He doesn't expect to be sent to Iraq, but he tells his mother that he'd rather be doing his part there than sitting in Kansas. Annette doesn't share his sentiment.
"But I'd rather us be over there helping them than them being over here playing in our backyard," she said.
* * * *
The anguish is still so raw for Debbie and Al Bloem of Belgrade that Debbie hasn't followed Sheehan's story in detail. Their son Nicholas, 20, died Aug. 3, just about the time Sheehan set up camp. He, along with 13 fellow Marines, was killed when the amphibious assault vehicle they were riding in was struck by a roadside bomb south of Haditha. He was days away from coming home and planned to enroll at Montana State University in Bozeman.
The Bloems question why the words of grieving parents should be given so much import.
"There's nothing special about us," Al said. "We gave all - that's what sets us apart."
Debbie says Sheehan is entitled to say whatever she wants, but she wonders about the wisdom of following a grieving mother.
"In my grief, I could say anything," she said. "Just because of my grief, maybe people should be careful about following me."
Al does not understand how withdrawing American troops from Iraq would change things for the better.
"That's where I break company with Cindy and those who rally around her," he said. "I think she's terribly mistaken and dangerously mistaken in her position."
The way he sees it, the enemy brought the fight to America and the nation should not wait for another attack.
Debbie believes the protesters send confusing messages to the men and women fighting in Iraq, messages that could sap their courage. She urges people to weigh the war in terms of principle instead of personal loss.
Earlier this week, she felt compelled to write a letter to her local newspaper.
"I do not ask that we continue this fight so that my son's death will not be in vain," she wrote. "But for the sake of our maturity and integrity as a country, for the sake of the innocents of Iraq, for the sake of the hope of democracy in the Arab world and I believe the resulting deflation of the threat of terrorism, take courage and continue the fight. Please, you who read this, stand with those of us with so much more to lose."
* * * *
The other three Montana soldiers who have died in Iraq are Edward Saltz, Bigfork; Dean Pratt, Stevensville; and Raleigh Smith, Troy.
