posted on August 14, 2005 10:34:57 AM new
Mother begs for end to killing
Atlantan: 'It's too late for my son'
By ANNA VARELA
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 08/12/05
Mary Ann MacCombie didn't protest Vietnam. She was in her early 20s and wasn't sure she understood that war well enough to take a stand.
And she didn't know anybody who died there.
When the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003, she was "cautiously supportive." And when her son's Army unit joined the fight, she thought it would be like the Gulf War in 1991 — few casualties, "in and out."
In April 2004, MacCombie's son was killed in Iraq. Suddenly the war became personal.
On Thursday, two years after the invasion of Iraq, MacCombie spoke out at an anti-war demonstration for the first time. It took her more than a year to trust herself to talk about her son without breaking down, a year spent in a state of shock and coping with the bureaucratic details that follow death in a faraway place.
She joined about three dozen protesters who gathered in front of the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Decatur to show support for Cindy Sheehan, the California mother who lost a son in Iraq and has camped out on a road leading to President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, where he is vacationing. Sheehan has vowed to stay until he meets with her personally.
MacCombie read a speech she wrote ahead of time because she didn't think she could speak off the cuff. "It's too late for my son," she said, "but not for his best friend and thousands of their fellow soldiers and Marines. Now is the right time, the right place, the right mission — to bring our troops home."
Afterward, MacCombie admitted she was nervous. She knows she shook a little during her speech. But she thought she did OK, and she's willing to do it again.
She's thinking about going to Texas to join Sheehan.
When Sgt. Ryan Montgomery Campbell settled in for his yearlong tour of duty, MacCombie supported her son by sending video games, music CDs and a laptop computer, making sure his bills got paid, and e-mailing him regularly.
The 25-year-old swapped gossip with his mother about friends back home in Kirksville, Mo. They talked about the intense heat of the Baghdad summer and the college classes she was taking. Toward the end of the tour, Campbell e-mailed his mother to suggest she meet him at his base in Europe so they could see Germany and Spain together.
But a few days before he was to leave Iraq in April 2004, he e-mailed her with bad news: The Army had ordered his unit to stay for four more months.
Morale 'at an all-time low'
The extension was a shock. The soldiers in his unit had already packed and shipped their personal items to their home base in Germany. Campbell dropped plans to re-enlist, intentions based on assurances that he could be stationed in Hawaii. Now, he wrote his mother, he couldn't trust the Army to keep its word.
On April 10, 2004, he wrote:
"Well, the days are just dragging by over here ... before at least there was something to look forward to. ... I continue to hate this place. I hate the Army."
He e-mailed his sister, Brooke Campbell, and urged her not to vote for Bush. On April 26 he sent his sister another e-mail, noting that he was pulling 16-hour workdays providing security for an engineering unit assigned to dig up roadsides where Iraqi insurgents often hid bombs.
"My morale is at an all-time low," he wrote, "and the days are hard. Our mission is more dangerous than ever before."
On April 28, Campbell called his mother twice, sounding very discouraged. She didn't know how to console him.
The next day, he was killed by a suicide bomber along with seven other soldiers from his unit.
Mom's Bush ranch protest
MacCombie buried her son in Arlington National Cemetery on May 11, 2004. The next week she moved to Atlanta to be closer to Brooke, a graduate student at Emory University.
MacCombie had remained in Kirksville so Ryan would have a home to return to. When he died, there was no point staying there, she decided. She dropped out of college because she didn't have the heart to go on.
She lives in a rented duplex in Virginia-Highland and drives the red Jeep Wrangler her son bought on his last two-week leave home. At 59, she thinks she probably looks silly in "his dream car," but it makes her feel closer to her son.
MacCombie has been slower to go public with her opposition to the war than her daughter. Brooke, 29, appeared in an anti-Bush TV ad that was aired in swing states during the 2004 election campaign.
MacCombie long ago concluded the president's stated reasons for going to war in Iraq were untrue. One of her first steps toward protest came July 22, when Bush visited Atlanta to promote his Social Security plan and the new Medicare prescription drug benefit. She stood silently in a black T-shirt with "Bush Lied" on the front and "They Died" on the back. Names of U.S. troops who died in the war cover both sides of the shirt. Her son's name runs across the middle of the B in "Bush."
She is monitoring the situation in Texas, where news reports Thursday said more than 50 war protesters had joined Sheehan. Rumors were flying that Sheehan would be arrested. If that happens, MacCombie is ready to take her place to show Bush that the California mother "speaks for a lot of us."
Several opinion polls show support for the war has slipped. In a USA Today-CNN-Gallup Poll released this week, 56 percent of Americans surveyed said the war was going badly. The same poll asked if they supported sending more troops, keeping troop levels the same, a partial pullout or a complete pullout. The leading choice was complete withdrawal, with 33 percent favoring that option. Twenty-three percent supported a partial withdrawal.
MacCombie rejects the idea that mothers like her endanger the troops by speaking out. She feels they are already demoralized and nothing she says will put them in greater danger than they already face. She also knows that many people, including some mothers who have lost children in Iraq, see her criticism as bringing dishonor to the soldiers who have died. She said she respects their feelings and hopes they will respect hers.
She thinks about the mothers whose sons and daughters are still fighting. More than a thousand U.S. soldiers and Marines have been killed in Iraq since her son died. "How many is enough?" she asks.
"Maybe it's going to take more speaking out. ... It just seems to be the right time for me personally."
And, she notes sadly, she didn't speak up during Vietnam.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
----------------------------------
President George Bush: "Over time the truth will come out."
President George Bush: "Our people are going to find out the truth, and the truth will say that this intelligence was good intelligence. There's no doubt in my mind."
Bush was right. The truth did come out and the facts are he misled Congress and the American people about the reasons we should go to war in Iraq.
posted on August 14, 2005 05:44:45 PM new
LOL Ron...that's the truth. Now with our active troop level being at 1,427,000 they only have few more to go on about.... LOL
"Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence." --Ann Coulter
And why the American Voters chose to RE-elect President Bush to four more years. YES!!!
posted on August 14, 2005 08:18:57 PM new
Yup, there's lindak eagerly waiting for more to be killed so she can spend her days laughing like it's some kind of contest over which side the parents are on afterwards. Sicko!
posted on August 14, 2005 08:39:23 PM new
Washingtonebayer, lindak has set her own pattern here. I'm impressed that you seem to know what Cindy Sheehan's son wanted and what he would say to her even though you never met him or shared any letters from him. Amazing.
posted on August 14, 2005 08:46:30 PM new
My experience is that I have the luxury of living where free speech is still allowed and I can type my thoughts freely here if I wish, whether you agree with them or not.
posted on August 15, 2005 06:29:59 AM new
Never heard that one before, but if you think your opinion looses value when you post it, that is ok with me.
posted on August 15, 2005 07:00:50 AM new
No, you didn't hear that one before because I just made it up. Actually I'm just playing with your opinion a bit but treading very carefully with you because of your sensitive side and I don't want to risk hurting your delicate feelings like some have done here. I don't like to see big boys wimper.
posted on August 15, 2005 07:32:37 AM new
Ronnie posted:posted on August 14, 2005 08:47:38 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wonder how long before one of those "Dove hunters" shoots the trespassers.
Enough is enough, President Bush is not going to talk directly to this....um woman. and that should be the end of it, bet he is flippng her the bird behind those dark tinted windows as he drives by LOL"""
"" If so why do you feel the need to say things here you probably wouldn't say out in polite society?""
Ya, Snickerdoodles, would YOU really say what you did in "polite society" or just with the people YOU hang out with.?
posted on August 15, 2005 07:58:26 AM newYou are an adult aren't you? If so why do you feel the need to say things here you probably wouldn't say out in polite society?
Washingtonebayer, what did I say here that you so disapprove of?
I'm not the one saying things like 'STFU' as you do here. Or is this where you think you can conduct yourself as you see fit yet everyone else should stick to the standards you wish to set for them?
I see that you object mostly to the way some women behave here, do they kind of frighten you? Do you feel a need to control them?
posted on August 15, 2005 08:06:38 AM new
Not in the least kiara, I think you should be able to voice your opinion, however on what level does that place you when you insult?
Do you have so little to say that all you can do is insult people with names and vulgarities.
My statement was not directed at anyone here and I have written Sheehan with exactly those words.
I know military people having been one myself. have you been in the military? Do you know how sons feel when their mother is embarrasing themselves and family?
posted on August 15, 2005 08:17:44 AM newDo you have so little to say that all you can do is insult people with names and vulgarities.
Washingtonebayer, where do you see me doing that? I've never done that to you. In fact, you have to admit that I have never once called you Ronnie or really hurt your feelings here, have I?
Now I realize that you may feel a need to protect lindak as I think some of the males remember that dominant mother image from their youth that she seems to portray, so I fully understand.
I'm really a nice person and get along well with everyone in real life. I'll make an effort to be more gentle with you from now on, okay?
posted on August 15, 2005 08:18:38 AM new
sorry Ron, but kiara is one who can't grasp the difference between saying something like STFU to or about someone outside our board vs saying to a fellow poster.
Like here: She works to make herself feel so much above you...while not being able to admit what foul things she says to other posters here. She IS treating you differently as she's AFRAID she'll be reported. Can't have that, even though she's often deserved it.
I'm not the one saying things like 'STFU' as you do here. Or is this where you think you can conduct yourself as you see fit yet everyone else should stick to the standards you wish to set for them?
No, she NEVER says STFU to posters here.....she just tells them repeatedly to 'stick it up their as@' or 'cram it up their as@'.
Don't YOU see the difference there Ron??? She's so MUCH better.
LOL LOL
[ edited by Linda_K on Aug 15, 2005 08:23 AM ]
posted on August 15, 2005 08:21:04 AM new
Kiara You nailed it big time.
Ronnie was NEVER in the military. What a lie.
How would he ever make it through boot camp with his sensitive nature?
And about the "women" issue..you're very correct on that! Proven by the fact that he just HAD to refer to Cindy as ...."um..woman".
Too predictable...men like him who run up against any woman who's less than a doormat haven't the intelligence to stick to the issue...they have to attack the sex of the other person which, as most people know, has nothing to do with the issue
posted on August 15, 2005 08:26:47 AM new
Oh and kiara....now I see why dbl says the things about you she says.
You DO lie.
Opinions are like Barbies, they kind of depreciate once they're out of the box and they've been played with.
You said to Ron: No, you didn't hear that one before because I just made it up.
YOU didn't make that up....I've been a seller since 1997 and I can't tell you the number of times collectors have made that very SAME comment.
Yea, you're unique okay...but not in coming up with that one.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence." --Ann Coulter
And why the American Voters chose to RE-elect President Bush to four more years. YES
[ edited by Linda_K on Aug 15, 2005 08:31 AM ]
posted on August 15, 2005 08:34:58 AM new
Good Beautiful Monday Morning! How's everybody feeling today? Wasn't it wonderful to awaken to another day.. to live..love.. and explore..I hope everyone will take a small break from all the problem solving today and stop and smell the roses...hugs Maggie
posted on August 15, 2005 08:38:52 AM newYOU didn't make that up....I've been a seller since 1997 and I can't tell you the number of times collectors have made that very SAME comment.
Everyone knows Barbies depreciate once they're out of the box and they've been played with. I was relating it to 'opinions' and 'playing with an opinion'. Hmmmm........ I just checked on a google search and I don't see my exact quote there. It was something that I made up last night but yes, someone else in this big world could have said the opinion/barbie thing before also. Now do we have anything else to get picky over today, lindak?
posted on August 15, 2005 08:48:49 AM new
When nearly every word that she writes other than puke, vomit, communist, anti American etc., is a copy paste article --- linda is now professing original thought. How amusing.
posted on August 15, 2005 08:54:04 AM newShe IS treating you differently as she's AFRAID she'll be reported.
Another lie from lindak. I'm not treating Ron any differently than I wish to treat him. And I'm not the least afraid of being reported, she's threatened to do it and so have others. If Vendio feels I've done something wrong and they boot me off, so what?
posted on August 15, 2005 09:09:25 AM new
Hahahaha, mingotree... that's just got to relate in one way or another now, right?
lindak, please calm down and read what I said. I admitted that I said some bad words like 'ass' to you. In fact last time you made a big stink and threatened to snitch to Vendio over the 'ass' statement. The point I was making to Ron (before you stuck your nose into it) was that is not the way I behave with all the posters on this board.
LOL
