It is very hard for some mothers to think their sons or daughters died for a cause that wasn't worthy. It is far too simple to lump people into two categories.
Here's a bit from yesterdays Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/07/national/07marine.html?pagewanted=1But many relatives of marines said anything short of completing "the mission" - that is, establishing democracy in Iraq - would dishonor the memories of the fallen. And they sharply criticized anyone who questioned the administration's policies.
"Are you going to tell that mother whose son is in a casket that you don't believe in what they are doing over there?" asked Karen Parker, 43, of Cleveland, whose son is with the 3/25 in Iraq. "Do you know how that would hurt them? We don't have that right."
Not all parents of dead marines agreed. Rosemary Palmer, Corporal Schroeder's mother, has always opposed the war and believes her son was growing disenchanted with it before he died. She says she knows other parents who oppose the war but are afraid to speak out, believing their children will be punished by their commanders.
"How are we honoring them by throwing another 1,800 lives on the pile?" asked Ms. Palmer, 57, of Cleveland. "Honor them by resolving this war."
The debate has even split some families. Erica Deyarmin said her brother, Corporal Deyarmin, a sniper with the 3/25 who died Monday, loved the marines and was deeply proud of what they were doing in Iraq.
"If we turn our backs on them now, he would have died in vain," she said.
But her grandmother, Barbara Davis, 68, said that she felt the war had been unnecessary and that the ground troops should be pulled out immediately - words that caused her granddaughter to leave the room.
"I support the troops," she said, recalling the hundreds of pairs of socks and dozens of care packages she had sent to her grandson's unit. "I just don't support the policy."
Kristin Earhart of Pickerington, Ohio, the girlfriend of Cpl. Dustin A. Derga of the 3/25, who died on May 8, said he considered it his duty to fight, making his opinion of it irrelevant. An Air National Guard member, Ms. Earhart, 22, said she felt the same way.
"I don't want our boys over there," she said. "But in the same sense, they're doing a job and they're doing it good."
One of Corporal Derga's best friends, Lance Cpl. Nicholas B. Erdy, also of the 3/25, died three days later. For Brandon Harmon, 24, a police officer from Pickerington and a friend of Corporal Derga's, so much death in so few days had brought the war too close to their small town.
"The national spotlight is on Ohio right now," Mr. Harmon said. "We just think that one company has gone through so much, you just kind of wish that they could get a break and come home."