Today's edition of the Dayton Daily News asks the question
"Did the deaths of 14 Ohio-based Marines change public opinion of the war?"
On August 3, 2005, five families living in the suburbs of Cincinnati got a call from the Marines that no family wants to receive.
I regret to inform you that your son, David / Timothy / Michael / William / Christopher is dead.
The 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines is based in Brook Park, Ohio, just up the street from the automobile plants.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer also covered the
anniversary.
Nate followed a grandfather into the Marines in 2003. He still was rough around the edges in Iraq.
His parents say he napped as often as possible. "Why be awake and have to live through this heat and this hell?"
He cried about killing people and said, "I don't know if I got the right ones."
Nate last called home on his birthday, July 30, 2005. He was looking forward to two days off. Then the second day off was scrapped for the fatal mission.
Back home, Dan was uprooting a dying pine when the casualty officers came. Now a memorial garden stands in its place.
"This is my boy right here." Dan pats a blue spruce, then points to some shrubs. "And these are the five comrades."
It's strengthened the resolve of some and raised the activism of others.
Women in the Deyarmin family have stumped against the war in Washington, D.C.
"I don't feel my son gave his life," says his mother, Edie. "It was taken from him."
But the Deyarmins are more military than ever. Erica recently married a former Marine reservist, and her cousin joined the corps.
I visited Cleveland over the July 4 holiday. I remember how sentimental the town can be. Walk through the neighborhoods during baseball season and you often see Tribe decorations in the yard. During football season, people hang out Browns flags. So it was no surprise to see gold stars in the windows. It seemed so quaint and old fashioned. Walking through one neighborhood on the West Side of Cleveland, I past three houses with gold stars prominantly displayed in the front window.
And it struck me: I don't see gold stars at home. I live in a relatively affluent suburb of a huge metropolitan area. We're not making the sacrifice. But the good folks of Ohio are.
Ohio, where unemployment is above the national average and where in one eastern county, it is over 9%.
They believe in sacrifice and gold stars and remembering. They're sentimental and good hearted but they're not stupid and there's only so much they can take.
I realize that all the heat is on Lieberman and Lamont this week. But it doesn't hurt to remember that this week also marked what might have been a turning point for Ohioans: the week the war came home. The week that Ohio paid the ultimate price for George Bush's adventure in Iraq. We can rant about clean and fair elections, Coingate, pay-to-play fraud, etc... But in Ohio, as in Connecticut, at the end of the day, the cost of this war could be the ultimate issue. It's the War, Stupid. It's the Stupid War.