in the News Register, McMinville, Oregon: original article

Published: August 24, 2006

By DAVID BATES

Jeremiah Busby and his mom, Deborah Barquinero, are both fighting the war in Iraq.

Busby, 26, does his fighting with bullets - bullets fired from a Bradley fighting vehicle, which has saved him from more than one roadside bomb attack by insurgents.

Barquinero does her fighting with words - words emblazoned on placards and bumper stickers; words that come easily and passionately as she talks about the three-year-old conflict.

She not only criticizes the administration for its decision to take up arms. She also criticizes what she sees as its half-hearted support for its returning veterans - particularly the 19,511 who’ve suffered wounds in the service of their country.

Busby, seated beside her on the living room sofa, stares quietly at the floor, nodding now and then, as she shares her anti-war views. Barquinero grimaces in pain, shedding an occasional tear, as he shares his war-time experiences.

By the time returning soldiers touch American soil, they’ve already been told what to say to journalists - and what not to say. “They give you a pamphlet,” Busby said.

So, do his periodic nods signal agreement or simply acknowledgment? Given his instructions from the army, that has to remain all in the family.

“The army owns him,” Barquinero explained. “Not his soul, but his body, brain and heart.”

There is one thing, however, that Busby will give you an unambiguous opinion on - that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the fact mom opposes the war her son is fighting.

Can a person support the troops and oppose the war? Of course, he said.

Busby said of those who tar everyone with the same brush: “They don’t look deeper. They don’t care.”

Busby first became aware of his mom’s anti-war feelings in 2004. By then, he had already been on the ground in Iraq for three months.

When he learned she planned to protest on Third Street the week before the 2004 presidential election, he asked her to post his picture on her placard. “He wanted people to know he was there,” she said at the time, after the mother-son relationship caught a reporter’s eye.

Two days after Barquinero went public with her feelings about the war - inadvertently antagonizing a passer-by, who had arrived early for a Veterans Day parade that she hadn’t realized was scheduled - the military launched Operation Phantom Fury in Iraq.

Busby said it was his job to guard a bridge to ensure no one got in or out of Fallujah while American troops scoured the streets “wiping out anything they came across.” By then, he had become well-acquainted with the panicky feeling and accompanying adrenaline rush that goes along with having shots fired your way.

“Fallujah was 34 days of not showering, no toilets, one MRE and a bottle of water per day,” he said. It would produce the heaviest fighting of his tour in Iraq.

Listening to her son describe his experiences in the war zone makes Barquinero cringe.

“Knowing that my son is a sniper doesn’t thrill me,” she said. “But I’m proud of him all the same.”

She’s particularly proud of the way he has turned his life around.

Before joining the service, he lost a close friend when their boat capsized during a fishing trip. That put him on a wrong track - so wrong, in fact, that he got his first taste of gunfire in his civilian life.

Both attribute the turnaround as much to the love instilled by his wife, Tiffany, as to the discipline instilled by the army.

Asked what a year in Iraq made him most appreciate now that he was back home again, he never missed a beat. “Tiffy,” he said.

Barquinero is active in a group called Military Families Speak Out, which advocates immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

“I care about each and every soldier,” she said. “I have contact with a lot of family members.

“Half of this small group of ours has lost a child or loved one, and I can’t see any reason for it at all. I can’t see any of the honor. I just see sacrifice.”

In November 2004, when Barquinero made her first long walk down Third Street, 1,125 American soldiers had been killed in Iraq. Public sentiment seemed pretty evenly split, one poll pegging support at 51 percent and opposition at 48.

Since then, 1,488 more American soldiers have been killed in Iraq. As of mid-week, the official count stood at 2,613.

That pales in comparison to the Iraqi death toll, according to the British-based non-profit, Iraq Body Count, which tracks and confirms reports of Iraqi casualties. It says the number of confirmed dead now tops 40,000.

Meanwhile, support for the war has plummeted to about 35 percent, according to a new CNN/USA Today poll. And President Bush’s approval ratings have slumped to the lowest point of his years in office.

Busby is well aware of all that. And it’s his personal assessment, he said, that the situation in Iraq is “a little worse” than it was when he arrived.

In a couple of weeks, he’ll be headed back nonetheless. “I don’t like it either,” he said, “but I do what I’m told.”