Vermont's War
It's known for liberal politics. But the Green Mountain State has also paid a heavy price in Iraq
Kevin Sheehan joined during peacetime and enjoyed the drill weekends with others like him-outdoorsmen who lived on country roads, often deep in the woods, and loved to hunt and fish. Military service for many was simply an extension of that lifestyle. The money helped, his wife said, "though it's not like we won the lottery." But when her husband called home on 9/11, she remembers thinking as she held little Alyson: "This could touch us."
Stories. A group of students at Norwich University in Norwich, the nation's oldest private military school, in recent months has been piecing together a documentary on just how intensely the war has touched the state. Vermont Fallen, a compilation of heart-rending interviews with families like the Sheehans who have lost loved ones in Iraq, will be shown to them for the first time this week. Norwich Prof. William Estill, who has overseen the project, says he hopes the video will eventually be shown to a wider audience. But it has already had the effect of connecting the families, known historically as Gold Star families, and in the process has helped create a statewide support group of those trying to live with the anguish of loss.
Just before Christmas, 10 Gold Star family members, including Sheehan, gathered at Sarducci's restaurant on the banks of the Winooski River in Montpelier to eat pasta and talk about what they've lost. They'd come wearing matching sweatshirts printed with the faces of the fallen and greeted each other with hugs and laughter. The tears, too, would come-but later.
"This is the final gift from our boys; that's why we're together," said Marion Gray, whose stepson, Jamie, 29, a National Guard sergeant, died in a roadside bomb attack in 2004. She's the group's "Mama Goose," the one who makes the phone calls, sends the E-mails, and visits the grieving, pulling together the families to share their stories.
"With this group, you almost feel normal again," added Kevin McLaughlin, here with his wife, Vicki. The McLaughlins and Gary and Janet Merchant, who were sitting at the end of the table, are all from tiny Hardwick (population 3,230) and lost their sons to violence in Ramadi within months of each other. Chris Merchant, who would have turned 33 on this day, was a school custodian and married father of four who wanted extra income to help his family and had hopes of becoming a teacher, his father said.
"I want Chris and the others to be remembered as heroes who fought for freedom," said Gary Merchant. "It's terrible to lose all of our boys, but they were doing what they were meant to do, and with a lot of courage."
Jamie Gray's father, Steve, who recently retired as head of Montpelier's public works department, opened up a scrapbook of his son's life. There was Jamie tapping a maple tree with his uncle on the farm the family lived on for seven generations, holding a string of fish caught at the family's fishing camp, standing by a deer strung up and ready to gut.
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