FREEDOM IS NOT FREE

FREEDOM IS NOT FREE

I am the Mother of Fallen Hero Sgt. Jeremy R. Smith, I know

by Amy Branham

When I see bumper stickers with that sentiment I just want to scream. I think the people who display them probably haven’t had to pay the ultimate sacrifice for our country and don’t know what it means. Freedom Isn’t Free. Come on, give me a break. It makes me sick. 

How many of the people who proudly display this bumper sticker have had that knock on the door that brings the message of death? How many of them have had to bury their son or daughter who died while serving their country? How many of them have walked the floors night after night, unable to sleep, asking themselves why? Why did this have to happen?

Well, I did receive the messenger of death in my home via the United States Army on Friday, February 13, 2004 at 7:00 p.m., I was home alone. My husband and I had been home sick all week long, unable to leave the house. Finally, Jim had to run out to the grocery store and pick up a few things we needed. He had been gone less than five minutes. Jim probably passed the Army vehicle carrying the messenger on his way out of the apartment complex we where then living in.

I was standing outside on my ground floor patio when the messenger came walking past. I saw him and mistook him for my neighbor, who was also in the Army. I sent him a friendly hello, to which he responded by asking if I was Amy Branham. At that moment, I knew why he was there. At that moment, my heart fell and my life immediately changed forever.

“Ma’am, the Army regrets to inform you” he said once I had let him in my front door. I remember how dark my front room felt at that moment, how I lost my legs and had to sit down. My only son, my first- born child, was dead. The officer politely informed me that Jeremy had been in a car accident that morning, but he had no further details at that time. Later, the Army was not very forthcoming with information regarding Jeremy’s car accident, what happened or even the immediate cause of death, which turned out to be blunt force trauma to the head. Five days later, Jeremy’s unit left without him headed to Iraq.

I won’t go into any further detail than I have. It’s too painful to remember, to relive. It’s hard to speak about my son to people who are not family members or close friends.

After 9/11 I supported my President and my country in their pursuance of the terrorists who struck our country, who killed so many innocent people and destroyed the families of the victims. I still support the war effort in Afghanistan.

I believed my President when he claimed Saddam Hussein and Iraq were eminent threats to the United States, claiming they had weapons of mass destruction and would not hesitate to use them. I believed George Bush when he told the American people that Iraq was a breeding ground for terrorists. Like many others, I argued his case to my friends who didn’t believe.

I watched with anticipation and eagerness when Colin Powell went before the United Nations to present our case to the world. I was angry with the French and the other countries who scoffed at us.

Some time before Jeremy’s Army Reserve unit was called to active duty in late November of 2003, I started to have doubts. Something just didn’t seem right, didn’t make sense. But I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. It was a nagging doubt that I kept shoving off to the back of my mind.

A few short weeks after the war in Iraq began, George Bush stood on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln and declared victory in Iraq, saying that the war was over. Huh? The war had only begun! Our troops were being attacked on a daily basis by insurgents.

Finally, one day, I got a clue. Where were those WMD’s we had been told about? Where were all the people that were supposed to greet our troops with open arms and flowers? Why were our troops constantly under attack? The whole infrastructure of the Iraqi nation had been torn apart. Every day we heard reports of new bombings, insurgents, innocent people killed and lives destroyed.

The evening news did not even mention Osama Bin Laden anymore. They quit reporting on what was happening in Afghanistan. All the media reported about was Iraq. I thought the whole purpose of this war was to find the leader of the terrorist group that struck the U.S. Trade Center, who masterminded that terrible attack on American soil. Why hadn’t he been caught yet and why didn’t anyone know where he was?

There were no answers to my questions until one day a man named Michael Moore made a very controversial documentary called Fahrenheit 9/11. Finally, someone had an explanation for this war, an explanation that made sense to me. I watched this documentary with tears streaming down my face, weeping throughout the entire thing. And, when I left the movie theater, there were armed sheriff’s deputies standing outside the door. I’ve never in my life seen that before.

Then, around the time of the Republican National Convention in the fall of 2004 word began to leak out that the war in Iraq was a mistake, that there were no WMD’s. Excuse me, the war was a mistake? My son and thousands of other American sons and daughters were sent to Iraq to fight and die for a mistake?

Bill O’Reilly of Fox News was asked during an interview by Michael Moore at the RNC what he would say to the families of American soldiers who had died for a war that was a mistake. He made some flippant comment about being sorry their loved one had died for a mistake, but that he still believed the war was necessary. He was not willing to send his own child into harm’s way; he was willing to go fight himself. So, my son and so many other of American’s sons and daughters died for a mistake? What makes Bill O’Reilly’s child better than mine? Why should my child have to go but not his? In the past I had been a loyal listener and fan. Since that day I have not tuned my TV to Fox News or to O’Reilly’s show. Frankly, Mr. O’Reilly, you can kiss my butt.

Freedom isn’t free. However, the war in Iraq is not about defending the freedom of America or its citizens. It is my opinion that the war is about George Bush’s vendetta against Saddam Hussein and Bush’s own personal agenda. It is about big business and oil. George doesn’t give a damn about the people he is sending into harm’s way every day, the soldiers who are wounded or dying, although he claims that he “thinks about them every day. Every single day.” The American people are nothing but pawns in George Bush’s elaborate chess game. He cares little about us or his country. We are his tools.

George Bush will not meet with the family members who have lost their loved ones in the service of this country, especially not the ones who disagree with him and want answers. During inauguration week in January of this year, members of Gold Star Families for Peace went to Washington D.C. to meet with the President. For weeks beforehand, they had attempted to contact him and were ignored. Efforts to meet with him were met with a police force to keep them away.

In June of this year the Downing Street Minutes came into the public spotlight, mostly through the efforts of After Downing Street Dot Org and other organizations they work with. Gold Star Families for Peace and Cindy Sheehan have had a great impact in bringing this document and the others that go along with it to light. We have worked to encourage the media, who previously ignored these documents saying they were “old news” and “we all knew about them” into the public spotlight. What do you mean you knew about them? Why didn’t you bring them to the attention of the American people when you first knew about them and let us decide?

The Downing Street Minutes and other documents say that Bush and his administration were “fixing” policy. Formal inquiries need to be made to determine the truth and voracity of these documents. If they are true, our President and his cronies need to be impeached, thrown out of office. They should be tried for war crimes.

I don’t know everything. I’m just a heartbroken, humble mother who had to bury her only son. I am a patriotic American citizen who is tired of watching her country be torn to shreds by an administration with their own personal agenda.

Next week, on the 4th of July, there will be no fireworks or barbeques, no celebration of freedom or parades in our family. There will only be a quiet visit to the cemetery to honor Jeremy, who believed that his Commander in Chief would not lie to him and would not needlessly send him and thousands of others into harm’s way without good reason.

And, when Bill O’Reilly kisses his child goodnight every night, I hope he thinks about the 1700+ parents who will never be able to do that again. Freedom Isn’t Free? My family knows this first hand.

abranham@houston.rr.com