Mothers Mourn as the Elite Party On

The first mom I spoke to by phone Thursday morning was Celeste Zappala, whose sons used to hang around with my boys now and then in Philadelphia. Zappala was in Washington for President Bush’s inaugural, demonstrating against the war that took her eldest boy.

“I’m at Foundry United Methodist Church, where I just spoke about the cost of war,” said Zappala, who carried a poster-size photo of her son, Sherwood Baker.

Baker, a 30-year-old National Guardsman, was killed April 26 last year while searching for weapons of mass destruction. Baker, a husband and father, had gone to Iraq with a walkie-talkie and navigational device his family bought for him because they were not provided by the military.

And now his mother was in Washington on the day of a grand inaugural celebration that would cost more than $40 million, most of it paid for by American corporations. When I asked Zappala what she meant by the cost of war, she answered:

“I mean that there are 1,370 American soldiers dead, 10,000 soldiers injured and at least 100,000 Iraqi people dead. A country has been destroyed, and we make new enemies every day, but we never see the coffins coming back because there has been a deliberate effort to sanitize the war,” Zappala said.

“We’re here as witnesses to what the real costs are. You know our family’s been demolished by this, and my grandson grows up without a father. That’s what the war means.... Is this the time to spend $40 million for flowing champagne and caviar? While they’re partying in fur coats at balls, blood will be shed in Iraq.”

Zappala and a few dozen others who have lost loved ones in Iraq, including Cindy Sheehan of Vacaville in the San Francisco Bay Area, had tried to visit the Pentagon on Wednesday but were turned away by armed guards. When I spoke to Sheehan early Thursday, she was at the intersection of Constitution and Pennsylvania, waiting for President Bush’s inaugural parade to come by.

“My son was regular Army, enlisted,” said Sheehan, a full-time mom married to a hardware salesman. “We didn’t want him to enlist, but he was 21 and it was something he wanted to do -- to serve his country. He was always into service as an Eagle Scout, an altar boy.”

And yet Casey, her son, was against this war.

“He didn’t think it was a just war.... He didn’t see Iraq as an imminent threat to the United States ... but he felt he had a duty and a loyalty to his buddies. He told me he had to support his buddies by doing this job, and he told me, ‘Mom, the sooner I go, the sooner I’ll be home.’ ”

Casey, 24, who wanted to be an elementary school teacher, was cut down in an ambush April 4 last year while trying to rescue fallen comrades. He had arrived in Baghdad only two weeks earlier. Sheehan said her son’s unit was using Vietnam-era flak jackets because of a shortage of newer armor.

“I had seen a TV news report about eight soldiers being killed that day in Sadr City and I saw a Humvee burning, and thought my son was one of the dead soldiers,” Sheehan says. “I just had a terrible feeling.”

That evening, she returned from walking the dogs and found three military officers standing in her living room.

“I just collapsed on the floor screaming, and I think it’s the closest I could have come to death without dying. You just want to get away from yourself. The pain is so intense; not just physical but emotional and psychic pain, and you want to escape it.”

Over layers of clothing on a freezing day, Sheehan wore a T-shirt bearing her son’s image.

“I came to protest the inauguration, because I think the opulence of it is inappropriate for a country at war. I can’t believe these people are excited about party dresses ... when there are probably people dying in Iraq while they’re partying.”

Sheehan said she doesn’t know how to fix Iraq now, given the chaos and simmering ethnic division. She thinks that the U.S. should provide money and supplies for rebuilding, but that a continued American military presence will rally insurgents and continue diverting resources from a true war on terror.

In his inaugural speech, President Bush gave no indication of any immediate change of course. In fact, he issued what sounded like a recruiting call.

“Some have shown their devotion to our country in deaths that honored their whole lives ... and we will always honor their sacrifice,” Bush said. “I ask our youngest citizens to believe the evidence of your eyes.... Make the choice to serve in a cause larger than your wants.”

There was no indication whether the 23-year-old Bush twins, who were in attendance, had decided to enlist.

After his speech, the president dined on lobster, scalloped crab and roasted quail. At midday, this item appeared on the newswire:

“Lana Marks, renowned designer to A-list Hollywood, society and royalty, has been selected by First Lady Laura Bush to design several custom couture LANA MARKS handbags for the second inauguration of her husband.... “

The last I heard from Celeste Zappala, she was on the run with the photo of her dead son, taking cover as police used pepper spray to repel surging demonstrators.

Steve Lopez writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at steve.lopez@latimes.com and read previous columns at latimes.com/lopez.