War supporters and opponents to march this weekend

Published 9:00 pm Friday, September 23, 2005

WASHINGTON – Diane Ibbotson and H. Elaine Johnson are grieving mothers. Both lost sons in Iraq, and both feel strongly enough about the war to travel to the nation’s capital for demonstrations.

That is where the similarities end.

Johnson will be protesting the war, while Ibbotson will be speaking in support of the military action.

Organizers of today’s anti-war protest predict about 100,000 people will crowd the Ellipse near the White House for a rally and march. Among those expected are Cindy Sheehan, the California mother who drew thousands of protesters to her 26-day vigil outside President Bush’s Texas ranch in August.

Sheehan’s 24-year-old son, Casey, was killed in an ambush in Sadr City, Iraq, last year. Ibbotson’s son, Forest Jostes, was killed in the same ambush.

Ibbotson, from Albion, Ill., said war protesters dishonor the service of her son and others who have died.

“There are families who lose children in accidents, in tragic illnesses. Young people die, and it seems without a purpose,” said Ibbotson, whose son was 21. “My son gave his life for a cause that he believed in. He fought and died for God and country.”

Ibbotson is part of the Iowa-based group Families United for Our Troops. She’s one of 25 Gold Star families who lost loved ones in Afghanistan or Iraq who will speak at a news conference this morning and then attend a rally for military families on the Mall on Sunday.

Johnson, from Orangeburg, S.C., lost her son, Darius Jennings, 22, when his Chinook helicopter was shot down in Iraq in November 2003. The United States, she said, should not have invaded Iraq.

“My son gave his life for his country,” she said. “The war was a mistake from the beginning, so my son died for oil.”

Johnson says she will continue to speak against the war until the last soldier is brought home.

Anti-war protesters will march to the front of the White House and down to the Justice Department before circling back to the Washington Monument for an 11-hour concert and rally featuring folk singer Joan Baez. War supporters will line part of the march route.

Other anti-war protests are planned in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle.