Amid Tributes, Questions Arise

Iraq War Controversy Weighs Heavily on Memorial Day Moments

The debate over the Iraq war broke out along Arlington National Cemetery's Roosevelt Drive, in a sea of headstones before a gallery of the dead, just down the road from where President Bush had concluded his Memorial Day speech minutes before.

Three congressional interns -- hot, tired and in awe of the crowds and the pageantry -- were leaving, trying to sort through what it all meant. One, Julia Villamizar, a 20-year-old from Miami, said it was difficult for her to see U.S. soldiers in Iraq as "heroes." She admired them and didn't want them to die. But she did not see the Iraqis as enemies. "I guess I don't see the people in Iraq as villains," she said.

Just then, Claude Wilson, an insurance adjuster from New Mexico who had been walking by with his two grandsons, jumped in.

"I was your age during the Vietnam War," he told Villamizar. "I marched in peace marches. I'm not opposed to peace protests. But if someone is willing to put his life on the line for their country, they're a hero."

From Arlington Cemetery to the Mall ceremonies, those who were honoring the fallen of past wars wrangled over the merits of the conflict. But there were also other images:

Teenagers from a Toronto Jewish school thanking veteran John Gabersek, 87, who sat in the shade by the National World War II Memorial in his olive-drab Army tunic, his walker folded nearby.

The scrawled note left at the Korean War Veterans Memorial to veteran Houston Chapman: "You were the best dad anyone could want. . . . We miss you. Mother's doing fine."

An elderly veteran rising from his wheelchair in salute as wounded Iraq war veterans passed by on a float during the parade along Constitution Avenue.

And Sam Floberg, 29, a sergeant with the Army National Guard who lost much of his right leg last year during an ambush in Afghanistan, sitting in a wheelchair at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, saying he knows now that it is more than just names on a wall.

But the current war seemed to be on many minds.

At Arlington, Villamizar and Wilson were soon arguing the origins of the conflict, Sept. 11 and Saddam Hussein, and whether it was right for Americans to assert their cultural values in the Middle East. The back-and-forth continued for 15 minutes or so but never rose to angry tones.

As they set off on their separate ways, Villamizar stopped Wilson. "Wait," she said, "I want to get a picture with you."