Sunday, January 7, 2007
Love and losses
An anti-war demonstration in Garden Grove draws two Gold Star mothers and dozens of other protesters.
By VALERIE TAKAHAMA
The Orange County Register
Judy Probst wrote her son's name on one of the thousands of small wooden crosses that stretched along Harbor Boulevard in Garden Grove on Saturday. Her son, Michael, was killed in a roadside bomb blast in Iraq in February. "I'm here so that what happened to my son doesn't happen to someone else's," said Probst, of Irvine.
The Gold Star mother was among the 50 or so people who marched, waved signs, listened to speeches, wept and consoled one another during a 24-hour vigil to protest the war in Iraq. Their signs read "Honor the Dead, Heal the Wounded," "No War" and "Worst President Ever." Probst's carried the message, "Bush Lied, My Son Died in Iraq."
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Members of the group began assembling before 9 a.m. and affixed 3,006 miniature crosses, crescents, Stars of David and American flags to a fence running alongside a vacant lot. By mid-morning, they learned that a new count had increased the number of deaths to 3,031.
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Like Probst, Castro, also a Gold Star mother, said she felt compelled to speak out in hopes of saving the life of another mother's child. "I've been criticized. I've had people tell me I'm dishonoring my son," she said. "No mother wants to be told that, especially one who has lost her only child."
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http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/rotator/article_1537459.php![](http://www.ocregister.com/newsimages/local/2007/01/07soldiers_md.jpg)