Peg Mullen, 92, Who Fanned Her Anger Over Son뭩 Death Into Antiwar Drive, Dies

dflprincess

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Fri Oct-16-09 12:34 PM
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Peg Mullen, 92, Who Fanned Her Anger Over Son뭩 Death Into Antiwar Drive, Dies

Edited on Fri Oct-16-09 12:36 PM by dflprincess

I just found this today and can't find that it was posted at the time of Mrs. Mullen's death earlier this month. It would seem wrong to let her passing go unnoticed here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/us/06mullen.html

Peg Mullen, an Iowa farm wife who made herself a living symbol of loss after her son was killed in Vietnam, as she sharply questioned the military뭩 explanations and became an outspoken antiwar crusader, died Friday in La Porte City, Iowa. She was 92.

After her son Michael was killed by shrapnel from United States artillery on Feb. 18, 1970, Mrs. Mullen did not disguise her rage. She used his death benefit to buy two half-page advertisements in The Des Moines Register, each with more than 700 crosses, one for each Iowan killed in the war.

Mrs. Mullen from the start refused to believe the Pentagon뭩 account of Michael뭩 death, that he was killed in an accident. Mr. Bryan뭩 (C.D.B. Bryan - wrote "Friendly Fire" about Michael's death and Peg's activism) investigation eventually laid out considerable evidence that the official story was, indeed, true. Mrs. Mullen remained skeptical. She wrote her own book in 1995, 밬nfriendly Fire: A Mother뭩 Memoir,� expanding on her doubts. Around 40 of her son뭩 letters added poignancy to the story.

Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Michael뭩 commander in Vietnam, met with Mrs. Mullen and her husband and tried to answer her questions as clearly as he could. But he could not satisfy them. 밫o me, the death of Michael Mullen was not just one tragedy, but two: the needless death of a young man, and the bitterness that was consuming his parents,� the general wrote in his autobiography.

Margaret Goodyear was born in Pocahontas, Iowa, in 1917, and after graduating from high school moved to Des Moines to work in various federal jobs. In 1941, she married Oscar Mullen, known as Gene. They settled on the 120-acre farm near La Porte City that had been in the family for four generations. In addition to farming, Mr. Mullen worked for Rath Packing and John Deere. Mrs. Mullen worked at J. C. Penney and Santa Claus Industries. Mrs. Mullen뭩 mother had been county Democratic chairwoman in the 1920s, and she herself was an active Democrat, serving as a delegate at the party뭩 1964, 1968 and 1972 national conventions. Her forebodings about Vietnam were solidifying into opposition before the death of Michael, who had been a graduate student in biochemistry when he was drafted in 1968.

She declined a free grave marker with a military inscription. She bought a tombstone, and used the verb 뱆illed� rather than 밺ied.�

Mrs. Mullen뭩 militancy never abated. At 74, she rode a bus for 38 hours to protest the first Persian Gulf war. In 2005, at 88, she said she was furious that she could not join Cindy Sheehan, a mother who lost a son in the Iraq war, in Ms. Sheehan뭩 protest outside President George W. Bush뭩 ranch in Texas.