War hits home for Mt. Airy family

Celeste Zappala lost her son to the Iraq war.
Fearing "the gates of hell have been opened," she wants citizens to "wake up" and the Bush administration to start "dealing in the truth."

by MICHAEL J. MISHAK

As outrage over a "wardrobe malfunction" registered in homes across the nation, as Celeste Zappala sat with her son, Sherwood Baker, watching the half-time show on Super Bowl Sunday at the Fort Dix military base in New Jersey. Scanning the faces of 200 Iraq-bound soldiers, she thought to herself, "Someone in this room is doomed." Zappala never thought it would be her own son. Three months later, Sherwood Baker, a sergeant in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard, was killed on a security detail when a suspected chemical warehouse exploded in Baghdad. His April 26 death came seven weeks to the day after he arrived in Iraq.

Baker, 30, became the first member of the State Guard to die in combat since 1945, a long-standing record that had afforded his mother some peace. In the weeks following her loss, Zappala, 57, has struggled to "give meaning" to Sherwood's death during what she calls "the worst and most profound days of my life."Hundreds have visited and written to the family home in Mt. Airy, where Baker was known as the neighborhood protector. Despite an immense outpouring of love and compassion from friends and neighbors, Zappala finds herself overcome with grief and consumed by anger, striving for balance when formerly mundane details take on painful significance.

Rocked by Baker's death, she searches for clues from the past — hints that this event was inevitable, even destined. But when she finds them, comfort is fleeting.

"It's unbearable," Zappala said last week, stumbling upon yet another indication of her son's passion for justice — a letter Baker wrote to the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader in January, 2002, protesting the school district's non-observance of Martin Luther King Day.

Two years ago, the letter was remarkable for its message. Now, that message has become "overwhelmingly real" to Zappala and her family.

"I want people to understand that if he died defending democracy, let's be that democracy," she said. "Let people read, listen and watch. We can't hide. We all have to be responsible for what's happening. We must insist on the truth.

"People are still upset over Janet Jackson's skin, but these are people's lives. This is the world's future," she said, recalling those young soldiers' faces at Fort Dix. "Turn off Œreality' television. This is the real word. Wake up. Be in this world. This is our country. Own it.

"I speak the truth as I see it. I ask people to examine themselves for their own truth. I can't be quiet Š I'm not naïve. I don't pretend to have the answers to the world's conflicts. But being honest and dealing in the truth is the only way to work through conflict."

Zappala maintains the Bush Administration has been opposed to that philosophy from the outset.

"They wanted their version of reality," she said. "So we have too few troops, the war is under-funded, and we didn't understand their [Iraq's] language or culture."

Al Zappala, Baker's father, also places blame on the administration.

"My son was betrayed by the Bush Administration," he told Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, a nationally syndicated radio and television news program, last week. "With Vietnam, it took years to find the lies. With Iraq, we've discovered the lies in less than a year."

In the absence of weapons of mass destruction and demonstrable Iraq-Al Qaeda ties, the Zappalas grapple with their anger.

"One assumes that the leaders who send people to war base their decisions on truth and purpose," Celeste said, "but that doesn't seem to be the case."

"It was a senseless death, just like all the others," Al added.

By sharing her experience, Celeste Zappala hopes she is "giving a human face" to the war.

"This isn't a video game war. There is a horrible price to pay. And it's all closer to home than anybody could have imagined it would be."

Sherwood Baker is one of more than 500 American service personnel killed in action since the start of war last year. Like his parents — dedicated activists who marched in peace demonstrations as members of the First United Methodist Church of Germantown — Baker was not known for living quietly, and those who knew him best knew his death would make noise.

Hundreds attended Baker's viewing in Wilkes-Barre earlier this month.

Living large and loud

Entering their world as a shy foster son, Baker came to trust the Zappalas, growing into the 6-foot 4-inch, 240-pound joker "you couldn't get around easily," Celeste said.

Growing up in Mt. Airy, he attended Henry H. Houston elementary school and played football for the Mt. Airy Bantams.

As ringleader of the neighborhood children, he was often seen leading a big-wheel bike charge down Mt. Airy Avenue, recalled Lynne Cox, 56, a neighbor and longtime family friend. "All those bikes created a deafening roar, but you could always hear Sherwood's voice over it all," Cox said. "He was a larger-than-life little boy who grew up to be a larger-than-life man."

Later, he joined the marching band at Roman Catholic High School. The neighborhood's "clumsy loud kid" was well liked, despite his lengthy trumpet practices and loud record playing sessions, Cox said.

"He was everybody's favorite babysitter," Celeste added.

Known for his personality and humor, not his academics, Baker "gave teachers a run for their money," Celeste said.

Though he was not a great musician, he loved music, particularly rap. Baker became obsessed with audio equipment in the 1980s and started making mix tapes well before the practice was popularized. He even earned an FCC license from Temple University while still in high school, Celeste said.

Majoring in elementary and early childhood education at King's College in Wilkes Barre, Baker hosted an urban music show on the school's radio station. While the student audience was "not always receptive," Celeste said, the show soon found another audience — at a nearby prison. Baker played the requests and delivered the shout-outs of Philadelphia inmates.

Baker met his wife Debra during college, and became a father his senior year. Though he never earned his teaching certificate, he worked in a daycare center and as a nursery school teacher before becoming a caseworker for mental health and retardation patients.

Baker was also a popular local disc jockey in the Wyoming Valley, playing weddings, parties and clubs under the stage-name DJ Phantom. He developed a following and volunteered his services for local charities.

War and peace

With $10,000 in student loans, a $12,000 salary and a new family to support, Baker joined the Army National Guard in 1997. Beyond the financial need, Baker felt compelled to help his community. Carrying and placing sandbags with Guard soldiers during a Wilkes-Barre flood "planted the seed," Al Zappala said.

Celeste, a self-described "flower child" who had protested against the Vietnam War and brought her children to several Washington peace demonstrations, gave Baker her blessing after a long talk.

Though he was the son of activist parents, Celeste said, Baker "was raised to be a citizen Š He loved his country and took pride in his military service. Sherwood had a deep commitment to people and he really believed in America."

In 1997, no one expected Baker would be called into combat on foreign soil.

"The world was a very different place then," she said.

The Iraq war began last year, the same month his enlistment was set to expire, and his service was extended.

When Guard units failed to meet their quota in Scranton, Baker's unit — First Battalion, 109th Field Artillery — was activated. He never talked about the politics of the war, Celeste said. Instead, he focused on ensuring the safe return of his fellow guardsmen.

Besides, his unit hadn't lost a soldier in more than 50 years, Baker repeatedly told his mother. He had just completed his training when he celebrated Christmas last year with both the Zappala and Cox families.

The "tender, compassionate and caring" Baker jarred some when he shared the details of his training, saying that even children could be seen as threats, Lynne Cox said. "This was our Sherwood, prepared to be a killer in a war that is horrifying," she said. "The nurturer had to be hardened."

He never shared his feelings about the war.

"He has a practical-minded guy," Cox said. "It wasn't going to be productive for him to think about it. He saw what the reality was, and he dealt with it as best he could."

Celeste Zappala last spoke to her son two days before he died. He told her his unit was rationing food and water. She was furious. "How could you send these people into the desert without enough water?" Celeste said, her voice raised with anger. She pledged to make threatening phone calls to senators and congressmen, but Baker insisted he and his fellow troops could handle it.

He planned on buying a home for his wife and nine-year-old son, J.D., when he returned.

'His future is gone'

On April 26, Celeste was preparing dinner in the kitchen when her dog started barking. She thought the man on her porch was selling magazines, or possibly a committeeman urging her to vote. Then she saw the uniform and the medals. She screamed.

"I knew that someone had been killed that day," Celeste said. "I could hear myself screaming. I kept asking, 'Was it the factory?'"

Lynne Cox had just returned home from work when a neighbor told her of Baker's death. She rushed to Zappala's side.

"It was one of the worst moments of my life," said Cox, whose three children grew up with the Zappalas. "I thought, 'What a waste. That death is a waste.'

"Celeste fought like hell to keep him and raise him," Cox said of Baker, who entered the Zappala home as a foster child because his birth parents couldn't care for him. "[Celeste] worked so hard so that he would have a future. Now his future is gone."

Since her son's death last month, Celeste Zappala has witnessed the photos of Iraqi prisoner abuse and the horrifying execution of American civilian Nicholas Berg.

She expects outrage to grow when director Michael Moore's new film Fahrenheit 9/11 debuts in the U.S. The Zappalas, along with other military families, screened the film in New York last week. Celeste called it "incredibly powerful" and "excruciatingly painful."

"Every day is more horrible than the day before," she said. "I feel such sorrow for [Berg's] family Š The day after September 11 the whole world stood with us," she said, sitting across from a protest sign that reads, ŒMy son is an honorable man. His commander in chief is not.'

"How did we get from there to here? How do we regain that decency and compassion? I'm really afraid. I feel like the gates of hell have been opened, and we don't know how to close them."

As director of the Mayor's Commission on Services to the Aging, Zappala sees herself as a witness and an advocate. As a member of Military Families Speak Out, an anti-war organization, she plays those same roles.

"When war came, I told Sherwood, 'We'll stand with you and take care of your family,'" she said. "I feel like I'm still standing with him when I speak what needs to be said."