Soldier's widow voices opinion on war

WMTV, News 8 ^ | May 6, 04 | Anya Huneke

[churchillbuff]

BURLINGTON, VT. -- "Infinitely honest," "selfless," "full of life" -- just a few of the words Lavinia Onitiu-Gelineau uses to describe her late husband, Chris.

"I knew my husband was one in a million. I knew that," she says.

Lavinia has had two weeks to digest the news of Sgt. Gelineau's death. What started out as immeasurable grief has turned to anger.

Lavnia says, "I'm very proud of my husband, but I'm not proud of the reason he was there, and neither was he. A lot of people are not proud, but they have no choice. They can't say otherwise."

Gelineau was a Starksboro, Vt., native and a specialist with the 133rd Engineer Battalion of the Maine Army National Guard.

In March -- in his last semester at the University of Southern Maine -- he was sent to Iraq to do clerical work.

His family thought he would be out of harm's way. But on April 20, he was killed when his convoy was ambushed.

Chris' father, John, admits, "This has just blown all of us away. We never expected this to happen."

Lavinia continues, "I wish I was there to watch over him and tell them that it's not right to send him as part of a protective escort when he could barely shoot."

Once hesitant to reveal her opposition to the war, Lavinia now holds little back.

She moved to the United States from Romania four years ago. She says freedom of speech was a novelty for her, but now finds many people don't exercise this right when it's most important.

She states, "Unless people raise their voices, a lot more people are going to die."

Lavinia doubts her anger -- and pain -- will subside. She wonders how she'll cope with her loss.

"I don't know what to do now. I feel meaningless. I feel off-balance. I feel half," she confesses.

Sgt. Gelineau was buried in Maine over the weekend, and is being memorialized in Burlington, Vt. His family will say their good-byes but vow they have just begun to speak out.

[wku man]

"Ummm...Saddam Hussein himself was a weapon of mass destruction."

No he wasn't. He was a tyrant, a sadist, a torturer, a mass murderer, and evil incarnate, but he wasn't a weapon. Exaggeration doesn't help our side one bit, it just gets gets us accused of "right wing spin".

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

[leenie312]

Being a women who has been watching the world events unfold...I take exception to your remark that women have wimpy viewpoints...

Would I like to live in a world of peace and tranquility?... you bet...is the world a peaceful and tranquil place ..no way. Do we sometimes have to take drastic measures..such as war?...Unfortunately yes...the alternative to our country not standing up for what is right,what is decent, what is honorable...is too horrifying to even imagine...

This lady is exhibiting grief..plain and simple....she had just come out of shock and is now entering into the place of anger..happens with anyone who suffers loss of a loved one. It is a natural process.....but sooner or later she will come to a place of acceptance..hopefully it will be sooner rather than later..because grief, when not resolved can cause all sorts of bitterness and negative emotions to rise up.

Has she cheapened her husbands death?...my opinion is yes...we say alot of things when we are hurting...grieving people are focused on their pain...but she may someday come to realise just what her husbands sacrifice really means.

Neither do you don't know what her circumstances are. She is alone now in a foreign country dealing with the death of her husband..for crying out loud give her some slack...and quit lumping all women into one pile. It isn't fair and it isn't the truth.

I pray that your mood (which you have chosen to nurture) will brighten up.

[OldFriend]

Romania had the world's most despotic dictator other than Idi Ammin (who ate his victims) on the face of the earth.

[dennisw]

The cut and run crowd are ostriches who want to wish away reality.

This woman deserves more respect. She's lost a husband in Iraq. How many relatives do you have in the war, Mr. Macho Man?

Actually I meant you as part of the yellow, cut and run crowd. She has a valid reason for misguided anger, to spout off, since she's a grieving widow who is apt to say anything. I cut her slack since her husband made the ultimate sacrifice for his nation. So his honor covers her.

She has an excuse, you don't. You are the ostrich, not her.

[Travis McGee]

Pirate captains knew the trick of making things disappear centuries ago. It's not rocket science to kill the treasure (or WMD) buriers, and so on.

[RedOrchid4602]

Dear Sir,

I stumbled upon this website by pure chance and also by chance, I am the widow you've been posted your multiple comments and opinions on. You have your opinion, I have mine. I respect yours but you don't seem to respect anyone else's opinion that is different from yours. As I have already written to someone else, when I read things like what you wrote, I can't even feel anger but mere sadness. Now let me fill you in on a couple of issues. You seem to be an educated person but when it comes to making comments on me, education or experience fails you becasue you have known neither me nor my Chris.

1) Birth no longer defines who we are. That was a couple of centuries ago. Blood doesn't either. It is true that by birth, by law, or by blood I am not American. However, dear Sir, my husband having been one, gave me roots here. Being an American or proud of being one (as you see it written on all car stickers) is a "bouquet of ideals" as I call it. Therefore, it is in one's heart and it is not inherited. You've had born Americans who joined the Taliban or bombed Oklahoma City. I am not an American but I surely feel like one. Why did I come to this country? To study and to enjoy the freedom of expression and of thought. Who talked about me not liking it here? I didn't for sure! All I did was, through my painful experience, to ask people to question. This entire wonderful contry was born upon the Cartesian thought, "I doubt, thus I reson; I reason, thus I exist." Even freedom can slowly disappear if what is done in its name is not questioned every once in a while. History will show if I was wrong or you were wrong. Till then, let's respect one another's views.

2) What bothers you most about my comments? That I am a woman speaking up? The wife of a fallen soldier speaking up? A foreigner speaking up? Or maybe all 3? Why do you have to attack ME? Aren't there plenty of Americans who protested the war and spoke against it? Are you going to call them Anti-Americans? Please, do not forget that this is a country that immigrants like me once founded and that your own blood probably comes from all over the world, unless you are 100% Native American.

3) Your generalizations are offensive -- the way you speak about women, about how other soldiers feel about this whole thing... Really offensive. There were quite a few soldiers who wrote back to me from Iraq to thank me for speaking up and to ask me to go on. You know, when I came to the US 4 years ago, I met so many people who believed that Romania was a country in Africa, and the funniest one -- that Africa was a country in Europe. These are just the few things I can come up with right now. Now, I thought to myself, "Lord, how ignorant these people are." Was I right? Hell no! Not everybody is like that. There is a Latin proverb that illustrates this thought really well: "Con una hirunda non facit ver," which means "If you see one swallow, it doesn't mean it's spring already." I learned to love these people becasue they are kind, compassionate and even if at times they become ignorant, I know they mean well. There are plenty of ignorant people everywhere, plenty where I come from, but at least here, people have good intentions and are ready to help. Someone else made a comment about him/her knowing a couple of Romanians here who were all cynical. The same comment goes to him/her. I won't call him ignorant becasue he made a comment about all Romanians when he only got a chance to meet a few here.

4) Now to my husband's situation. Yes, he enlisted and he was part of the NAtional (not international) Guards. This is not regular army. Now, I know you probably could write me 10 pages on this but please, don't bother becasue after I sent this message out, I won't log back in this forum. If he was sent overseas, reason or not reason, he should have done the job he had always done in the guards. During all his drills and annual training he was NOT trained to be a combat soldier. Just like many others, he used his gun once a year to pass the test. When they went training in Fort Drum, a lot of soldiers, including him, failed to aim at a moving target. Yes, they were trained verbally as to what to expect, if you can call that training. TRaining is when being a soldier is your job, when you do that 40 hours a week. On that day of april 20th, my husband was sent as part of a "protective escort" to some firefighters from Carolina. Now, he, who failed his shooting test, was sent with other buddies of his to protect others, when they couldn't protect themselves. And now I, his wife, am supposed to shut up and a be a submissive grieving widow? In all my pain, Sir, I stood up. And yes, my Baby was proud to serve with his unit but I knew it and he silently knew it that more often than not unexperienced kids like him were what I call "cannon flesh," which he literally became on April 20th.

5) Now let's talk about HONOR and about being a HERO. You are saying that I am trampling on my Baby's honor? No Sir! Neither can you or anyone else. His honor lives in my heart and in those who knew him and loved him. Honor, just like being an American, is in one's heart. Honor, just like beauty, is in the eyes and heart of the beholder. Me trying to prevents others from dying a dog's death does not diminish his honor. Nothing and nobody can. Chris has always been a hero, MY hero. He is a hero not becasue he died but becasue he lived and becasue everything he touched flourished, me the most of all. Again, death and war do not make heroes; they make VICTIMS. Chris was only 23, still a baby, becoming a man, and dreaming of some day being a father and sharing a simple life by my side. And when no proof of the righteousness of this war has showed up, I think I have the right to question why my Baby and others like him came back home in a cold casket. You are certainly NOT in my shoes nor will you understand how it feels until you get hit by such tragedy(God forbid!). A month before my Baby died, I put a sticker on my car saying "I love my Chris, my hubby, my Soldier, my HERO." Yes, he will always be my hero.

6) You suggest that if I don't like it here I should go back to Romania as anyway nobody will miss me? First of all, this sttement about me not liking it here is something you came up with. And you are wrong, there are people who would miss me. My Baby would have been 99% of those people... I am free to speak and freedom of speech deosn;t come by the virtue of being an American, but a human being. I am a human being and I have that right. Or maybe some day someone will show up at my door and pull the trigger in my forehead to show me that I have no right to speak becasue I wasn't born here. Yeah, the dead can't speak anymore... Maybe this way, my suffering will end sooner as well.

Respectfully,
LAvinia Gelineau

PS: No offence but for someone who is deployed in the theater of operations, you seem to be on internet all day long judging by the number of messages you posted in only on day and their length. I wonder what your job over there is. Should you decide to talk more about these issues,please do so directly to me. Here is my email address: lavinia_elena@hotmail.com
Have a good day, Sir!

[sruleoflaw]

No WMD's. Get real man. 41 material breaches of UN resolutions. 3/4 of a gallon of sarin in one shell, enough to kill thousands. 20 tons of chemicals sent to Jordan, most likely from Iraq through Syria.

The liberal balony won't fly here! Ask the 5-6 million Kurds if they enjoy their freedom -- and freedom from Saddam. If you had your way, the WMD man himself, Saddam, would still be operational.

[AlbionGirl]

Perhaps if her husband hadn't really minded being there, and saw the purpose of it, like so many other Soldiers apparently do, maybe she wouldn't feel so bitter.

But her husband's sacrifice gives her the ability to spout off from now until doomsday, anyone that tries to lay a finger on her because of what she says is in a losing battle. Best thing to do is just move on, if it becomes apparent that she wants to beat the drum on this.

If she does that she'll go the way of the 911 widows, draining what natural sympathy is there away.

[RedOrchid4602]

Sorry, churchillbuff, I misunderstood who made what comments. I guess my above message is addressed to the people I listed in the "To:" rubric. Thanks!

[TADSLOS]

A very realistic and probable COA on the WMD cat and mouse, Travis. This is exactly how Saddam operated. Hell, he didn't even trust his own family, had his son-in-laws shot and one of his demented sons barely escaped an assination attempt at Saddam's direction.

This may well unfold 50 years from now when some "lucky" Bedouin goatherder unearths them while pitching his tent (although strong evidence indicates they're in Syrian hands).

It just baffles me at the level of denial going on about WMDs in Iraq, especially from a Freeper who has a comprehensive amount of study material at her fingertips right here on FR but fails to either do the research or comprehend the material.

[armymarinemom]

This is old news. I hope this Widow has sought help. She wasn't doing well at all when she had this press conference. Too bad that she embraced the very press that made a mockery of her husbands funeral. She probably never noticed the reporter who actually climbed a tree just in order to snap a photo of her as she was presented her husband flag.

[Diddle E. Squat]

Welcome to America, and welcome to Free Republic. I hope that you will reconsider your decision to not come back to this website. This is a large community, and like everywhere else, has it shares of shouters, cranks, and contrarians, as well as wise, kind, intelligent, and well-reasoned folk.

Being Romanian, I would think you could appreciate the sacrifices necessary to bring freedom to those in repressed countries. Were it not for the spirit and willingness of certain American leaders to push, and where needed fight, for democracy in other countries, you would likely still be behind the iron curtain. Iraqi's deserve a chance at freedom just as much as Romanians.

That alone is righteousness enough for the cause of war.

You do realize that this was a continuation of the was from 1991, after more than a decade of non-compliance by Saddam with the terms of the end of hostilities from the 1st war. 11 years of violating UN agreements and terms. Of multiple and increase provacative acts that fall under the heading of 'acts of war' when we were trying to enforce the no-fly zone, conduct inspections, etc. A 2nd righteous cause.

There was a nexus of terror groups and Iraq, with more and more evidence revealed every day, though there was plenty before the war. Regardless of whether the media and the countries taking bribes from Saddam downplay this. Saddam was paying families of Palestian suicide bombers to encourage more bombings. A 3rd righteous cause.

While no STOCKPILES of WMD have yet been found, Saddam did have active programs to acquire WMD's. If I am building a bomb in my basement, actively seek the missing materials, but don't yet have a completed bomb, are you going to claim that I am not a threat? So the police shouldn't react until I complete the bomb? A 4th righteous cause.

Certainly the loss of a loved one is a horrible pain. But what you are advocating is in effect turning our backs on those oppressed in other countries. You were liberated(by a cold war), but now don't care to liberate others? It may be called the National Guard, but units from such have served in combat oversees in previous wars. Anyone who signs up knows that risk, they aren't stupid. A few sign up for the benefits with no intent of serving if war calls, gambling that major combat will not take place while they are in. I choose to believe that your husband was not one of those freeloaders, but rather a hero, who made the ultimate sacrifice. Iraq is a component in the greater war on terror. President Bush is trying to prevent another World War II and another large scale ideological enslavement of countries. Preempting the next Hitlers before they gain critical mass.

Freedom isn't free, and the costs are rarely evenly distributed. It may not be fair, but it is thus.

[Vermonter]

Whereabouts in Starksboro are you? I've been in the town next door for 25 years

[gatorbait]

If ignorance and narrow-mindedness could hurt, there would be many in great pain...

You must be in agony,then. Au revoir.

[COEXERJ145]

It's really sad to see "conservative" "patriotic" freepers trashing a grieving war widow.

It is really sad to see people like you using a so called "grieving war widow" to try and score political points against President Bush.

Such actions might be permissible at places like DU but should result in a ZOT here.

[SirAllen]

"I take it from your response that none of your family think this war is important enough to volunteer for it. No wonder you have no problem with the body counts - none of your relatives are in harms way."

You know, if you're worried about body counts 42,000 people die in the US each year from auto accidents. I'm not trying to diminish anyone's death, but try to put things into perspective.

Is it worth 1,000 American lives to install democracy in Iraq that could spread throughout the middle east, and save 100,000's of future American lives? Before you answer no, is it worth 42,000 American lives a year to be able to travel quickly?

My best friend was in Iraq for a little over a year. I was glad he was there, and so was he. Was I worried? Every day, but I knew why he was there and so did he. It was worth it.

[arasina]

I have sympathy for this war widow in her grief. However, she waited until after her husband was killed to speak FOR him and say he was against the war. Perhaps she should have locked him in a bathroom long ago and not let him join the National Guard.

[kcvl]

Since you pinged me to your post...

Do you think it was fine for my family to die for you to have freedom of speech in this country? Because if they hadn't fought and died you wouldn't have the freedoms that you enjoy today. You aren't the only person who has lost someone to war. It is a volunteer service. No one forced anyone to join. Most of them don't have reporters and photographers write a story or print photos of them. I believe their are many more families who support this war against evil than those who don't. It seems some "reporters" have an agenda and aren't looking for those stories.

Lavinia Gelineau pauses as she speaks from her father-in-law's home in Eden, Vt., Wednesday, May 5, 2004. The widow of a Maine National Guard soldier killed in Iraq last month is calling on Americans to question their government's policy in Iraq. Gelineau's husband, Christopher Gelineau, was a Starksboro, Vt. native who died April 20th after enemy fighters ambushed his convoy in northern Iraq. (AP Photo/Toby Talbot)

[Toespi]

This is a volunteer military why is it that those left behind by our brave ones can not honor their memory and service?

[kcvl]

These soldiers weren't trained either except on their own land. Many of them were in their teens. MOST of us say THANK GOD they were DOING THEIR JOB. During this some 90% of the first wave of soldiers were killed.

I say THANK YOU to ALL who served and to the families of those who DIED PROTECTING the FREEDOMS EVERYWHERE! THANK GOD for the most WONDERFUL COUNTRY in the WORLD!

THANK GOD for President Ronald Reagan and THANK GOD for President George W. Bush!!! They understand EVIL and how to DESTROY IT! THANK GOD for their WISDOM that leaves the rest of us FREE!

The Iraqi people DESERVE to live in FREEDOM too! We would all know they were PRAYING for it except we don't have many "journalist" who give a rat's *ss about reporting it. It must be hell living under a dictator and almost as bad trying to get someone to care.