DIVIDED WE STAND What happened to our country?

By Connie Schultz / Plain Dealer

As Jeanette Schroeder rounded the corner of her front yard with the lawn mower, she spotted two Marines standing at her brother Paul Schroeder's front door Wednesday.

Immediately, she knew.

"Oh, no!" she sobbed. "Oh, no! Oh, no!"

The two men looked at her, then stepped away from the door and started walking toward her.

She froze.

Her hands released the safety bar on her mower. The street went silent.

As they walked closer, she almost told them, "You've got the wrong house."

But she knew.

Fourteen members of Brook Park's 25th Regiment, 3rd Battalion Marines were killed Wednesday by a roadside bomb in Iraq.

It was the same battalion that lost five Marines on Monday.

It was the same battalion in which her nephew, Augie, served.

Jeanette just knew.

She nodded when they asked if she knew the family next door in her Cleveland neighborhood.

"He's my brother," she said. "They probably didn't hear the doorbell."

She was sure her brother and his wife, Rosemary Palmer, were upstairs, hovering over their computer as they frantically searched the Internet for any news about the latest group of Marines who had been killed in Iraq.

Earlier that morning, Rosemary had given Jeanette a printout quoting skeletal news reports about the attack on Marines in Haditha. After reading it, Jeanette had a bad feeling. She prayed all the way to her doctor's appointment. She prayed on her drive to the grocery store, too, and all the way home.

Please, God, not Augie.

Now, about 10:30 a.m., two Marines were standing in her yard, asking to speak to Augie's parents.

Aunt Nettie - that's what Augie always called her - offered to run into her house to call his parents.

"No," one of the Marines said gently. "We have to talk to them in person."

Jeanette ran through Paul's back door and started to scream.

"Paul! Paul! Get down here. Just get down here now!"

Paul and Rosemary saw the grim faces on the men at their door and they knew, too. They stood motionless as one of the Marines began to speak.

"We regret to inform you that Edward August Schroeder II . . ."

And they knew.

Two weeks ago, Augie had called home from Iraq after spending 26 days in the field. They had not heard from him for five weeks, and their son's voice seemed to reflect a change in his convictions about this war.

"When he first arrived in Iraq in March, he was full of optimism about what his good intentions could accomplish," Paul said.

But Augie's enthusiasm eroded over time, and his father said he will never forget what his son told him.

"The closer we are to departure, the less 'worth it' this has become," Augie said.

In a way, Paul was heartened by his son's words.

"When you first get there, you think everything's hunky-dory," he said. "But after four operations, the insurgents were still there. He didn't think they were having any effect. I heard him and thought, 'Well, the bloom is off the rose.' I was opposed to this war before it even started, and my son is a sharp kid."

He caught himself.

"Was," he said, as he started to sob. "My son was a sharp kid.

"Oh, Jesus."

Augie was 23 years old. He was six weeks from coming home.

While we don't yet have exact numbers, we now know that Ohio has lost about 80 soldiers and Marines to the Iraq war.

And there is no end in sight.

That haunts Paul Schroeder.

In the first hours after he learned that his son was dead, Paul wrote a short statement.

"I hope people forgive me for what I have to say," he began. "I just don't care anymore."

He listed who he blamed for Augie's death.

"I hold the Bush administration responsible, from the president through the secretaries of state and defense and all those who have had a hand in starting this war.

"I also hold every Democrat in Congress who voted to authorize this misadventure as accomplices."

His son, he wrote, "died doing his duty. So have some 1,800 other Americans.

"Augie did his duty at every turn, from being an emergency medical technician while still in high school, a lifeguard, a Boy Scout, an active church member, and, of course, as a Marine. For all this, we consider him a hero.

"To honor him, I no longer can sit still, just keeping quiet and being politically correct."

In her own way, Augie's mother also issued a statement. She made the call at 8:18 Wednesday morning, about two hours before she learned that Augie was dead.

Rosemary had sobbed the day Augie enlisted. She had begged him not to go to Iraq. On Wednesday, hers was the desperate plea of a mother trying to find out if her son was still alive.

She left this phone message for Plain Dealer reporter Brian Albrecht, who has steadfastly chronicled the war's impact here:

"This is Rosemary Palmer," she said. "I'm the mother of one of the many Marines who are deployed right now. My son is currently in Haditha and we just heard the news story this morning that 14 Marines in Haditha were killed.

"We are all obviously going nuts . . . I know you can't give out the names of people who haven't been notified, but if you have those names of the ones who have died, if you could let us know as soon as possible, I would really appreciate it - because we die along with these kids . . ."

Her voice broke.

She recited her number.

Then she hung up the phone.

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