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In Divided City, War Forges Truce
Tribune photo by CHRISTINE DeLESSIO
Curt Sudduth said he tends to keep his opinions about the war to himself because it’s such a personal topic for many people.
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Published: March 17, 2008
Updated: 03/16/2008 10:11 pm
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INVERNESS - When talk here turns to war, it's passionate. People take it personally.
This is a place where the VFW is hopping - a retirees' town that is the heart of the 5th U.S. Congressional District, home to 107,000 veterans, more than almost any district in the country.
It was one of the first local towns to lose a son in Iraq. Four years ago, white horses pulled Aaron Weaver's coffin through the downtown. Inverness, a town of 7,000 along Lake Tsala Apopka in Citrus County, still remembers it.
The months gone by have given folks time to turn the war over in their minds - to debate it over breakfast, at the salon, at church and downtown when they drive by the peace demonstrators Thursday evenings.
Now, something else is happening. They avoid the topic altogether.
One local compared it to the debate on abortion: You're on one side or the other, and jumping into the fray of a public conversation does nothing but divide you from your neighbors.
The lines are drawn.
People are finding out, they say, there isn't much middle ground.
Keeping Things Civil
Curt Sudduth, 31, knows where he stands, and he knows where his neighbors stand. They're on opposite sides of the debate on the Iraq war.
He met his wife, an Inverness native, in graduate school in Kansas City. They moved into a quiet neighborhood of retirees here three years ago. When he put up signs supporting Barack Obama, an opponent of the war, his neighbors raised their eyebrows.
When the Sudduths attended a rally for Obama in Tampa last year, they were the talk of the block.
To keep things civil, he said, he avoids talking about Iraq when he runs into his neighbors. They do the same.
"I think the unspoken truce is that we just don't bring it up in conversation," he said, finishing his breakfast recently at a nearby diner.
Neither he nor his neighbors try to change the others' position. And they genuinely want to get along. So they dodge the topic.
"I think it's something that really divides people, and the more you engage in it the more likely you are to distance yourself from others," Sudduth said.
Butting heads in your community doesn't serve much purpose, especially when the outcome is so far beyond their control, he said. "You want to keep things civil."
A Complicated Question
A glance at poll numbers seems to show that Americans have flip-flopped over the past five years in their opinions on the Iraq war. A Washington Post-ABC News poll this month showed only 34 percent of respondents thought the war was worth fighting.
Early in the war, the number was 70 percent.
But it's not as simple as that. In polling, it's a yes or no question. In conversations about the war, however, it's clear that many people are struggling with their positions.
Even if they do feel strongly one way or the other, several say they still wrangle with their thoughts as they maintain that position.
That's especially true, it seems, on the question of what the U.S. military should do next. Asking the poll-like question of: "Was the war worth fighting?" draws a far less nuanced answer than asking: "Should the United States pull out of Iraq?"
Vicky Cliburn, a 60-year-old career Army veteran who does the books for the Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Inverness, has stopped debating the issue with one old friend of hers. Al Sons is a fellow veteran who visits friends at the post's bar in the afternoons.
His position: "Get out."
Her position: "We have to finish."
"It's a mess, but we've got to at least get it normalized," Cliburn says. "To me, that's realistic."
Sons doesn't budge, though. She used to ask her old friend: "What is your plan?"
His response: "There doesn't need to be a plan." He calls it a lost cause.
In her heart, Cliburn says she wants relief for U.S. troops. But what about the consequences of leaving a country that we brought such turmoil into?
It's a question she has to work out on her own. Here at the VFW, the subject of the war doesn't come up as much as it used to, as patrons sipping their beers try to keep the peace.
The regulars know where their friends stand.
"We avoid talking about it here, so we can all get along," Sons said. "It's a very touchy subject."
Close To Home
Why is it such a sensitive topic?
Sudduth compares it to the debate on abortion. Your viewpoint comes from your core and people can be offended by opinions that contradict theirs, he said.
It doesn't seem like an intellectual question, when they're expressing their views on something they take very personally. It's a question of much more than just a war being fought in a far-off country. It's a question that hits much closer to home.
It digs into what you feel in your heart about patriotism and loyalty to American soldiers.
"I think in some people's heads, if you're not for the war, you're not patriotic. There's a sense of fear," Sudduth said.
Another reason for the drop-off in public debate on the war is the feeling that it would diminish the work that Americans are doing, several locals said.
It's not the decision-makers in the military who are carrying the load; it's the troops, and they deserve respect.
"I didn't believe in the war until the day my nephew died," said Vikki Sigsby, 55, the manager of Cinnamon Sticks, a busy diner and bakery that draws thick morning crowds. "Now I feel if I say I don't believe in it, my nephew died for nothing, and I can't do that.
"I can't say what I feel deep down," she said, as she made change for the line of customers waiting to pay for their coffee and eggs, her eyes tearing up.
Donna Simpson, an Inverness retiree of six years, took her hand off her coffee mug to gesture around the diner.
"What if I give my honest opinion, and the guy over there has a daughter there in Iraq?" she asked.
Her feelings of empathy also shape her views on what the United States should do next, Simpson said.
"If we pull out, what about the ones who have lost their lives? It's all for naught," she said. "It's heartbreaking."
Tuning Out
When the subject of the war comes up, even those who say America made a mistake often rush to qualify that view - saying they wish the best for Americans who are over there.
Several people, including regulars at the VFW, said they avoid news reports of deaths in Iraq. The CNN ticker alone, chronicling the number of casualties, is enough to make them tune out.
Inverness has lost two more native sons since Aaron Weaver: Dennis Flanagan, 22, in 2006 and Robert Surber, 24, last year. Overall as of Sunday, 3,988 Americans have died in the war.
"Unless you ask directly, you probably don't hear too much," said Aaron Weaver's father, Mike Weaver, an ex-Marine who fought in Vietnam. "I don't think people like to think about stuff like that."
He attributes it to fatigue. As the war goes on, people are worn out on the subject and less likely to feel their opinion matters one way or the other. He's come down on the side of those who favor a pullout.
"You can only complain so much, and then you get tired," he said.
The weekly anti-war demonstrations are still going on downtown on Thursday nights. But it's an effort to stoke the fervor, organizer Beverley Wiskow said. They talk about why they should keep doing it and keep the topic alive, even though the war doesn't appear to be near an end.
"We have to keep one another pumped up," she said. "We know it's not going to make any difference."
Weaver is encouraged, he said, by the empathy of his neighbors in Inverness, a community that pulled together after his son's helicopter was shot down near Fallujah.
Even now, post offices in town are being dedicated to Aaron Weaver, Flanagan and Surber.
The Citrus County Chronicle described the ceremony marking the permanent tribute to Flanagan in the Lecanto post office.
Under a clear sky, the local high school choir sang the national anthem; his father gave a speech.
Several people stayed after to shake his hand.
Reporter Gretchen Parker can be reached at (813) 259-7562 or gparker@tampatrib.com.
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