Praying for a Miracle at the President's Ranch

Celeste Zappala, a lifelong Methodist, is a member of the First United Methodist Church of Germantown, in Philadelphia, and co-founder of Gold Star Families for Peace. Her son, Sherwood Baker, a sergeant in the Pennsylvania National Guard, arrived in Baghdad at the beginning of 2004, serving as a member of the military security detail for the Iraq Survey Group, which was looking for weapons of mass destruction. On April 24, 2004, Sgt. Baker's unit was in Baghdad inspecting buildings when the building he was in exploded, killing him. He was 30 years old.

Talk about your son who was killed in Iraq.

Sherwood Baker came to me on Veteran's Day in 1974. He had been abandoned by his biological family, so I always say that by a random series of blessings, he became my son. He was a year old.

He joined the National Guard in 1997. At that point, he was living in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. He had gone to college there and married and had a child there. He was a nursery school teacher, making next to nothing, and needed help paying off his college loans. Also, we raised our kids to be really responsible people, and to be civic-minded.

He had been sand-bagging with National Guardsman during a flood. He liked the guys, and they talked to him and recruited him. And when we talked over the idea of enlisting in the Guard, I said, this is hard, because I'm a peace activist, and that's the way Sherwood and my other two sons were raised. But he kept saying, "Mom, don't worry, the National Guard doesn't go to foreign wars. They're just here for floods and fires and disasters and riots. The worst thing that could happen is I'd have to arrest you." He also said that no Pennsylvania National Guard had been lost in combat since 1945. And he was the first.

Was Sherwood a practicing Christian?

He belonged to the Methodist Church up there [in Wilkes-Barre]. He wasn't a big attender, but he was married by a Methodist clergywoman, and whenever he was home, he went to the First United Methodist Church of Germantown, our family church.

That's the church you currently attend?

I came home today [from Texas] and rather than delaying my flight til later today, I came home last night so that I could attend church [there] this morning, because I really needed to be back at the well. And I realized how much I stand in the sanctuary of that church with everything I do. The courage it gives, the comfort it gives-I'm so grateful for my church community, and for the things I've learned from them, from the way we stand with each other and help each other and try to be God's people.

My son's oath
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