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CLEVELAND - When Edward "Augie" Schroeder's remains were sent home from Iraq they arrived in three instalments and in three different containers.
His parents buried the coffin in New Jersey where the 23-year-old Marine reservist grew up, they buried one urn alongside the grave of the grandfather whose name he shared, and they placed the remaining ashes in the basement of their home, next to his combat boots and dog-tags and amid the clutter of a young life cut short.
"We've got all his clothes here, all his things. We don't really know what to do with it," said his father, Paul. "I drive my son's truck. I have all his CDs. I can't stand the music but they are there and I feel he is in the truck."
Schroeder's parents are adamant that President George W. Bush should not be sending more troops to Iraq. Schroeder and his wife, Rosemary Palmer, were never supporters of the war, but after their only son was killed by a roadside bomb in 2005 they have become strident opponents.
Both have left their jobs to campaign to bring the troops home.
"If we stay there Iraqis are going to be killed, if we leave Iraqis are going to be killed. We are in the middle," Schroeder said.
Palmer said: "We are not mourning Augie, we are honouring him. We could sit around and cry or we can try to make his death mean something to us and to other people."
Yet with Bush announcing his plan to send more troops to a war that has already cost the lives of more than 3000 Americans and - by some estimates - 655,000 Iraqis, many military families do not share their views.
Just 80km to the south of Cleveland, another grieving parent whose only son served in the same Marine unit as Schroeder is also trying to deal with loss. But Robert Derga, whose 24-year-old son Dustin was killed in May 2005, has a very different view of Bush's plan. He does not believe his son's life was wasted.
"I feel pretty strongly that we need to stay the course," said Derga, an engineering manager from Canton. "It has been very painful for the nation and for my family in particular, but the job is not finished yet. I was a pretty strong supporter of the mission Dustin was asked to perform.
"I feel very strongly about that and since his death that has not changed."
Derga and Schroeder were lance corporals in the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine unit based in Brook Park, a suburb of this industrial city on the shore of Lake Erie, frigid and blustery in mid-winter.
Although they served in different companies, the two men would have known each other in Iraq - which has proved to be deadly for this particular unit. Schroeder was among 20 Marines from the unit killed in Haditha in August 2005, while Derga was killed in a gunfight with insurgents in Ubaydi.
Speaking out and forming the group Families of the Fallen for Change has not been easy for Schroeder's parents and they realise some parents from the unit do not approve. At one meeting of family members, one Marine officer reportedly likened their behaviour to going to a home sports match and cheering for the opposing team.
But Schroeder said: "I told him before he left - sitting here on this sofa - if something happened to him we would not keep quiet. He knew how we were and that we were not ones to sit and take it."
- INDEPENDENT
