For Two Remote Salvadorian Villages, the Iraq War Hits Close to Home

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"Did he write letters from Iraq?"

"Yes, he told of how everything was fine ... a very beautiful place where he was ... he didn't talk about the people of Iraq, though ... he was there for two months ... went with the first battalion ... yes, there was a Salvadorian priest with the battalion ... every group that goes brings one with them ..."

The child nags, needs something. Herminia's voice rises, she is becoming impatient, frustrated.

"The army has basically forgotten about us," she says. "We went to retrieve the body at the airport ... soldiers from certain bases arrived here to pay their respects ... but no one from the United States."

"The community?"

"Hasn't helped."

"The mayor?"

"No, tampoco."

"No one is helping me. What happened, happened. And now we are forgotten."

"What do you think about the war in Iraq?"

"I am Salvadorian ... I don't know why a Salvadorian has to be fighting a war in Iraq when no Salvadorians are dying there." The straight face and posturing Herminia offered the national press, the military and the government is gone. At this moment she is a mother, and wearing it on her face.

"There's no reason for Salvadorians to go and suffer in another country. The Salvadorian needs to stay and protect his own country ... If President Saca hadn't signed and sold out El Salvador to the United States, then that battalion wouldn't have been sent away ..." She begins weeping.

"Are you proud of him?" the American journalist asks.

Her anguished face, about to collapse from the weight of the question, and the tears in her eyes offer the answer. But the recorder also picks up the faint words, "Far away from me," and maybe, just maybe, if it isn't just an echo, "He is so ... far away from me."

The driver motions to us that it is time to leave; the iPod recorder clicks off; and Herminia resumes washing clothes in the pisa.

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