N.J. Mom Vows to Keep Protesting Iraq War

by JOHN P. McALPIN

HOPEWELL TOWNSHIP, N.J. - When President Bush and the first lady come looking for votes in New Jersey, Sue Niederer vows to be nowhere near them. She doesn’t want to risk finding herself in handcuffs again.

Last month, police escorted Niederer from a rally after she demanded to know why her son, Army 1st Lt. Seth Dvorin, was killed in Iraq. Dvorin died in February while trying to disarm a bomb.

Video footage of Niederer holding a sign with the words "President Bush You Killed My Son" was splashed across television screens for days. Prosecutors later dropped trespass charges against her.

But while President Bush and his wife were scheduled to be an hour’s drive away on Monday, Niederer has no plans to join any of her fellow war protesters outside the campaign rally.

"I’m not going near any of the Bushies," said Niederer, a substitute school teacher. "I’m not going to subject myself to any of it. My point was made."

Instead, Niederer will be where she was the day she learned her son died.

"I’ll be in a classroom. Speaking to the kids is more important," she said.

Niederer, 55, won’t be a substitute teacher Monday. Instead, she’ll be an anti-war lecturer, a mission she began two weeks after he son died when another mother asked if she would join a protest outside Princeton University.

That protest in February was Niederer’s first brush with confrontational politics. But, Niederer insists she is no radical activist, no plotter against America. During the Vietnam era, Niederer said she avoided war rallies, and was intent on staying home and raising her children.

"This is who I am, what you see here, just a person who loves children and misses her son terribly," she said.

"Every time somebody else is killed, I grieve again. Every mother grieves again," she said. "This is not a political statement. We hurt. We hurt terribly."

Army recruiters first talked to Seth Dvorin when he was a junior at South Brunswick High School. Niederer told her son to go to college.

"He was smart," she said. He wanted to go to Syracuse University, but at the time all the family could afford was Rutgers, she recalled.

Dvorin eventually joined the Army after graduating college in 2002. The next year, he married his college sweetheart, and that September left for Iraq.

But, by the end of 2003, he was disillusioned with the war. During a two-week leave Niederer begged him not to go back.

"He said, ’Mom, I’m a lieutenant. I have 18 men under me. I must bring my men home safe. That’s my mission,’" Niederer recalled.

Dvorin died Feb. 3. He was 24.

The next day Niederer watched the news and saw Bush administration officials say there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

"My son dies the day before and you’re telling me the reason we went to war was a mistake. How do you think a mother feels?" Niederer asked.

Angry, she voiced her frustration to reporters who called asking about her son’s death. She spoke to friends, neighbors and family at the funeral where more than 400 people gathered to mourn her son.

She then got a call from another mother who had lost a son in the war. The woman invited her to join others protesting outside an appearance by Secretary of State Colin Powell at Princeton University.

The rally led to more protests. Community groups invited her to speak. So did schools. Niederer joined activists outside the Republican National Convention in New York, and traveled to Washington, D.C., whenever a march was planned.

She gathered with the families of those killed in Iraq and demanded to see the caskets as they were brought back to America.

"I really feel this is my mission," Niederer said. "Bring the troops home as soon as possible. Make sure the families are taken care of. That’s what I want. I speak. I go out to schools. I protest."

Her neighbors and co-workers are proud, she said. She also welcomes those who disagree, like those she met at the Bush campaign rally and those who call her house at night to say her son volunteered to fight.

"It’s free speech. That’s what I’m doing," Niederer said. (AP)

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