Uh...?

Right here: "When she found out her son volunteered for Iraq, she said, 'I died,' but added that she supports him wholeheartedly even though she doesn't support the war."

Walnut Creek soldier anxious to get to Iraq
By Danielle Samaniego

Marine Lance Cpl. Damian Musante refused to wait for a tour of duty in Iraq.
When the Walnut Creek resident found out his unit wouldn't be deployed anytime soon, he found a unit that was. He asked for a transfer from a San Bruno unit to one out of New Hampshire, putting him on a fast track that should get him to the Middle East in a few months.
It's a stint he's been mentally prepping for since childhood, when he dreamed of being a military man. In 2003, he joined the Corps after reading a newspaper article on soldiers putting their best efforts into the ongoing war.

"I thought maybe, had I been there, I could have helped out," said Musante, who is part of an elite infantry trained for close combat. "A lot of people join to get a cool tattoo and brag about it to girls, but I'm trying to bring somebody back that couldn't get back."
With his move, Musante will say goodbye to his 2nd Battalion, 23rd Marine Infantry Division. The 28-year-old says his gung-ho attitude stems from his years of training with the Marine Corps, a group he likens to the underdogs of the military and the first to go before combat.
"It's a different type of training and war fighter ... it's more exclusive, more special," he said. "We get hand-me-down Army rifles and the worst gear, but it doesn't matter; the man behind the rifle is still cut from a different material."

While Musante fostered a desire to join the military from a young age, he didn't immediately enlist after high school. He toiled in community college and held odd jobs to keep afloat. But he decided to get his act together in 2003, when the war broke out.[? Sounds like some sort of disease that arose spontaneously.]

"I've always tried to do things for other people; I haven't always been successful, but those are my intentions," he said. "I thought to myself, 'When I'm an old man in my rocking chair, what would I wish I had done?' Joining the Marines would have been it, and I couldn't live with that."
If it were up to Musante's mother, Penny Musante, she could have easily lived without seeing her son step onto Middle Eastern soil for combat. A pacifist who volunteers with the Peace Center in Walnut Creek, Penny Musante thought her son's military passion subsided with adulthood.

"His whole life has been wrapped around doing something, Navy Seal or something, since he was really young. He wore camouflage pants as a child, and did paint-balling. I would hope that would have gotten it out of his system, but it didn't," she said. "I was shocked when he graduated from high school and didn't go into the military. Happy, but shocked."
Because she never let her son play with guns as a child, he ended up building his own out of paper or using sticks or bananas for play weapons. When she found out her son volunteered for Iraq, she said, "I died," but added that she supports him wholeheartedly even though she doesn't support the war.

For his part, Damian Musante understands how his mother, whom he calls his "patron saint," feels.
"She cries when I'm not around and so does my girlfriend, but I try to keep my head nice and clean. They do a real good job of not falling apart when I'm around," he said. "Regardless of political agenda, I'll be wherever the Marines are."

Musante will go through more training when he gets to Twenty-nine Palms before moving to Iraq in a couple of months for a six-to-seven month stint. Once there, he will be part of three missions, including foot patrols, clearing border cities and strongholds of insurgents and convoy operations.

Though he admits that he's not too excited about the idea of being on big trucks because they're the biggest targets for attacks, he is ready for this next phase in his military career.
"The only thing I have apprehension about is making a mistake and getting a Marine killed or killing an innocent civilian," he said. "I don't worry about my own safety, it doesn't phase me at all, but I don't want to get anyone else hurt out there."

Addendum: Why is it so easy for the bigoted to say "I'm ashamed of my child" and so hard for the less bigoted to say the same thing without adding "but"? Why do they erode their ethics when it comes to their children?

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Yet another mother's idiot son:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/12/30/teen.iraq/

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Listening to:

Iggy Pop: TV eye, 1977 Live
Dion and the Belmonts: A Teenager in Love, The Best of Dion and the Belmonts
Paul Simon: The Paul Simon Collection, On My Way, Don’t Know Where I’m Goin’, disc #1
Vince Gill: Souveniers
Rod Stewart: Camouflage
Nina Simone: Live At Ronnie Scott’s