Accents
By Julia Carreon-Lagoc

Seated beside the Person of the Year

If you think I was seated beside George W. Bush, Time magazine's 2004 Person of the Year , well, you have another “think” coming. That will happen only if I would be mistaken for the First Lady. Which is impossible because La Gloria is shorter by an inch or two. And definitely, we're no lookalike. Boastfully, however, I could say we are both endowed with handsomer (!) Filipina features. Who is prettier, might you ask? The answer I leave to the eyes of the beholder.

Seriously, it was Dec. 26, 2003 when I found myself seated beside a Person of the Year . My husband Rudy and I were flying to Maryland after spending Christmas Day with my daughter Rose's family in California. (New Year's Eve was scheduled for a reunion with my sisters Lolita and Cristeta in Baltimore where our daughters Raileen, and Randy's and Rose's families would also be joining us.) We had an hour stopover in Phoenix, Arizona, after which more than a dozen soldiers in uniform boarded the plane for the flight to Baltimore Washington International Airport. There was a new seating arrangement, and there I was—seated beside a Person of the Year .

Earlier, Dec. 21, 2003, Time magazine came out with its Person of the Year : the American Soldier . On the cover were three soldiers representing the men and women in the U.S. military fighting in Iraq or deployed elsewhere. Weeks before, Time mentioned those being considered for its annual choice among which was the American Soldier, and Rudy and I guessed right because the soldiers were the top newsmakers of the year. They were in the papers daily since the start of the Iraq war in March 2003. The radio, the Internet, the TV, and all of print media screamed of the horrors of war with the soldiers coming out whole, maimed, or in a box. They bore the duty of “living with and dying for a country's most fateful decisions,” and to this day, continue to bear that duty in what seems to be a never-ending war that Iraq has turned out to be.

I surmised he must be in his late teens because he looked very much like my son Roderick when he was about that age. Beside me was a youthful face that has tasted but little of life's trials and tribulations. Sort of a misfit in soldier's attire who would regard war no more than a tussle in a soccer game. Portrait of a young man as a soldier who would take soldiering as but a passion of youth. The journalist in me started with the questions.

Along with his companions, he was on a two-week furlough from their Iraq assignment. He was making the most of being back in the homeland visiting his mother in Washington State. He had just been to Arizona to see his father and grandparents. In D.C., he would do a lot of “happy” things, prompting me to ask whether he's married. Neither single nor married, he replied. “Only in-between,” whatever he meant by that. He said he's 22, indeed before him a long road strewn with vagaries of life only heaven knows what.

I couldn't bring myself to ask political questions. The weighty ones should not be asked of a guy who just wanted to do “happy” things in his two-week sojourn. I showed him my press card and asked whether he would like his name mentioned in my column. “No. Names of soldiers in newspapers are usually those of the casualties. But let me write it in your booklet.” And he did, adding a PFC, 1–1 Cavalry, Ist Armor Division. “Would you want me to mail the article to you?” Again, his answer was “No.” He said he's not certain as to his address. Yes, no permanent address. NPA. Sounds familiar. (My brother Simplicio Jr. used to have that address, but that's a totally different story.)

Last Dec. 19, Time came out with “Dubya” as its 2004 Person of the Year . ( Time magazine will select its 2005 Person of the year in December.—Ed.) It was then that I remembered one memorable plane ride in December of 2003 when I was seated beside the Person of the Year . A person who has my respect and to whom goes my deep compassionate esteem. Something I could not say of Time magazine's current title-holder, the US President who defied the UN by invading Iraq and, thereby, disgraced America in the eyes of the world—to the utter dismay and shame of many Americans in the entire United States.

My son-in-law Timothy has saved for me the Sunday Comics of the San Francisco Chronicle of May 30, 2004, which featured Doonesbury by the political cartoonist Garry Trudeau. Instead of satirizing the war with his soldier characters, Trudeau has titled this particular issue: IN MEMORIAM. It contains the names of the soldiers killed in Iraq as of April 23, 2004, a total of 709 casualties. The list comes with a heart-wrenching symbol of death—a helmet resting on a rifle.

I refuse to look for his name among the printed names of the dead. I can only hope and pray he's alive. (Comments to lagoc@hargray.com )