 On the banks of the Ohio River, Michael Smith Sr. speaks about his son Lance Cpl. Michael Smith, who died four years ago in Iraq. (Sun Media/Thane Burnett)
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WELLSBURG, WEST VIRGINIA — Sitting on the corner of his bed, Michael Smith Sr. waits for his son — a hometown American hero, who died almost four years ago in Iraq.
The elder Smith, a beefy former state trooper, spends nights in his aged mom’s home. When she gets up in the late hours, it’s not unusual for her to find him asleep, but quietly sitting up on the edge of his bed.
“Sleeping?” she’ll ask from his door.
“Yes,” he’ll whisper.
“I don’t even realize it,” he now explains, as we talk near the banks of the cold and wide Ohio River, which flows past the plastic and paper bag factories on the industrial border of West Virginia. “I’m just waiting there. I think I must be waiting for my son to come and get me.”
In mile 1,500 of my discovery of America, I have come here to find out how the presidential campaigns — which included a good deal of debate on the future U.S. role in Iraq — are tallied by those who have an intimate understanding of the costs.
But I am suddenly and entirely captivated by the bond between Michael Smith Sr. and his boy.
Michael Jr. was a red-haired, freckled kid, who was a volunteer fireman, before side-stepping college to join the marines. He wanted to earn his way into becoming a state trooper, like his dad.
The son was part of the first advance into Baghdad. And he died at 21 on a return mission to Iraq, after getting married and finding out he was going to be a dad. The baby boy he never knew now carries his name.
Many in this town can tell you Lance Cpl. Michael Smith was shot in the Sunni Triangle in April, 2004, when he and another Marine tried to save a comrade. All three men died.
His image has a place of honour on a wall inside Sandra Plants’ local diner, called Our Heroes Hometown Restaurant. From the window dressings to the placemats to Uncle Sam hung behind the counter, everything is red, white and blue.
Plants’ own son is preparing for his third tour in Iraq. And while she supported the war at the start, she now wants the troops brought safely home.
“We’ve paid a heavy price,” she says.
The church in which they held the service for Michael Jr. — thousands turned up and women on the street wept as his hearse went by — is the same one where he used to crawl under the pews as a young child. They buried him a few miles from where he was raised.
Michael Sr. dreamed of his son long before he was born.
He recalls a vision in 1972 — when the older man was just 21 years old, and before he had met Michael Jr.’s mom, Marianne (they are no longer together, and she lives in Ohio). It was of her holding their boy in a hospital.
In the dream, he asked her their son’s name.
“Michael James Smith,” she answered.
As we sit, he recalls another dream when Michael Jr. was a little child. It was of a boy with fair hair looking for his father.
Michael Sr. now believes it was foreshadowing the fate of his grandson, who would never get the chance to find his dad.
Today, Michael Sr. is more at ease with telling me these intimate stories than talking about a presidential election.
In fact, he stays far away from political news — knows none of the candidates. It’s just not that important in his life here.
But what he does support is what the military mom who runs Our Hero’s Hometown Restaurant fears — that America should stay the course in Iraq.
If not, he tells me, chaos will quickly replace the work his son died advancing.
The dreams and visions he’s had over the years are a comfort to the father now — as if there is destiny somehow at play.
But the one thing that has impacted his life the most was the one thing he never saw coming.
In a voice suddenly smaller than his frame, he says: “I just didn’t think my son would die.”
Which is perhaps why he still waits for him to return.
