“In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility — I welcome it.”
— President John F. Kennedy, inaugural address, Jan. 20, 1961.
“A nation which makes the final sacrifice for life and freedom does not get beaten.”
— Kemal Ataturk, the first president of the Republic of Turkey.
In coming days, it seems certain that Americans from all walks of life will be asked to make sacrifices — some big, some small — as the country goes about its battle with terrorism. President Bush has promised a long, costly struggle, one that will test our staying power, infringe perhaps on our cherished privacy and civil liberties, and certainly threaten our creature comforts. What are we willing to give up?
We interviewed a variety of people on the subject of sacrifice — what kind and how much of it they are willing to endure to secure victory.
This is what they had to say:
Margarita Manettas
Chicago banker, mother of a serviceman
When she hears Americans talk about the sacrifices they might have to make in a war on terrorism, Manettas’ thoughts aren’t on long lines at airports and tighter border checks. In Monday’s wee hours, she got a telephone call from her 21-year-old son Alexander, who belongs to an elite U.S. military assault team.
“He called to say goodbye. He said he was shipping out and he couldn’t tell us where he was going. He said it might be a while before we hear from him again. Then he called his sister to say goodbye. She’s expecting a baby in December and he will be the godfather. He told us all not to worry, that he’ll be seeing us later.”
Manettas, whose father and husband were both in the Navy, said the waiting and anticipation will be difficult. Already, she has sent Alex e-mails and dialed his cell phone number — knowing full well that both means of communication are disconnected — just to have any kind of contact with him.
“Pride is the main thing I feel when I first think about it. Then, I am afraid. Then, I say to myself that thousands already died and they had mothers too.”
Richard Young
Food industry consultant
When airplanes were grounded last week, Young, a consultant in the food industry for RKY Group, was stuck in Las Vegas at a convention. He rented a car and drove 1,800 miles to his Lake Bluff home — and missed seeing his son play a pee-wee football game that had been circled on his calendar for weeks.
“Travel will never be the same for businessmen like me on the road a lot,” said Young, a regular commuter to places like Atlanta, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Des Moines, Dallas and Denver. “You can forget about all those quick conferences held at O’Hare when everyone flies in for the day. I see a lot of people like me spending a lot more time teleconferencing.
“Travel is a sacrifice a lot of businessmen are going to have to make. It’ll never be the same again, but, on the other hand, maybe that isn’t all bad. There are a lot of us that don’t enjoy that part of our job anyway.”
Cliff Paul
Police officer, naval reservist
As a member of the U.S. Navy, Paul, 38, served on an aircraft carrier during the tension with Libya in the 1980s. He is now a Navy reservist and a policeman in Buffalo Grove. He is also the father of three sons, age 13, 10 and 7.
Says Paul, “My oldest boy keeps saying to me, `You’re not going to leave are you?’ They’re all very concerned. Having kids this time makes it different, but whatever I can do, I will do. I have no hesitation.
“I’ve talked with others like me. There’s a lot of anger at the people who did this to our country. Some day my kids will understand all of this much better.
Tim Miller
College student
Miller, a freshman at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y.,said some Americans may be asked to make the ultimate sacrifice — and that may be too much. “I think that the sacrifice is going to be more than we want to offer,” he said. “They’ve called 35,000 military reserves into service. This means that 35,000 young men and women who may have just joined the reserves for some extra college money, young people my age who I live and work with . . . may be sent off to a war. . . . We are potentially sacrificing the dreams of those young people and all of the good they hoped to do for their country and the world.
“These are people with their whole lives ahead of them whom we’ve chosen to [perhaps] send into a battlefield. But invading Afghanistan hardly seems the answer. The sacrifice of those lives seems so much greater to me than any potential benefit when so little good can come from a war.”
“I know that I personally don’t want to see any war. I registered for the draft two months ago. My friends are eligible. Some of the brightest and most honorable people I’ve ever met have joined the military. These people could die soon, and the world would be a worse place for having sacrificed them in the name of honor, dignity and hurt pride. I think that’s too great a sacrifice. But I’m also the one holding the draft card.”
Miller also says another thing that may have already been sacrificed was America’s illusion (“or was it a delusion”) of invincibility.
“When Americans do something, we always go overboard. We’re going to build up the shield by trouncing a small country in the Middle East and we’re going to waste as much life as we have to in order to do so. Is this something we want to sacrifice? Apparently so.”
Melissa Nohl
College student
“I’ll do whatever I have to do,” said the sophomore nursing major at Marquette University in Milwaukee. “If it means I have to go through an extra metal detector to get into a building, then so be it. If it means I’ll see extra security around major cities, then so be it. If I enter an airport, I am willing to give up a little more time to be checked in and boarded to assure my safety.
“I do believe there is such a thing as too much protection. Too much protection will decrease the very thing that I personally want to maintain, which is our freedom. When the terrorists attacked our country, our freedom was lost. It really hit me when I looked up in the sky and didn’t see any planes. It was amazing. And to get that freedom back, I’d be willing to go to war for my country. I am ready for the fight. I am ready to stand up and defend my country to get our freedom back.”
Kinky Friedman
Author and singer
“[Last week] I flew out of San Francisco, and we waited in line for 3 1/2 hours at the airport. And there were no complaints from anybody. We all knew how foolish and selfish that would be.” The former New Yorker says he sees sacrifices on two levels in the days ahead. “There’s sacrifice in a Ghandi-like way, and sacrifice in a John Wayne-like way. Ghandi felt that sacrificing things was more important than having them, and sacrificing them would have a bigger impact on the architecture of your character. I think all of us would do well to remember that.”
Vivian Trice
Mother and charity worker
Trice, 34, of Hyde Park, was quick to say she would accept more inconvenience in travel in exchange for greater security, but hesitated when asked if she would be willing to see a loved one go to war. “That one is hard,” said Trice, who has an 18-year-old son, Robert Hawkins. She said she would like to see alternatives — diplomacy, law enforcement, even strategic strikes — before a large-scale military action: “I hope it won’t come to that. I pray it won’t come to that,” she said.
But if war proves necessary, she said, she is willing to have her son join the fight. “I’m sure that none of us wants people that we know, our families, to go, but someone has to do it.”
Gideon Yago
Broadcaster and writer
“Personally, I would be more willing to sacrifice my time and myself as an individual, meaning civilian or military service, than I would be to sacrifice certain rights in this country,” said Yago, an “MTV News” correspondent who lives in New York. “Stepping up internal policing in the United States, perhaps infringing on people’s civil liberties, is very, very dangerous. I would much rather serve overseas than give up my rights. It’s incredible to see the sacrifice that has already been made. I’ve lived in New York for 18 years, and it’s had this reputation for being a go-go, materialistic city where everything is about money and your tax return. I think that stereotype has been completely disproved by people’s sacrifices in New York this past week.”
Tim Devine
High school teacher
“With wounds still bleeding and emotions still piqued, people are much more willing to say they will make many sacrifices. But if the question were asked weeks from now, after Americans have somewhat returned to their routines, you will likely see them slip back into their old positions on higher taxes and prices at the pump,” said the social studies teacher at Northside College Prep.
“Taxes increased sharply during World War II, but that war was fought against clear enemies and the U.S., not to sound cynical, did a wonderful job propagandizing Americans into thinking they needed to pay higher taxes, accept lower wages, live on rations and buy war bonds on the home front if we were to succeed. Propagandizing a war against terrorism is tougher because the enemy is less clear. Bush has got a yeoman’s job on his hands: He must change American thinking on what to expect in a war. If terrorism continues to hit on the homefront, then I would say it’s likely Americans will be willing to pay higher taxes or more at the pump. But if this is largely a war fought abroad, over a long period of time, with unclear objectives, then we’ll become disgruntled.”
Mario “Motts” Tonelli
Retired
Tonelli, 85, a former Notre Dame football star and a Bataan Death March survivor in World War II, sacrificed a professional football career to serve in the military. “I’ve seen too many guys get killed in my lifetime. People don’t know what war is like. We can’t get softer. We have to be even tougher because this is really harder than a real war. It’s on our shores.”
Thad Brzoski
Delivery coordinator
“We’re taking a serious hit and I don’t see it getting any better, especially if they keep tightening security the way they’re talking,” said the operations director for Dynamics Courier Service (formerly known as Cannonball).
“Something that used to take five minutes is taking our guys 20 minutes and longer. The John Hancock Center now has everyone going to one central desk and one of their security people calling to verify everything. We had a guy who’s been going to the same post office for 25 years told to show his birth certificate, so he had to go home. I can see this lasting a long time, maybe 10 years, and it’s going to be expensive for some.”
Neal Benezra
Museum director
“We are trying to be responsive to the situation and also responsible for the public,” said the deputy director and curator at the Art Institute of Chicago, where the effects of tightened security have begun to impinge on exhibits — including the new Van Gogh-Gauguin show. “It’s a very difficult situation because no one wants public space to be vulnerable, but at the same time you don’t want to overreact and inconvenience visitors unduly. Numerous visitors have thanked us for the additional security that we are providing.”
Jim Schenkelberg
College student
“I think that at this time it seems necessary to make some sacrifices,” said the 21-year-old philosophy and political science major at Marquette University. “The only question to me is how long will we have to make them and how long will we be willing to make them.” Asked if he would be willing to carry a national identification card, Schenkelberg said: “It’s hard to say because I’m not sure about specifics. A card with a profile of you, say, with your heritage or nationality I think that is something that would worry me. . . . There are certain civil liberties that I think that everyone would be willing to give up to increase their safety, but when you start infringing on people’s right to privacy it becomes another issue entirely.”
Syed Khan
Professional engineer and chairman of the Downtown Islamic Center
Khan noted that Muslim-Americans are willing to sacrifice as much as any other U.S. citizens, but they fear being “profiled” by security agencies for more stringent security observation. “The Chicago Muslim community, to be honest, was already outraged at the treatment they were getting at the airports prior to this terrorist attack,” he said. “Profiling is just downright, absolutely wrong. I don’t know why they should take anything more than their American counterparts have to take. Our commitment, our patriotism, is no less than other Americans.”
Khan, who emigrated to the U.S. from India in 1974 and became a citizen in 1989, said incidents of racial profiling against African-Americans in recent years have sparked outcries. “The mistake should not be made a second time,” he said. After all, he added, “What would they have done if another Timothy McVeigh had done something like this? Who would they have profiled? We are no different from other Americans. Why should we be profiled? This is the land where you are innocent until you’re proven guilty.”
Sugar Rautbord
Author and charity event organizer
“I am on an airplane about 16 days a month, and I really think it will be impossible to continue a lifestyle where you live between four or five cities and fly with that kind of frequency. But I am certainly amenable to having a national ID card and anything we can for the skies. I will not be frightened. And I will not stop fundraising. . . . I would rather be blown up raising money for an important cause rather than hiding under a couch. . . . “I lost one girlfriend on the airplane that crashed into the Pentagon. I have friends that were in the World Trade Center. I think if this terrorist organization has the audacity to make human missiles out of us, I think we should stand in their way and say, no, we will make ourselves uncomfortable, but have tighter security so that you may not use us to hurt our own people.”
Rick Kupke
Ex-Iranian hostage, banker in Indiana
Kupke, 54, was a U.S. State Department worker in Tehran, where he was held hostage by extremists for 444 days before being freed Jan. 20, 1981.
“From what I see and understand, the cells (of the terrorists) are here and in place and waiting until there’s a false sense of security. Something may not happen for five or six years, or longer, because that’s not an unreasonable amount of time for terrorists. We have to do a better job of securing our borders with Canada and Mexico and we have to think about a national ID card, although I’d hate to see it come to that.
“I missed the frenzy that went on in this country during the hostage crisis, but I certainly became aware of it when I returned. I remember going to the White House just a few days after we were released and saying to one of the other hostages, `Can you believe we’re standing here?’ That glow lasted for a few weeks. The gas prices start to stabilize and everything sort of goes back to normal.
“If you’d taken a poll of the hostages, we would’ve been 90 percent in favor of . . . bombing Tehran even though we were being held there. I know that would probably mean I wouldn’t be here today . . . but it probably would’ve also meant there wouldn’t have been two airliners crashing into the World Trade Center.”
