Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2004 | 9:51 a.m.
As President Bush made his way from McCarran International Airport to the Las Vegas Convention Center Tuesday, Al Zappala held a picture of his 30-year-old son who was killed in an explosion in Iraq on April 26.
Zappala had to stop several times to take deep breaths between his softly spoken recollections of his son Sgt. Sherwood Baker, who Zappala says was killed in an unnecessary war.
"He was sent to Iraq under false pretenses to fight a war brought about by the lies of the Bush administration," Zappala said at a press conference about 90 minutes before Bush spoke at the National Guard Association Conference. "I find it unconscionable that the administration would use the the 3,000 people who died on 9/11 as martyrs to justify sending our soldiers on a preemptive strike against a country that never attacked us -- a country that never threatened us and never had the capability to threaten us."
Zappala, a member of Military Families Speak Out, an organization of more than 1,700 families bringing attention to what they say are problems soldiers are facing, spoke of his son. Zappala and about 250 people marched outside the convention center protesting against the president and his adminstration's policies.
Bearing signs supporting Sen. John Kerry and denouncing Bush, the protesters shouted slogans such as "Bush must go."
Some waved American flags, while one pair carried a makeshift coffin draped with an American flag to represent the soldiers that have died in Iraq.
John Abbinett, a Vietnam veteran and coordinator for Nevada Veterans for Kerry, said the Democratic Party's presidential candidate cares more about the soldiers in the convention center than Bush does.
"I don't think he (Bush) gives a damn," Abbinett said. "He sees soldiers as expendable pawns. We don't send our soldiers to die; we (should) send them to fight and win."
Abbinett said he feels the worst for those who have lost a loved one in Iraq, like the Zappala family, which is from Philadelphia.
Before being called to active duty with the Pennsylvania National Guard in January, Sherwood Baker was a day care worker and wanted to work with the mentally ill as a county case worker.
Baker's brother, Dante Zappala, said that his brother left behind a wife and young son when he was killed protecting a survey crew searching for weapons of mass destruction. Dante Zappala said he doesn't blame Bush for Baker's death, but said that the president has used the National Guard to satisfy a reckless agenda.
"My brother died trying to make an honest man of George Bush," Dante Zappala said. "He died trying find the elusive weapons of mass destruction.
"At his funeral someone said he died avenging the deaths of Sept. 11th, but that person was wrong. My brother was not a vengeful person, and Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with Sept. 11th."
The Zappalas and others who have loved ones still deployed in Iraq, talked to reporters at the Las Vegas Hilton prior to Bush's speech.
Relatives complained that soldiers have been sent to Iraq without body armor, radios, global positioning systems and other equipment. They said that longer deployments and heavier use of National Guard soldiers are sapping morale.
Dave Durman, a 54-year-old National Guardsman from Tennessee, recently completed a year-long tour in Iraq.
"Many of the soldiers I met in Iraq felt that when they were finished there they were going to get out of the National Guard," Durham said at the Military Families Speak Out press conference.
Outside the convention center Ardis Coffman, 65, marched with a sign that read: "Finally Bush shows up for the National Guard" and said she wants to keep the pressure on to vote for Kerry.
"I just think that Bush has been a bad president," said Coffman, a retired teacher. "I think people need to be reminded sometimes because they forget the things he has done."
Stanley Brown, 57, said he was marching because Bush has not done enough for the economy.
"I haven't worked since December," said Brown, an electrician who moved to Las Vegas from Nashville, Tenn. three weeks ago looking for work. "He hasn't done one thing for the economy. Instead he is concentrating on Iraq.
"If he had spent as much energy as he has in Iraq on finding Osama bin Laden we'd have found him by now."
The protesters marched and shouted along Paradise Road for more than two hours as about 30 Metro Police officers looked on, including six officers on horseback. In addition to those officers there were Nevada National Guard military police and security forces from Nellis Air Force Base stationed inside the convention center.
The president's motorcade was escorted by Metro Police and Nevada Highway Patrol officers on motorcycles, in addition to ever-present Secret Service agents. A Metro helicopter circled overhead as the motorcade made its way to and from the convention center.
As the motorcade prepared to leave the convention center to take Bush back to McCarran about 12:40 p.m. a bicyclist with a large red duffle bag pedaled past officers toward the closed intersection of Paradise and Desert Inn Road where the motorcade was scheduled to travel.
Officers stopped the bicyclist, and police later said they found he did not have anything sinister in his duffle bag.
Metro Lt. R.T. Collins, said that protesters cooperated with police to ensure a safe environment. There were no arrests.
Metro spokesman Sgt. Chris Jones said that there were no traffic snarls beyond the normal waits that occur when a dignitary is in town.
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