[04/06/03]Her son deployed inside Iraq, a Vicksburg woman was among the hundreds of people who gathered downtown Saturday to show support for U.S. military personnel.

Birdean Love said her youngest child, U.S. Army Pfc. Rolando G. Love, 32, drives a 5,000-gallon gasoline truck used to refuel vehicles. She said the last letter she received from him was dated March 16, before a U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq, but that he said he was planning to go with his unit towards Baghdad.

“He went and signed up the day after,” Sept. 11, 2001, Love said of the day terrorists attacked the United States, flying airplanes into buildings and killing nearly 3,000 people.

“He was really kind of excited about being over there,” Love said of the letter she received from her son.

Love also said she had a daughter, Constance Taylor, whose husband is a military-police master sergeant in the U.S. Air Force and doesn’t know yet whether he will be deployed.

City, county, state, military and veterans’ groups officials were among those who addressed the crowd, estimated at 200 to 300 people, in the newly landscaped city parking lot off Washington Street at Crawford Street. Organization of the rally was led by Cheryl Johnson, whose husband, Keith, is a military police captain in the U.S. Army awaiting deployment orders from near Tampa, Fla.

Patricia M. Lee of Vicksburg, who also has a son deployed to the Middle East, said such troops “need more of this here to let them know that Americans do support them.”

Her son, Sidney Lee Carpenter III, 22, attended Warren Central High School and was deployed as an aircraft-engine mechanic with the U.S. Air Force to Kuwait in late January, she said.

“When they bombed Kuwait that first night (of the war), he called me and said he was having to put on his chemical (warfare) suit,” she said, adding that such alerts have continued for her son.

“I told him they were having this today and he said that was wonderful,” she said.

The crowd applauded when Maj. Gen. Richard Coleman, commander of the 412th Engineer Command, a Vicksburg-based U.S. Army Reserve unit with about 50 of 200 members currently deployed, reported that “we’ve got tanks and Bradley (Fighting Vehicles) that are going down the streets of Baghdad.” Coleman noted that, of the approximately 250,000 National Guardsmen and reservists mobilized nationwide, 98 percent have been deployed.

From the four National Guard and reserve units with Vicksburg bases, about 278 people have been deployed.

“We didn’t have anybody back up, folks,” he said. “When the time came, our citizen-soldiers answered the call.”

Among the performers at the event was Sean Chambers, who sang “God Bless the U.S.A.,” which was popularized by country artist Lee Greenwood.

A concurrent resolution from the Mississippi Legislature expressing “complete support” for all U.S. troops, particularly those from the state, was also read. Mississippi has about 4,625 reserve troops mobilized. Among the 50 states, that number puts the state seventh in reserve personnel mobilized as a proportion of eligible population, with 26.8 mobilized per 10,000 of eligible age.

Kathryn Berry of Clinton, who said she had a nephew who served with an Army infantry division in the 1991 Operation Desert Storm, said she does not understand how any American could not take pride in the troops fighting in Iraq.

“They’ve got people coming at them, and they’ve got to make a decision: Is this a civilian?'” she said.

She said the war is “if not a direct result, at least an indirect result” of the Sept. 11 attacks. “It made our leaders begin to understand that, as much as it surprises us, we are hated,” she said. “It made us realize we’ve got to start taking care of ourselves not just here at home but all over the world.”

Devery Wooten of Vicksburg said he doesn’t anticipate an easy transition from dictatorship to democracy in Iraq after the war.

“I’m hoping a democracy can be put into effect,” he said, adding that “it’s going to be a long process.”