Protesters at McNamara Federal Building in Detroit oppose Iran war
Protesters gathered at the McNamara Federal Building in Detroit to oppose war in Iran hours ahead of Trump’s deadline for threats to strike Iran.
Families of Michiganders in the military worry about the safety of their loved ones and the purpose behind the war as conflict continues in Iran.About 350 service members have been wounded during the Iran war, according to U.S. officials. Thirteen service members have died since the beginning of the war.Over 3,600 Iranians have died since the war began and more than 1,780 people have died in Lebanon.
Jim Pool, 53, of Ferndale, says he can still hear the roar of applause from West Point graduates and their families during his son’s commencement in 2025 as President Donald Trump told the audience that “we are ending the era of endless wars.”
Less than a year later, Pool, a former Army captain and West Point graduate himself, said he worries for the lives of his son and other soldiers, as well as the lives of Iranian civilians, after the U.S. and Israel launched attacks on Iran on Feb. 28.
Pool isn’t the only one concerned. Sixty-one percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the war, according to a March 25 Pew research report.
Pool is one of many people in Michigan and the U.S. with a loved one in the military. The Free Press is not including the names of the soldiers whose families we interviewed for this article because the families did not want to be seen as speaking for their children in the military.
War planes from Michigan’s Selfridge Air National Base in Macomb County also have been involved in the war. Air and Space Forces Magazine reported that a dozen A-10 “Warthog” planes from the 107th Fighter Squadron at Selfridge have been deployed to the Iran war. It attributed the information to flight tracking data and local aircraft spotters.
The stakes of the conflict escalated with Trump threatening in a controversial Easter Sunday social media message that “a whole civilization will die” if a deadline to open the strategic Strait of Hormuz was not met. Hours before the April 9 deadline, Trump announced a ceasefire and said the U.S. had entered negotiations with Iran.
Those negotiations broke down on Saturday, April 11, and Trump on Sunday said the U.S. Navy will start blockading the Strait of Hormuz, through which some 20 percent of the world’s oil and natural gas supplies supplies pass through.
Pool said Trump is “bartering and negotiating with the lives of U.S. soldiers and innocent Irani families” and worries about what it means for service members and Iranians locally and abroad.
“I would hope that we (Americans) would be the kind of people who would exercise our strength in the service of the liberation of people,” Pool said in a March 13 interview with the Free Press, a couple of weeks into the war. “It doesn’t seem to be as much about justice for the Iranian people and their liberation from tyranny. It seems more about projection of power and, frankly, sadly, revenge on the part of the two powers.”
‘I didn’t want to look at a map’
Nicole Cass, 57, of Berkley, has a stepson in his third year in the Navy. He had been stationed in Bahrain, an island country across the Persian Gulf from Iran, for about a year before the war began, Cass said. Ahead of the war, he was re-stationed stateside in San Francisco.
“We weren’t initially that flipped out because he had been evacuated before and nothing went on, but stuff was already starting to heat up,” Cass said. “It was scary because he’s right there. If you look at a map, I didn’t want to look at a map, because I couldn’t stand to look at how close he was to Iran in Bahrain.”
As of March 31, 348 U.S. service members have been wounded, according to Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for U.S. Central Command, and 315 of the wounded service members returned to duty. Six U.S. soldiers are seriously injured, and 13 service members have died, Hawkins told USA Today.
Pool said he and his wife, Megan, 53, are anxious that their son, who is currently stationed in Georgia, could be deployed and sent to the front lines of a ground invasion as a junior officer.
“He’s emerging into his adulthood and his career, and then to be thinking that he could be like the sharp end of the spear of revenge, it’s not what he signed up for,” Pool said.
Though he is worried about his son being injured or worse, Pool said, he knows if his son is called to serve, he will do so honorably, graciously, professionally and sensitively, as they both learned at West Point.
“You (my son) will do a great job not only for the people you’re serving alongside of, both following and leading,” Pool said about what he would say to his son if he were deployed. “But really, I know you will do a great job caring for the well-being of the people in Iran because I know you care about that as much as I care about that. That’s really, actually what this war should be about, is freeing. It’s a war for Iran, to bring freedom and justice for them.”
Sorting through anxieties
For the first time in years, Pool finds himself writing poetry to help him process his feelings on the war as a veteran, father of a soldier and as an American. Poetry helps him process his deep and underlying feelings, such as pain and sorrow, he said, encouraging other the loved ones of others in the military to turn to writing, walking, painting or any combination of healthy outlets to work through frustrations, hope, desperation and whatever else they might feel.
Pool also holds on to his faith and says silent prayers. He denounced Trump’s social media messaging about the war over a holy weekend.
“As a follower of Jesus, I am deeply grieved and offended at the announcement on social media of the annihilation of a civilization and its people, with a quote claiming to glorify God, on the same weekend” as Easter, he said.
For Cass, the “extreme everyday worry” about her stepson that came with the war began at an already challenging time, when she and her husband had just lost a dog and cat. She said she ended up in the hospital with atrial fibrillation from the additional stress she is feeling.
“I know I’m just a stepparent, but how would my husband live the rest of his life? How would their mom live the rest of their life? It’s unbearable to think about him being lost, especially to something as disgusting as a war,” she said.
Why is the U.S. at war?
Tension between U.S. and Iran has festered for decades. Trump said the 2026 conflict and strikes were intended to eliminate “imminent threats” from Iran and prevent the country from obtaining a nuclear weapon, USA Today reported. The president has also said the conflict would remove a security threat to the U.S. and give Iranians a chance to topple their rulers.
Before the war started, thousands of Iranians were killed during protests of the nation’s repressive government, USA Today reported. Iran Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed on day one of the U.S.-Israeli attacked, called “Epic Fury.”
Human rights activists in Iran estimate that more than 3,636 people in Iran have died, of whom 1,211 are military fatalities and 1,701 are civilians, as of April 7. Another 714 are unclassified, between civilian and military personnel. Lebanese authorities have said that more than 1,780 were killed in Israeli strikes in that country, including at least 129 children, USA Today reported on April 9.
Pool said he hopes the reason the U.S. struck Iran is that someone informed on the long-term history of the region observed a unique opportunity to take action to see justice and the end of tyranny for Iranians, though he’s not sure that’s the case.
“My concern is that it’s something quite a bit less than that and that those people’s memos probably aren’t even making it to the desk,” Pool said. “My son and other Michigan residents could pay the price for that. They bear the cost, as do the common people of Iran.”
Other challenges for families
Active-duty spouses and children can face wartime challenges, including quickly packing as much as they can, evacuating and fearing for their physical safety, said Dawn Cutler, Chief Operations Officer of Navy Marine Corps Relief Society. The Society has distributed more than $1 million to Marines, sailors and their families to help cover evacuation costs such as hotel fees, diapers. Cutler said she’s seen moms with baby carriers and bags in hand next to their pet’s cages as they waited in line for relief.
“We have very resilient, very strong families that are dealing with an incredible amount of upheaval in their lives right now,” Cutler said.
Cass said her recently married stepson is separated from his wife and child, who are staying with family in New York, after being restationed out of Bahrain.
“It’s just another heartbreaking thing. Although we haven’t even met our new daughter-in-law and our new grandchild yet, they just had to flee their home,” Cass said. “Who knows when he (stepson) will be able to get into married housing so that he can be with his wife and kid again. All of these things are taking much longer because that’s not a priority right now when there’s a war going on.”
‘I screamed “no” at the top of my lungs’
Cass said when her stepson first decided he was going into the military, her husband didn’t tell her for six weeks. Cass, a self-described “bleeding heart liberal,” said she was worried war would happen even during Biden’s presidency.
“I screamed ‘no’ at the top of my lungs and ran around the house screaming ‘no’ and crying because I was so upset,” Cass said of finding out he joined the Navy. “I don’t want anything to happen to him, lest of all just lose him.”
Pool asked people to be gracious and kind toward soldiers and not assume how they feel about conflicts or politics without curious conversations.
“Be kind and curious because they are going to be in a very tough spot,” Pool said. “They’re having to walk this out in a way that we cannot. They live with all of the emotional shame, heaviness of this moment, plus being the ones essentially that do it, be the agent of bringing the mission.”
Contact Natalie Davies at ndavies@freepress.com.