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Protesters at McNamara Federal Building in Detroit oppose Iran war<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.”<\/p>\n
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<\/a> on Feb. 28.<\/p>\n 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n War planes from Michigan’s Selfridge Air National Base in Macomb County also have been involved in the war. Air and Space Forces Magazine<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n The stakes of the conflict escalated with Trump threatening in a controversial Easter Sunday social media message that “a whole civilization will die<\/a>” 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u00a0would hope that we (Americans) would be the kind of people who would exercise our\u00a0strength\u00a0in 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\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0seem to be as much about justice for the Iranian people and their liberation from\u00a0tyranny.\u00a0It seems more about projection of power\u00a0and,\u00a0frankly,\u00a0sadly,\u00a0revenge\u00a0on the part of the two powers.”<\/p>\n ‘I didn’t want to look at a map’<\/p>\n Nicole\u00a0Cass, 57, of Berkley,\u00a0has a stepson in his third year in the Navy.\u00a0He 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\u00a0stateside in\u00a0San Francisco.<\/p>\n \u201cWe weren\u2019t initially that flipped out because he had been evacuated\u00a0before\u00a0and nothing went on, but stuff was already starting to heat up,\u201d Cass said.\u00a0\u201cIt was scary because\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0right there. If you look at a map, I\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0want to look at a map,\u00a0because I\u00a0couldn\u2019t\u00a0stand to look at how close he was to Iran in Bahrain.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n As of March 31, 348 U.S. service members have been wounded<\/a>, according to Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for U.S. Central Command, and 315 of the wounded service members returned to duty<\/a>. Six U.S. soldiers are seriously injured, and 13 service members have died, Hawkins told USA Today.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n “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.<\/p>\n Though he is worried about his son\u00a0being injured or worse, Pool said, he knows if his son is called to serve, he will do so honorably, graciously,\u00a0professionally\u00a0and sensitively, as they both learned at West Point.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u00a0(my son) will\u00a0do a great job not only for the people\u00a0you\u2019re serving alongside\u00a0of,\u00a0both following and leading,\u201d Pool said about what he would say to his son if he were deployed. \u201cBut really, I know\u00a0you\u00a0will do\u00a0a great job\u00a0caring for the\u00a0well-being\u00a0of the people in Iran because I know\u00a0you\u00a0care about that as much as I care about that.\u00a0That\u2019s really, actually what this war should be about, is freeing.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0a war for Iran, to bring freedom and justice for them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0Sorting through anxieties<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n “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.<\/p>\n For Cass, the \u201cextreme 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.<\/p>\n “I know\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0just a stepparent, but how would my husband live the rest of his life? How would their mom live the rest of their life?\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0unbearable to think about him being lost, especially to something as\u00a0disgusting as a war,” she said.<\/p>\n Why is the U.S. at war?<\/p>\n Tension between U.S. and Iran has festered for decades<\/a>. 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<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n Before the war started, thousands of Iranians were killed during protests of the nation’s repressive government<\/a>, USA Today reported. Iran Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed<\/a> on day one of the U.S.-Israeli attacked, called “Epic Fury.”<\/p>\n Human rights activists in Iran<\/a>\u00a0estimate 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\u00a0in Israeli strikes in that country, including at least 129 children, USA Today reported<\/a> on April 9.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n “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.”\u00a0<\/p>\n