CAMARILLO : A Son’s Letter Helps ‘Put a Face’ on War

Army Pvt. Alex Porter of Camarillo intended to comfort his parents with a hastily penned letter before his deployment to Saudi Arabia last month.

“Mom, it just hurt to hear you cry for me. I didn’t expect it. I feel good knowing that I have two parents that love me as much as I love them,” he wrote to his parents, Clo and Mike Porter, after an emotional telephone conversation the day after Christmas.

The heart-rending letter, scribbled on notebook paper, was private until hours before the war in Iraq exploded Jan. 16, when Clo Porter called a KABC Radio talk show to respond to anti-war comments.

She read the letter from her son, who by then was in the Saudi Arabian desert. Since then, the letter of the 22-year-old soldier has prompted an enormous response from Southern Californians moved by its eloquence, said Bill Jenkins, a spokesman for the radio station.

“The response was spontaneous and overwhelming,” Jenkins said. The station immediately began receiving requests for copies of the letter and to rebroadcast Clo Porter’s reading of it.

In addition, the station sent Porter’s letter to President Bush, Jenkins said. “We’ve even had suggestions from the audience that protesters should all have to memorize it,” he said.

Alex Porter, a graduate of the Christian Church School in Camarillo and Moorpark College, said in his letter that he had volunteered to fight to preserve this country’s freedoms and told his parents that, if he is killed, “don’t be sad, be proud.”

“Be proud that you had a son who, in a time when most Americans my age continue to take from society, gave,” he wrote. He asked them to “tie a yellow ribbon for me, and when I return, we’ll take it down together.”

The Porters were touched by how well their son had expressed his thoughts but set aside the letter until a frustrated Clo Porter called the talk show Wednesday.

Though saying she seeks no notoriety, she said her son’s letter has helped “put a face” on the thousands of soldiers in the war.

It also prompted the Porters to express their support for the troops by attending their first public rally, a pro-war demonstration Saturday at the County Government Center in Ventura.

“We were part of the silent majority until then,” she said.