Vets returning from Iraq turn to war protesters for help

Vets returning from Iraq turn to war protesters for help
By AUDREY PARENTE
Staff writer

DAYTONA BEACH -- Three months after his advanced infantry training in the Army Reserves, Mike Gianfriddo was deployed to Iraq.

His military occupational specialty: administrative assistant. His job in Iraq: tower guard.

He served in Iraq from September 2005 for a year, then returned to his Minnesota home. He won't talk about what he saw, except to say that once home, he felt out of place and found ordinary life hard to handle emotionally.

Recently he found help in an unexpected place: the corner of International Speedway Boulevard and Nova Road during a peace demonstration where he met members of Central Florida Veterans for Peace and Military Families Speak Out. Those groups join CodePink of Central Florida, a women's peace movement that organizes daily demonstrations in Volusia and Flagler counties.

While these Iraq war protesters may be very visible to passing motorists, their whole mission may not be apparent. Seeking peace and an end to the war, they also help returning servicemen and women readjust.

Not all who pass by honk in support of the demonstrators or agree with their protest, including Carmine Fragione of New Smyrna Beach, a former Connecticut probation officer. His opinion opposes the protesters' philosophies.

"I see them on the street corners with signs. I trust that the anti-war group is from a wide background, but I think they are misguided," he said. "But I think in the time of war, we support our president and fight to win."

But Gianfriddo saw the protesters in a different light, and that led him to folks who understand his troubling issues.

"I don't like to talk about the war," Gianfriddo said in an interview at a Daytona Beach restaurant. He declined to be photographed. "When I came home, I didn't initially know what to do. I had basically been in the VA (Veterans Administration) in Minnesota since the problems started."

He tried to go to school but didn't do well in that setting. He was hospitalized for a time.

"I ended up coming to Florida, still having service-related health issues," said the 25-year-old. He now is in the reserves based in Daytona Beach. He lives in Port Orange, works at a laundry and struggles to fit in.

"I came down here and started treatment at the VA and have tried to put my life back together," he said.

Among the organizations demonstrating on the busy street corner, some are branches of national groups made up of former military people, relatives of active military personnel and civil activists who oppose the war in Iraq.

They do more than protest, Gianfriddo said. They offered him help.
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