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Children crusade for peace By Myles Murphy Ashland Daily Tidings While the conflict in Iraq appears to be tapering off, Ashland is still host to frequent demonstrations in the name of peace and other causes. "I don't think of the war as over yet," Shelley Elkovich said Thursday. An Ashland resident and mother of two, Elkovich organized a memorial for Iraqi children on the Plaza. "My love for my children makes me realize how precious are children all over the world," Elkovich said. Samar Dawisha tells a story about a young girl from Iraq as a small boy listens from atop a phone booth and other kids tune in during the peace rally in Ashland's Plaza Thursday. At bottom right, a memorial to children killed in Iraq was constructed out of toys. Ashland Daily Tidings/CHRIS MILLER About 20 children - and as many parents - braved sudden cloudbursts Thursday afternoon to build a small memorial of donated toys in the name of Iraqi children who have died in the recent fighting. "What I really think is, I think Bush himself should fight Saddam," seven-year-old Bronson Garloff said. "So no innocent people would get hurt." About a dozen small placards staked in the ground around the Plaza displayed the names of supposedly deceased Iraqi children. Four-year-old Kalea Morton scribbled with chalk on the pavement in the shadow of a placard for "Fatehah Abdullah, age 8." Kalea at first drew a blank when asked why she was at the rally or what she thinks about war, but then in a conspiratorial whisper, confessed, "I think W. Bush is a dumbass. I think war is stupid, too." "I don't know where she gets that," Kalea's mother, Margaret Morton, said with a laugh. "Maybe her brother �" Morton brought her children to the event to give them a better understanding of what some people feel about the war and to let them interact with the other kids. "We try to give them both viewpoints," Morton said. "What she absorbs is what she absorbs. Kids are rational." Seven-year-old Frank Bungay spends a lot of time expressing his feelings on the war in art and with his toys, according to mother Tracy Bungay. "I think this war is building his interest in spelling and reading," Tracy said. "He really thinks about it." Frank added one of his toys - a construction worker holding a hand-made sign, "Build Homes Not Bombs" - to the growing assemblage of Barbie dolls, baseball bats, stuffed animals, flowers and other items attached to a small wire frame set in a little red wagon. "I think the war is awful," Frank said. "All the killing makes me sad." While Tracy Bungay was confident her son is old enough to grasp the important aspects of Thursday's event, she recognized the danger of using children to voice parents' concerns before they are old enough to develop their own opinions. "It's unique to the child," Bungay said. "I would never put a T-shirt on my kid with words on it that were my words. This is a giant thing for me. A lot of the parents here think about this - how much sheltering (of children) is too much and how much is not enough. "Maybe at four, he doesn't understand a lot, but at six, he probably does," she added. As rain poured down - broken by occasional rays of sun - children of all ages showed they understand when to take a break from building memorials to run around and splash in puddles. LINKS: DAILY TIDINGS: Main | News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Opinion | Columnists | AP News | Subscribe | Archives | Weather | Classifieds | Contact Us | Privacy REVELS: Main | Calendar | Dining | Movies | T.V. OTHER: Road Cams Copyright 2003 Ashland Daily Tidings 541.482.3456. 1661 Siskiyou Blvd., Ashland, OR 97520. Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. - Advertisers -