Jeremhiah Duggan made a frantic call in the early morning of March 27, 2003 to tell his mother that he was in big trouble, and under tremendous pressure. The anti-war conference turned out to be a ruse. Instead of hashing out protest strategies, or learning about the political implications and causes of the Iraq War, the conference consisted of a harangue against Jews and how they started the conflict. In the midst of venomous racist and anti-Semitic accusations, Jeremiah stood up, identified himself as a Jew, and told the rest of the “delegates” there that they were spewing nothing more, nothing less than pure, unadulterated BS.

And that’s when things turned scary.

Jeremiah stood alone against an angry mob. Because of the viciousness of their harassment, he realized that his outburst put him in real danger. He managed to escape briefly to make that frantic call to his mother, asking she come to Germany to get him. Amid the clamor and panic, Erica Duggan tried her best to say something useful, comforting and coherent. She could only manage the words, “I love you.”

And then the line went dead.

As I said in an earlier post, that was the second worst phone call Erica Duggan would ever receive in her lifetime. The absolute worst came a few minutes later when Jeremiah called to plan his escape back to Paris.

“Where are you?” asked Erica.

“Wiesbaden,” replied Jeremiah.

“How do you spell that?”

“W-i-e-s—“

Again, the phone went dead. This time, for good.


***News***

I have just found out that over the previous weekend, the mother of our dear friend Libby passed away. I, for one, would be grateful if you kept her in your thoughts and prayers.