Public Employee Press

Third in a series on 'War in Iraq'

DC 37 members at war
Mother, worker, soldier: Deborah Simon

By JANE LaTOUR

Deborah Simon is a daughter, a sister, a mother, a union member, a shop steward, a tenant activist — and now a soldier, deployed in Iraq.

When she’s not mobilized in the U.S. Army National Guard, Debbie is a Clerical Associate at the Gouverneur ophthalmology clinic, where her days there are filled with handling paperwork, answering phones and scheduling patient’s appointments.

Today in Iraq, Sgt. Simon handles an M-16 automatic rifle and schedules armored truck convoys.

At Gouverneur, “She’s very polite to the patients,” said co-worker Leticia Morales, also a member of Clerical-Administrative Employees Local 1549. “She has a lot of patience,” said Ms. Morales.

Ms. Simon has worked at the hospital for 21 years. She’s been a shop steward for the last three years, serving under the direction of Chief Steward Derrick O. Davis. “Debbie is intelligent and always willing to help out,” he said. “As a steward, she’s very good. I’ll give her a situation to investigate and she knows what to do.”

Always a help
Mr. Davis has known Ms. Simon since they were children growing up on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. “I moved here from Georgia and we became friends in the seventh grade at P.S. 12. I was on the basketball and track teams. I would call her up and say: ‘Listen, I can’t get all my homework done.’ And she was willing to help. She was always assisting people with their homework and essay writing,” he reminisced fondly.

After Debbie went to work at the hospital, they picked up their friendship and he renewed his closeness with her family. “My son and her son were in junior high together — at the same school, P.S. 12.

Debbie’s mother is wheelchair bound with a spinal illness,” he explained. The family lives across the street from Gouverneur in public housing, where Ms. Simon is active with her Tenants’ Association.

But for now, Sgt. Simon is living in a tent. She runs transportation convoys. Facing constant sniper attacks, suicide bombers and IEDs (improvised explosive devices, the Army term for roadside bombs) is part of her job, and every life in her unit is on the line every day.

The dangerous mission and the deteriorating conditions in Iraq have her co-workers worried. “I have a lot of respect for our soldiers,” said Ms. Morales. “But I think she shouldn’t be there. First, she’s an older person. And really, no one from here should be there. This isn’t our fight. They lied about the weapons of mass destruction, but then we only found that out later,” she said. “I just hope that she comes back safe.”

“I have a problem with the war in Iraq,” said Mr. Davis. “It’s unfair the way people are being called up. The country should go back to the draft, so the reserves wouldn’t be exhausting themselves and getting overextended.”

He pointed out that the people who voted for the war in Congress aren’t sending their children to fight it. Only four out of 435 members of Congress have children serving in the military. “Even President Bush didn’t serve in Vietnam and didn’t spend much time in the National Guard,” he pointed out.

Local 1549 President Eddie Rodriguez underscored the union’s position on the war. “The best way to support Debbie Simon and all our troops in Iraq is to demand that they be brought home safely — now!” he said. “We pray that Debbie Simon returns — safely and soon — to her family.”