AS SEEN ON TV/HAT SQUAD: PEG MULLEN

From the New York Times:

Peg Mullen, an Iowa farm wife who made herself a living symbol of loss after her son was killed in Vietnam, as she sharply questioned the military’s explanations and became an outspoken antiwar crusader, died Friday in La Porte City, Iowa. She was 92.

After her son Michael was killed by shrapnel from United States artillery on Feb. 18, 1970, Mrs. Mullen did not disguise her rage. She used his death benefit to buy two half-page advertisements in The Des Moines Register, each with more than 700 crosses, one for each Iowan killed in the war.

C. D. B. Bryan, an author and journalist, wrote about the suffering of Mrs. Mullen and her family in “Friendly Fire,” a book that was serialized in The New Yorker and received wide attention when published in 1976.

In 1979, "Friendly Fire" was adapted as a TV movie....

PEG and GENE MULLEN

AS SEEN IN:
"Friendly Fire"

AS PLAYED BY:
Carol Burnett as Peg Mullen
Ned Beatty as Gene Mullen

Also in the cast were Dennis Erdman as their son Michael, Timothy Hutton as their other son John, and Sam Waterston as C.D. Bryan, who wrote the original book. (William Jordan portrayed Colonel Byron Schindler, a fictionalized version of Norman Schwarzkopf. In her own book, Mrs. Mullen was very critical of Schwarzkopf, who had been Michael's commanding officer.)

From the Los Angeles Times:

"She brought to the forefront the idea of friendly fire. It was a term that never got much play until that time," [said her surviving son John]. "I think she'll be remembered as somebody who asked a lot of questions, somebody who wouldn't take a pat answer, somebody who would stand up for something she believed in. You need those types of people."

BCnU.....