TRUTH SEEKER: Michael Berg uses an image from the purported video of his son's beheading on the signs he takes to anti-war demonstrations. Still, he can't say for certain whether his son Nick was actually murdered. : mike m. koehler

But during this trip, something went terribly wrong. In late March, the U.S. military took Nick into custody. They were suspicious because he was an American alone in Iraq when there were few Americans alone in Iraq. While he was in custody, the FBI questioned Nick and ultimately released him. Soon, however, he would be captured by al-Qaida.

Then, on May 8, 2004, Nick's death would bring the war home to America like few casualties before: The military said it discovered his decapitated body on a Baghdad overpass. But to hear Michael tell it two years later, al-Qaida isn't to blame for his son's death. The president of the United States is.

"Another one of Bush's lies," says Berg of the official story of Nick's beheading. "Al-Qaida was not already in Iraq."

Today, as a Green Party candidate for U.S. Congress, Berg continues to rail against the war, taking more of an edge than Cindy Sheehan. While Sheehan can be photographed on her son's grave, Michael Berg won't even say with certainty that he thinks his son was murdered. Whenever Berg feels that he does not have enough information to come to a knowledgeable conclusion, he uses the phrase "don't believe or disbelieve." So Berg cannot "believe or disbelieve" that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian al-Qaida leader active in Iraq, murdered Nick, for two reasons: The government has lied on other occasions, he says, so how can he conclusively determine whether Zarqawi was even involved in the incident? And if that's the case, how can he believe or disbelieve that his son is dead?

"I don't know if Nick's really dead, been kidnapped, in the government," says Berg, who hasn't watched the gruesome beheading video in its entirety. "He could be anywhere."

Berg has come a long way since the days after hearing his son had been killed; he describes his initial emotions as upset and angry. While he does not take back any anti-war statements he made, he concedes that he did not like the anger that infused his words. Specifically, he recalls receiving the news from the State Department and, having bottled up his emotions for several days as the press camped out on his front lawn, broke down and spoke publicly.

"I said my son died for the sins of George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. I'm not proud of it, and I still believe that today, but it's not coming from a place of anger when I say it," he says. "That was me at my worst."

Seven months later, still struggling with his son's death, Berg resolved to take an art class. But in looking through Immaculata University's course catalog, he opened to a page that listed the theology classes. He noticed a class devoted to forgiveness. It was there that the self-proclaimed "non-practicing Jew," who borders on being an atheist, went from believing in nothing to, in the words of class instructor Sheila Galligan, "waiting to be found."

One particular exercise used in the class was called the "Empty Chair," which encouraged students to have imaginary conversations with people who had hurt them. Berg had President Bush and the men from the beheading video sit down for a chat. It was then that Berg was able to understand what forgiveness was; he now defines it as "being able to understand the other person."

After sitting with President Bush for a while, he finally said, "Yeah, I didn't like your dad either." The two had reached some sort of understanding.

Now, Berg says he has an exercise that he would like Bush to try. Believing that the nation has become incredibly xenophobic since 9/11, he suggests a citizen-exchange program in which Americans would live in another country to see how other people live. From experience, he knows it could be helpful.

While attending Bucknell University in the mid-'60s, he frequently hitchhiked to visit his sister at Penn State University. She had pot-luck dinners on the weekends, which included not only a wide assortment of food, but a wide assortment of people. While tasting the different foods (which his veganism now prevents him from doing) and having conversations with the dinner guests, Berg came to the conclusion that while people seem very different, they actually want the same things.

"They want sovereignty, a job, the opportunity to support a family," he says.

This is how he also forgave Zarqawi. He thinks the international terrorist did what he allegedly did only because he had the basic human desire for independence. But, Berg says, he "did the right thing in the wrong way."

These days, Berg, a 61-year-old retired teacher, holds peaceful protests to bring the troops home from Iraq. Most notably, he was arrested trying to enter the Pentagon on March 20. (An appointment must be made in order to enter; Berg says he tried to do so but no one returned his phone calls.)

On the second anniversary of the Iraq war, Berg spoke at a peace rally near the entrance to the Fort Bragg military base near Fayetteville, N.C. On a warm, cloudless day, the group stood in a serene park surrounded by a residential area. A counter-protester played a repeating loop of a few seconds of Nick's cry during the beheading video. He also played the part of Nick's video that wasn't aired in the United States.

"People have differing opinions than me and may think whatever they want of me," Berg says, "But this?"

In the past two years, Berg has become a public figure, making people aware of what he perceives as the current situation in Iraq and what happened to his son. In talking about the war, he's also eager to discuss Nick, who he says was his "mentor [and] teacher." Nick, he says, went to countries in Africa on three separate occasions, each time coming back emaciated because he shared all of his food. He also came back with only the clothes on his back, because he shared all of those, too.

Nick used to play the saxophone and then the tuba in West Chester Henderson High's marching band and finally ended up playing the sousaphone. He was "not that great of a musician," but carried on with it because "he loved people and he loved talking to people." Despite attending Cornell University, Drexel, UPenn and University of Oklahoma, he never got a degree. He determined that he knew enough to successfully perform his engineering job and, as Michael Berg describes it, his son "didn't need the suit."

Neither does Michael, whose uniform has become a "Peace Is Priceless" T-shirt, jeans and a metallic peace-sign pin. Berg wears pins until they wear out—the previous one lost its backing—but hopes that this peace sign, held to his shirt by a gold safety pin, lasts.

Expecting to receive the Green Party's nomination on May 13, Berg is already campaigning against seven-term Republican Rep. Michael N. Castle for Delaware's lone seat in the U.S. Congress. (Election Day is Nov. 7.) He was approached by the party and felt that his "forum of peace will be extended." When he moved from Chester County to Wilmington, Del., he switched his party affiliation from Independent to Green and now proudly carries his membership card in his wallet.

While staring at a recent copy of Time magazine during an interview in a Wilmington coffee shop, Berg is reminded of his desire to improve the environment and stop global warming. He says he would like to see the country stop squandering money in Iraq when there are so many problems here to solve. Other priorities include giving immigrants a just wage so that they will become a part of society and working to make sure the poor don't have to shoulder too much of the Social Security burden.

But his ultimate goal, the one that he says he cannot die without accomplishing, is stopping the war.

"I would do anything I could" to end it, says Berg, who wants the troops home now. "The weakened state in Iraq was created by George Bush. If we wait one year, it won't make things better. Waiting for eight years won't do it, either. I feel like getting out now will leave the Iraqis in the best state, not a weakened state."