Cindy Sheehan

She only wants to meet with the President in order to speak with him about his lies. It really wouldn't take long as he would smirk, then say things such as, "I understand," or "I can imagine how you must be feeling," when really, he has no fucking clue. He dodged the Vietnam War big time, has 2 daughters that have not even dreamed of entering into military service and it rich off oil beyond what any President should be.

So it's really not a surprise he moved Ms. Sheehan's camp a few miles down the road from Bush's camp - all the better to not see her on a daily basis.

Now Ms. Sheehan's husband has filed for divorce, which is most often the case with the death of a child. But I can't help but wondering if her anti-war protest has a little something to do with the decision to separate as I imagine it could cause higher tensions in an already unstable household.

I remember the mom in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, where, despite Moore being so very wrong about Terry Nichols, he captured this mother's pain and grief exceptionally well. And she allowed him to.

So many more mothers' have become skeptical of this "war" and have been speaking out for a while now. However, Ms. Sheenan's protest camp is the one to get the most attention and yet still be completely ignored by Bush and his administration.

At the bottom of the article regarding Ms. Sheehan's impending divorce, notice this:
Late Monday, a pickup truck tore through rows of white crosses that stretched about two-tenths of a mile along the side of the road at the Crawford camp. The crosses bore the names of fallen U.S. soldiers. No one was hurt.

Is to remember the fallen soldiers of America, who fought in a war they were not told the whole truth about, somehow unpatriotic? Is it a slap in their faces when the see real women and men died on foreign soil, alone, without their moms, dads, sisters, or brothers to comfort them in their last moments of life?

Actions such as that truck driver remind me of the hoopla over the photo where the caskets drapped in American flags were being transported on a cargo plane - and how quickly that photo was banned. Or of the program Nightline wanted to run, where Ted Koppel read the names of soldiers killed, roll call style, but 7 networks owned by Sinclair pulled it, saying it was politically motivated. Yep, remembering soldiers killed while "defending our country" is always politically motivated, isn't it?

Personally, I want to see everything, even if it means seeing pictures of civilian casualties (warning: very graphic and not for the weak), because then at least I know I'm getting the truth.

Then we need to ask ourselves: if we didn't like it happening to us, why on goddess's green earth would we do this to someone else, but worse?

Update: Look! Sheehan gets to move closer to Bush's favorite vacation spot and right across the street from his church!

And check out this essay from another mom and son who are also with Sheehan. Celeste Zappala and Dante Zappala are there because of Sgt. Sherwood Baker, killed in Iraq in 2004; he was Celeste's son, Dante's brother.

My dad was in the Navy for 24 years and went to the Med during the 1981 mission. We kept our christmas tree up until May that year because he had been gone for well over 6 months. My dad was gone a lot, but retired when I was about 14 or so. Looking back on it all now, I remember how much my mom missed him. They still have some tapes they sent back and forth to each other because, as they said, sometimes they just needed to hear each others voices. Email, nor all that video conferencing stuff, didn't exist back then. The video feeds were only used on holiday such as christmas and thanksgiving and it wasn't a video feed like it is now: everyone said their peace on the same tape, then it was airlifted to the seaman.

Every single day while he was out that year, I was glued to the news. Everytime we met my dad at the pier, I worried that he fell overboard or had been forgotten wherever they had ported last. It didn't help that everyone looks the same when they are all wearing the same exact thing.

I've experienced the longing and waiting for a loved one to return home. Living in Virginia Beach, you get to see many other wives/husbands/children doing the same thing over and over again: waiting.

But my dad was mostly safe on a ship out in the oceans/seas. He was inside, making sure everyone knew what the blips on the radar were. He wasn't on the ground, fighting at checkpoints, wondering if the shooting will ever stop. He was insulated and I never on a daily basis did I have to worry about him dying.

So I want the troops home, too, but mostly because there are people back here that are missing them very much and driving themselves sick with worry.

Then there are those who have already suffered a loss, such as Ms. Sheehan and those who are with her now, a loss that was easily preventable by our CinC (Commander in Chief).