Cindy Sheehan Officially Quits Fighting the War
Posted by debi on May 30th, 2007 filed in In the news
I have to admit, I was surprised when I read last night on AOL internet news that Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a fallen Army soldier who staged a widely publicized anti-war protest outside of President Bush’s ranch in 2005 and passionately protested the war ever since, has decided to hang up her banners and go home.
After Bush responded to Sheehan’s makeshift camp telling reporters on August 11 of that year, “I sympathize with Mrs. Sheehan. I’ve thought long and hard about her position. I’ve heard her position from others, which is, ‘Get out of Iraq now.’ It would be a mistake for the security of this country,” Sheehan fought even harder to bring an end to the war.
Now, all she wants is to be a mother to her surviving children and regain some of what she believes she lost since her son, Army Spc. Casey Sheehan, 24, was killed in an ambush in Baghdad in 2004.
The story reads:
She said she sacrificed a 29-year marriage and endured threats to put all her energy into stopping the war. What she found, she wrote, was a movement “that often puts personal egos above peace and human life.”
She said the most devastating conclusion she had reached “was that Casey did indeed die for nothing … killed by his own country which is beholden to and run by a war machine that even controls what we think.”
Sheehan told the AP that she had considered leaving the peace movement since last summer while recovering from surgery.
She decided on Memorial Day to step down and spend more time with her three other children. She said she was returning to California on Tuesday because it was Casey’s birthday. He would have been 28.
I find it ironic and a little bit sad that so many are interpreting her decision to step down as the “face of the American peace movement” as closely attached to the waning lack of interest by the media that once kept her front and center in the news.
As a mother myself, I can’t believe the sarcastic title of Sheehan’s own “letter of resignation” - Good Riddance Attention Whore - is true. I personally think she has at long last come to grips and found peace with her own once-overwhelming sense of grief and loss over the death of her son.
My own son, Casey, preparing to graduate from Navy boot camp in nine days, once remarked in our own conversation about making the ultimate sacrifice as a sailor or a soldier, “Nobody realizes how much freedom costs until you see how high the price is.”
I feel sure that Cindy’s son, a highly committed Humvee mechanic who re-enlisted in 2003, knowing he may quite likely have to use what the Army taught him to defend his country and fight for freedom elsewhere in the world, fully understood one of the most meaningful tenets of military service: “Freedom is never free.”
I found the following posted by Peter of Kansas on FallenHeroesMemorial.com honoring Army Spc. Casey Sheehan who died in Iraq on April 4, 2004:
“Trust God, believe in your son and honor his sacrifice. He was a very noble and honorable man who answered a higher calling…something greater than all of us.”
Hopefully, one day his mother will believe this, too.
2 Responses to “Cindy Sheehan Officially Quits Fighting the War”
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May 30th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
Perhaps this sounds harsh, but I think it’s about time Cindy gave up the battle over losing her son, and hopefully realizes she still has duties to her living children. It certainly seemed there for a long long while that she only had one son, and I’m sure the surviving children felt a bit pushed back, and less important. It takes all kinds of people to make up the world. You will always find those that are fine with the battles they fight daily, at war, or at home, until they lose one. They then turn it into the beast that swallowed a piece of their happy little life, and they want us to burp it and make it spit it back out! Life serves up good and bad, life and death, peace and war, and at this time there is not one person on the battlefield signed up for the armed services unwillingly. No DRAFT! I grieve also for the sons, daughters, husbands and wives lost in these battles, and I salute them honorably. I feel that citizens such as Cindy Sheehan should be ashamed of themselves for making such a show to prove their hatred of war, and blame America for her loss, and living in misery of something that cannot be changed, when she could bow her head, and bestow honor to the name of her son, who lived and died by HIS beliefs. I would rather think, if her son is looking down at her from the heavenly clouds above, that he would prefer to see a mom shedding tears for his death, yet proud of him for living, dying, and serving his country the way he saw fit, lending his hand, his life to help provide the freedoms for these people, that his mother already has.
June 2nd, 2007 at 1:00 pm
I think it is about time she gets off the news and out of the faces of everyone. Sadly enough, she felt wronged that HER son died doing something so honorable. Not once did she take the time to feel PROUD…PROUD of HER SON. PROUD of the things he did, the things he accomplished. She NEVER took the time to be PROUD that he willingly fought for and served his country without having to be drafted. He loved his country and the freedoms we enjoy enough to proudly serve. Has she ever stopped to thank a veteran for fighting and risking his or her life to protect her right to protest and rant and rave like she did for so long?! If it weren’t for her son and others like him, where would this country be?! SHe has a whole family that she sacrificed for what?! While I agree with standing up for what you believe in, but there is a huge difference in standing up for beliefs and blatant disrespect! I can understand not believing in war, but what happened to respecting the soldiers and the job they do to keep the war from being in our own country?!