The Call (Letter to Cindy Sheehan)

Cindy Sheehan, mother of deceased Army Specialist Casey Sheehan said this at President Bushs Crawford Texas Ranch:

“We need to get our troops out of Iraq. The only reason Bush wants to stay there is because his buddies are getting rich and feasting off the blood of our children”

I have to wonder for the rest of my life if the gun which took Casey’s life was sold to Saddam by the US or by Britain.

I know. "This woman lost her son, and none of us can imagine what that’s like".

Well Im sorry but I can. I watched my parents in anguish over the loss of their daughter, who at age 17, took the family car to work one day and never came home. My parents were nearly comatose with guilt. My father wandered for years in a cloud of "if onlys"; "if only he had changed the tires, the car might not have flipped..." and so on. My mother felt that she shouldn’t have let my sister get the job that she was driving to, a drive that one day lead to her death. The list goes on and on of "what might have been" in the minds of a parent who’s lost a child.

For 6 months after the day my sister died, my mother and father would get up in the morning and try to go about their lives, only to stop at some point and go into state that was as near to a trance as anything I’ve ever seen. Usually it was at the breakfast table, where they would start to begin a conversation, only to pause to form the question, and find themselves still paused two hours later in mid sentence. After the first few times it happened I took it upon myself to remind them that they had work to do, that there were things that they still had to attend to. The first few times I interrupted their "trance", they were angry at the interruption, but after awhile, they understood and while the little interrupts came more often, they were less intense.

There is no grief like the grief of a parent losing a child. At the age of 22, I watched grief, guilt and the horror of the loss of my sister damn near kill both my parents. My life went on hold for the next 8 months, as I had to help them remeber to eat, wash their clothes and go about the normal operations of life, they were that far gone with grief. Every day was another day; you just tried to make it to the end of the day and shoot for the next. It was the hardest thing I ever did in my life and I pray to God it never happens to me with my kids.

The truth is, you don’t really get over someone when they die, you just get through it, and everyone has their own way of getting through it.

My mom got through it by eventually starting a crusade against the road that my sister drove on, insisting that it had contributed to the death of her daughter. She sued the state and county promising the use the proceeds to fund a swimming pool at our high school, a sport my sister had loved. It was ludicrous, and it was a bit embarrassing, but it didn’t matter. It was good to see mom with fire in her eyes instead of the dark haunted soul she had become for a few bleak months.

Nothing came of it, but it gave her something to do for the next year. It gave her a way to feel that my sister’s life had not been in vain, that others would benefit from her death. By the time the suit had been dismissed, my mother had learned how to live in the world again and today, she hardly remembers the intensity of her temporary mania.

So when I look at Cindy Sheehan, I do so out of total sympathy. I’ve seen my own mother racked with guilt at decisions that she thinks she made in error, but were innocent and had nothing to do with what caused my sisters death. I’ve seen my mother beg God to go back and make the world as it was, a world that could never be again. I’ve seen my mother cry from sunrise to sunset and do it all over again the next day. I’ve seen my mother deal with the horror of not being able to do a damn thing to bring back the life she gave birth to.

There is no loss like the loss of a child, and no matter how old we are, we are always someone’s child.

But Cindy Sheehan, for all the sympathy I have for her, is also wrong and Cindy Sheehan is also a liar. What’s worse, Cindy Sheehan is taking action to ensure that more American soldiers are killed by foolishly aligning herself with the insurgents, which will empower them and ensure that more innocent Iraqis are killed and more American troops are killed. She is feeding the very forces of hate and terror that killed her son.

Cindy Sheehan has also said her son did not want to go to Iraq. She is wrong, and she knows it. Here is a bit of information you wont here on CNN about Casey Sheehan ( from Lee Kaplan – FrontPage Magazine):

“While one might dismiss some of Sheehan’s hyperbole due to grief over her son’s death, a little research about Casey Sheehan revealed that contrary to being tricked by military recruiters, Casey Sheehan had re-enlisted in the U.S. Army voluntarily when he was 24-years-old, after serving his first hitch successfully. Casey Sheehan was in fact a hero who received a Bronze Star. He was attached as a mechanic to the artillery division of the 1st U.S. Cavalry in Iraq. When a convoy of soldiers from Casey’s unit was attacked in Sadr City by insurgents, Casey volunteered to join a rapid rescue force to get them out. His commanding sergeant told him he did not have to go into combat, because he was a mechanic and not an infantryman. Casey was quoted telling his officer, “I go where my chief goes.” He was tragically killed during the rescue attempt. The source for this story?

I also visited an army recruiting office on my way home and asked about Casey being promised a job as a chaplain’s assistant only to be thrust into harm’s way. The recruiter explained to me that on re-enlistment, the Army’s B.E.A.R. program (Bonus Extension and Retaining) guarantees everything in writing. If Casey was a mechanic during his first hitch, that was the only thing he would have been guaranteed per his re-enlistment contract. Further research showed that a chaplain’s assistant is a combat infantry position, whereas Casey was deployed in a non-combat job as a mechanic. Casey Sheehan sought combat duty for his country and should be honored for it, not used as a symbol of how evil the United States is.”

Casey Sheehan wasn’t a kid. He was a man. Casey Sheehan wasn’t in high school; he was 24 years old, on his second voluntary hitch with the service. He wasn’t tricked, he wasn’t bamboozled, he wasn’t a victim of predatory recruiters. He chose to be there.

Cindy Sheehan has said in retort that none of us can know what it is like to lose a child. As I’ve illustrated, I agree. But Cindy Sheehan isn’t the first woman to lose a child in this war. Here’s another woman who has also lost her child in Iraq.

This woman also lost her child to warfare. She also died protecting her child. She knows what it was like to lose a child. As the cloud of mustard gas covered her and her baby and she began to accept her fate, I wonder if she called out for help, only to be unheard by the likes of Cindy Sheehan and her supporters.

This woman lost her life because no one like Casey was willing or able to defend her. The people that are fronting Cindy Sheehan never protested the loss of this child or the mother. Casey Sheehan went to Iraq to stop this from happening. Casey Sheehan died trying to make the world a better place. Casey Sheehan and his fellow soldiers have directly stopped the genocide that Saddam was perpetrating, a genocide that went unnoticed by Cindy Sheehan or her supporters, a genocide that is now over, because men like Casey Sheehan put their lives on the line to stop to it.

Casey Sheehan put his life on the line to make the world a better place. Casey Sheehan indirectly contributed to the lives of many Iraqis who once condemned to death at the hands of Saddam. In doing so, Casey has made the world a safer place for all of us. The defense of freedom, the defense of democracy is nothing to be ashamed of. We are not in Iraq for oil, and to say so cheapens the life of men like Casey and the anonymous Kurdish woman in the picture.

I do not know where we get men like Casey Sheehan, but it is the men of his type that allow all of us to go on living in the soft comfort of our daily lives. It is the likes of Casey that allow his mother the right of protest. While Cindy Sheehan makes street theater in front of the Presidents home, She does so in the comfort of rights afforded all to few Islamic women. The day when a Saudi woman can enjoy the same right of protest in Jiddah to excoriate the leader of her country will be a great day indeed, and it’s a day that Casey was indirectly fighting for and one that his mother Cindy is directly fighting against.

And that’s what Casey was fighting for Mrs. Sheehan, the rights of women everywhere to be as free as you are. Remember Mrs. Sheehan; he died for you and the rights you are now abusing - he did not die for oil.

Go ahead and grieve Mrs. Sheehan. Get mad, get angry, stomp your feet, call names, spit, cry and fall to the ground in front the Presidents house only do it all over again the next day. You wont be the first, and God help us, you won’t be the last, but go ahead, it’s your right, its a right that Casey and the other men who fight for freedom gave to you.

One day, you’ll be all out of grief and all you will have is the memory of the little boy you once held in your arms, who’s name you dragged through the mud of politics in your misguided need to get even with a man who you hardly know, who it turns out is just somebody elses little boy who ended up as the President one day

Also from From Mohammed at Iraq the Model:

(Excerpted)

Ma'am, we asked for your nation's help and we asked you to stand with us in our war and your nation's act was (and still is) an act of ultimate courage and unmatched sense of humanity.
Our request is justified, death was our daily bread and a million Iraqi mothers were expecting death to knock on their doors at any second to claim someone from their families.
Your face doesn't look strange to me at all; I see it everyday on endless numbers of Iraqi women who were struck by losses like yours.

Our fellow country men and women were buried alive, cut to pieces and thrown in acid pools and some were fed to the wild dogs while those who were lucky enough ran away to live like strangers and the Iraqi mother was left to grieve one son buried in an unfound grave and another one living far away who she might not get to see again.

We did nothing to deserve all that suffering, well except for a dream we had; a dream of living like normal people do.

We cried out of joy the day your son and his comrades freed us from the hands of the devil and we went to the streets not believing that the nightmare is over.
We practiced our freedom first by kicking and burning the statues and portraits of the hateful idol who stole 35 years from the life of a nation.
For the first time air smelled that beautiful, that was the smell of freedom.

The mothers went to break the bars of cells looking for the ones they lost 5, 12 or 20 years ago and other women went to dig the land with their bare hand searching for a few bones they can hold in their arms after they couldn't hold them when they belonged to a living person.

I recall seeing a woman on TV two years ago, she was digging through the dirt with her hands. There was no definite grave in there as the whole place was one large grave but she seemed willing to dig the whole place looking for her two brothers who disappeared from earth 24 years ago when they were dragged from their colleges to a chamber of hell.

Her tears mixed with the dirt of the grave and there were journalists asking her about what her brothers did wrong and she was screaming "I don't know, I don't know. They were only college students. They didn't murder anyone, they didn't steal, and they didn't hurt anyone in their lives. All I want to know is the place of their grave".

Why was this woman chosen to lose her dear ones? Why you? Why did a million women have to go through the same pain?

We did not choose war for the sake of war itself and we didn't sacrifice a million lives for fun! We could've accepted our jailor and kept living in our chains for the rest of our lives but it's freedom ma'am.
Freedom is not an American thing and it's not an Iraqi thing, it's what unites us as human beings. We refuse all kinds of restrictions and that's why we fought and still fighting everyday in spite of the swords in the hands of the cavemen who want us dead or slaves for their evil masters.

You are free to go and leave us alone but what am I going to tell your million sisters in Iraq? Should I ask them to leave Iraq too? Should I leave too? And what about the eight millions who walked through bombs to practice their freedom and vote? Should they leave this land too?
Is it a cursed land that no one should live in? Why is it that we were chosen to live in all this pain, why me, why my people, why you?

But I am not leaving this land because the bad guys are not going to leave us or you to live in peace. They are the same ones who flew the planes to kill your people in New York.
I ask you in the name of God or whatever you believe in; do not waste your son's blood.
We here have decided to avenge humanity, you and all the women who lost their loved ones.
Take a look at our enemy Cindy, look closely at the hooded man holding the sword and if you think he's right then I will back off and support your call.

We live in pain and grief everyday, every hour, every minute; all the horrors of the powers of darkness have been directed at us and I don't know exactly when am I going to feel safe again, maybe in a year, maybe two or even ten; I frankly don't know but I don't want to lose hope and faith.

We are in need for every hand that can offer some help. Please pray for us, I know that God listens to mothers' prayers and I call all the women on earth to pray with you for peace in this world.

Your son sacrificed his life for a very noble cause…No, he sacrificed himself for the most precious value in this existence; that is freedom.

His blood didn't go in vain; your son and our brethren are drawing a great example of selflessness.
God bless his free soul and God bless the souls of his comrades who are fighting evil.
God bless the souls of Iraqis who suffered and died for the sake of freedom.
God bless all the freedom lovers on earth.

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