Friday, July 08, 2005
Nadia McCaffery: 'Robbing Us of Tomorrow'

On July 5, Nadia McCaffery of GoldStar Families for Peace spoke before delegates to the National Education Association's Representative Assembly. According to the flyer disseminated by the NEA's Peace and Justice Caucus, "Nadia is the mother of Sergeant Patrick McCaffrey who was killed in Iraq on June 22, 2004. Gold Star Families for Peace is a group of families of soldiers who have died as a result of war. They have organized to be a positive force in our world, to bring our country's sons and daughters home from Iraq, to minimize the human cost of this war, adn to support other families who have lost their sons and daughters to war."

Nadia said that her son was thirty-four and the father of three kids. He was killed in an ambush. After 9/11 he said, "I have to do something," and joined the National Guard. Told that he'd be deployed to Utah, Nadia's only child was sent to Iraq instead.

According to Nadia, "He left with a great big smile in broad daylight." He came "back at midnight." The US government wanted to avoid media but Nadia "called [the] media to welcome him." She says "I am proud of my son and not about to hide him."

Nadia said that it took Patrick about a week to understand the lie. "I don't know why we're here," he relayed to his mother. "There is no water. There is no electricity."

Nadia admonishes us to say "No to War, No to Killing. Who is going to raise my grandchildren?" she poignantly cried. "What did Viet Nam accomplish? Algeria?"

"Speak out! Do not be silent! Silence is our worst enemy. Speak out loud!"

Nadia, who grew up in France in the aftermath of WWII says, "I say 'No' to War, especially this one. Please think. Who have we become? We need to react. We need to stop hating and discriminating."

While she was in Amman she met a young child who stood up and said, "I want all the Americans to leave and go home."

When Nadia asked him what he would do if they didn't leave, he replied, "Then I will kill you all." If he wasn't successful? "Then I will go to your country and kill you all there."

The current war, concluded Nadia, is "robbing us of tomorrow."

This July Fourth weekend, amid the raucous celebration of visitors, concerts, and fireworks, a profoundly quiet event will take place outside Philadelphia's Independence Visitor Center.

On the grass, only yards from the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, you'll find more than 1,720 pairs of empty combat boots standing in soundless formation. Each pair will bear a name tag, and one of those tags will say Sgt. Sherwood R. Baker. That name, like all the others, is precious to me. It belongs to my son, a child I held and comforted; a boy who charmed my Mount Airy neighborhood as he grew; a loving young husband to Debbie and father to 10-year-old JD; a proud member of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard; a devoted social worker; and a man who believed in democracy.

Near the boots, you'll see row upon row of civilian shoes in all sizes and kinds. These represent the countless tens of thousands of Iraqis who have died, and who were also someone's beloved. Wherever there are empty boots of war, there are inevitably - many times over - empty shoes like these.

Last July Fourth, 865 sets of boots sat on the grass in Philadelphia in the exhibit called "Eyes Wide Open," sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee. Then, my family's grief was fresh and unspeakable. Now, I share that grief with other families whose dreams have been shattered. I joined others like myself to form the Gold Star Families for Peace, and we honor our children's service and commitment to this nation by speaking out for truth, accountability, and peace.

In January, we families were not welcomed on Capitol Hill. We tried in vain to speak to our elected officials. We were forcibly barred from entering the Pentagon.

But just last week, I joined a delegation that walked the halls of congressional office buildings and, amazingly, we found open doors. We saw photographs of our lost sons and daughters on the walls. We met with brave members of Congress who have been speaking against the war for a long time. And we spoke with new voices for withdrawal, including Republicans and Democrats who just cosponsored a resolution calling on President Bush to announce an exit strategy from Iraq that would begin in 2006.

What has changed? Perhaps it is the endless multiplication of those empty boots on the lawn, now averaging three additions per day, with no end in sight. May brought the fourth-highest monthly American death toll since the war began (see: www.icasualties.org).

The change may relate to recent public admissions by high-ranking military officials that there simply is no military solution to the situation in Iraq, only a political solution. As Lt. Col. Frederick P. Wellman, who works with the task force overseeing the training of Iraqi security troops remarked about the insurgents, "When I kill one, I create three."

Plummeting military recruitment numbers here at home probably also play a role. As does the infamous Downing Street Memo, notes from a meeting in the British Parliament with further evidence that the U.S. administration twisted the facts to support its determination to invade Iraq.

While I'm glad that eyes, ears, and minds are finally opening, I take no satisfaction in being right. I will never hold my son again; the more than 1,700 will never return to their lives at home.

When we buried Sherwood on May 4, 2004, I knelt beside his coffin and vowed to him that I would not be quiet, that I would speak the truth for him. If Sherwood died for democracy, we all have to be that democracy. We can't hide from our dead, or from the facts. We all have to take responsibility for what's happening and insist on an end to the lies and the carnage.

I urge Philadelphia-area residents, on this July Fourth weekend, to visit "Eyes Wide Open" and see the empty boots and empty shoes that are being created each day in our names. Honor our fallen heroes with your presence. Then, honor them even further by demanding the truth, speaking to others with respect, taking full responsibility for our country's actions, and acting on your citizenship.

This is your war, too. Own it. Think about it. End it.

Freedom Isn't Free

When I see bumper stickers with that sentiment I just want to scream. I think the people who display them probably haven't had to pay the ultimate sacrifice for our country and don't know what it means. Freedom Isn't Free. Come on, give me a break. It makes me sick.

How many of the people who proudly display this bumper sticker have had that knock on the door that brings the message of death? How many of them have had to bury their son or daughter who died while serving their country? How many of them have walked the floors night after night, unable to sleep, asking themselves why? Why did this have to happen?

Well, I did receive the messenger of death in my home via the United States Army on Friday, February 13, 2004 at 7:00 p.m., I was home alone. My husband and I had been home sick all week long, unable to leave the house. Finally, Jim had to run out to the grocery store and pick up a few things we needed. He had been gone less than five minutes. Jim probably passed the Army vehicle carrying the messenger on his way out of the apartment complex we where then living in.

I was standing outside on my ground floor patio when the messenger came walking past. I saw him and mistook him for my neighbor, who was also in the Army. I sent him a friendly hello, to which he responded by asking if I was Amy Branham. At that moment, I knew why he was there. At that moment, my heart fell and my life immediately changed forever.

"Ma'am, the Army regrets to inform you…" he said once I had let him in my front door. I remember how dark my front room felt at that moment, how I lost my legs and had to sit down. My only son, my first- born child, was dead. The officer politely informed me that Jeremy had been in a car accident that morning, but he had no further details at that time. Later, the Army was not very forthcoming with information regarding Jeremy's car accident, what happened or even the immediate cause of death, which turned out to be blunt force trauma to the head. Five days later, Jeremy's unit left without him headed to Iraq.

I won't go into any further detail than I have. It's too painful to remember, to relive. It's hard to speak about my son to people who are not family members or close friends.

After 9/11 I supported my President and my country in their pursuance of the terrorists who struck our country, who killed so many innocent people and destroyed the families of the victims. I still support the war effort in Afghanistan.

I believed my President when he claimed Saddam Hussein and Iraq were eminent threats to the United States, claiming they had weapons of mass destruction and would not hesitate to use them. I believed George Bush when he told the American people that Iraq was a breeding ground for terrorists. Like many others, I argued his case to my friends who didn't believe.

I watched with anticipation and eagerness when Colin Powell went before the United Nations to present our case to the world. I was angry with the French and the other countries who scoffed at us.

Some time before Jeremy's Army Reserve unit was called to active duty in late November of 2003, I started to have doubts. Something just didn't seem right, didn't make sense. But I couldn't quite put my finger on it. It was a nagging doubt that I kept shoving off to the back of my mind.

A few short weeks after the war in Iraq began, George Bush stood on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln and declared victory in Iraq, saying that the war was over. Huh? The war had only begun! Our troops were being attacked on a daily basis by insurgents.

Finally, one day, I got a clue. Where were those WMD's we had been told about? Where were all the people that were supposed to greet our troops with open arms and flowers? Why were our troops constantly under attack? The whole infrastructure of the Iraqi nation had been torn apart. Every day we heard reports of new bombings, insurgents, innocent people killed and lives destroyed.

The evening news did not even mention Osama Bin Laden anymore. They quit reporting on what was happening in Afghanistan. All the media reported about was Iraq. I thought the whole purpose of this war was to find the leader of the terrorist group that struck the U.S. Trade Center, who masterminded that terrible attack on American soil. Why hadn't he been caught yet and why didn't anyone know where he was?

There were no answers to my questions until one day a man named Michael Moore made a very controversial documentary called Fahrenheit 9/11. Finally, someone had an explanation for this war, an explanation that made sense to me. I watched this documentary with tears streaming down my face, weeping throughout the entire thing. And, when I left the movie theater, there were armed sheriff's deputies standing outside the door. I've never in my life seen that before.

Then, around the time of the Republican National Convention in the fall of 2004 word began to leak out that the war in Iraq was a mistake, that there were no WMD's. Excuse me, the war was a mistake? My son and thousands of other American sons and daughters were sent to Iraq to fight and die for a mistake?

Bill O'Reilly of Fox News was asked during an interview by Michael Moore at the RNC what he would say to the families of American soldiers who had died for a war that was a mistake. He made some flippant comment about being sorry their loved one had died for a mistake, but that he still believed the war was necessary. He was not willing to send his own child into harm's way; he was willing to go fight himself. So, my son and so many other of American's sons and daughters died for a mistake? What makes Bill O'Reilly's child better than mine? Why should my child have to go but not his? In the past I had been a loyal listener and fan. Since that day I have not tuned my TV to Fox News or to O'Reilly's show. Frankly, Mr. O'Reilly, you can kiss my butt.

Freedom isn't free. However, the war in Iraq is not about defending the freedom of America or its citizens. It is my opinion that the war is about George Bush's vendetta against Saddam Hussein and Bush's own personal agenda. It is about big business and oil. George doesn't give a damn about the people he is sending into harm's way every day, the soldiers who are wounded or dying, although he claims that he "thinks about them every day. Every single day." The American people are nothing but pawns in George Bush's elaborate chess game. He cares little about us or his country. We are his tools.

George Bush will not meet with the family members who have lost their loved ones in the service of this country, especially not the ones who disagree with him and want answers. During inauguration week in January of this year, members of Gold Star Families for Peace went to Washington D.C. to meet with the President. For weeks beforehand, they had attempted to contact him and were ignored. Efforts to meet with him were met with a police force to keep them away.

In June of this year the Downing Street Minutes came into the public spotlight, mostly through the efforts of After Downing Street Dot Org and other organizations they work with. Gold Star Families for Peace and Cindy Sheehan have had a great impact in bringing this document and the others that go along with it to light. We have worked to encourage the media, who previously ignored these documents saying they were "old news" and "we all knew about them" into the public spotlight. What do you mean you knew about them? Why didn't you bring them to the attention of the American people when you first knew about them and let us decide?

The Downing Street Minutes and other documents say that Bush and his administration were "fixing" policy. Formal inquiries need to be made to determine the truth and voracity of these documents. If they are true, our President and his cronies need to be impeached, thrown out of office. They should be tried for war crimes.

I don't know everything. I'm just a heartbroken, humble mother who had to bury her only son. I am a patriotic American citizen who is tired of watching her country be torn to shreds by an administration with their own personal agenda.

Next week, on the 4th of July, there will be no fireworks or barbeques, no celebration of freedom or parades in our family. There will only be a quiet visit to the cemetery to honor Jeremy, who believed that his Commander in Chief would not lie to him and would not needlessly send him and thousands of others into harm's way without good reason.

And, when Bill O'Reilly kisses his child goodnight every night, I hope he thinks about the 1700+ parents who will never be able to do that again.
Freedom Isn't Free? My family knows this first hand.
Amy Branham
Houston, TX
Mother of Fallen Hero Sgt. Jeremy R. Smith
June 25, 2004
Member Gold Star Families for Peace

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION

An iraq project report:

OTTAWA. An American peace delegation met with government officials to launch an appeal for sanctuary for American soldiers refusing to fight in Iraq last week. Consisting of Tom Hayden and Celeste Zappala, mother of an American soldier killed in Iraq, the two peace advocates secured pledges of support from Jack Layton, head of the New Democratic Party, and Depute Roger Clavet, liaison of the Bloc Quebecois to the parliament’s immigration committee. They also appeared on national news programs, and Hayden later participated in a war resister’s event in Toronto featuring ten American soldiers seeking sanctuary status and Military Families Speak Out.

For information on the war resisters campaign, contact michelle robidoux . For Ottawa information contact steve staples . For celeste zappala, contact gsfp.org – gold star families for peace, or mfso.org – military families speak out.

A Canadian immigration board recently rejected a refugee application by Jeremy Hinzman, originally of South Dakota, forcing the issue into political debate. “I cannot imagine Canada, which was a sanctuary during Vietnam, opposes the Iraq war, and recently rejected the American “star wars” scheme, collaborating with the Pentagon to send these young men back for years of punishment. They are soldiers of conscience”, Hayden said.

A possible solution suggested by Canadian lawyers is to craft a special category for American war resisters facing imprisonment. They would receive work permits and protected status for a three-year period pending a final decision on acceptance into Canada. Such special status has been granted other refugees to Canada, ranging from nannies to athletes.

The NDP’s Layton, after a passionate appeal from Zappala, clasped her hands and promised to move the issue forward. Clavet gave similar assurances, stressing the Bloc Quebecois’ strong opposition to the US war. #

VACAVILLE, Calif. -- Five minutes after President Bush began his State of the Union address, Cindy Sheehan clicked off her television set.

She would read the transcript, watch the salute to the parents of a Marine killed in Fallujah, chew over such words as "ultimate sacrifice" and "fight against tyranny" -- the next morning.

But that night, live, in her living room, so close to her son's photos and medals on the foyer wall -- no. It was too much to hear the cheering for the man who had sent her son to Iraq on the premise that Saddam Hussein stockpiled weapons of mass destruction. Casey Sheehan, a former Eagle Scout and altar boy who had joined the Army hoping to serve as a chaplain's assistant, was killed at age 24 in a war he wasn't sure why he was fighting. And more soldiers like him were dying every day. Where was the outrage?

Cindy Sheehan found it where she always does: in other families who have lost a loved one in a war they neither believe in nor want to believe will continue, without end, with the nation's acquiescence.

They call themselves Gold Star Families for Peace. Organized less than two months ago, it is part support group and part activist organization, with members united by grief and the belief that their loved ones died in a war that did not have to happen. They represent a small percentage of the families that have lost someone in Iraq -- 50 families out of more than 1,450.

The fallen soldiers' obituaries indicate that many of their families continue to support the war. But the Gold Star Families say they support the soldiers because their mission is to speak out to help bring them home and minimize the human cost of the war.

They include Bill Mitchell of Atascadero, Calif., who lost his son, Mike, 25, in the same April 4 ambush that killed Casey Sheehan, and who also was unable to watch Bush's speech. And Celeste Zappala of Philadelphia, whose eldest son, Sherwood Baker, 30, a National Guardsman, was killed while on the search for weapons of mass destruction. She watched Bush's speech with the sound turned down, "trying to discern some truth amidst the choreography of clapping and fawning." Other Gold Star Families shared the same knot in their stomachs, the same sense of stunned disbelief.

They worry that as the war verges on entering its third year, the public seems to be losing interest in it. When Sheehan tells people she lost a son in the war, she said, she is sometimes asked, "Which war?"

"It's like the American public can listen to the war news for five minutes, and then they can hear about Michael Jackson," she said. "We're trying really hard to bring it to the forefront, to make people care about what's going on there."

The families stumbled upon one another through the Internet and through Military Families Speak Out, an antiwar group for families with loved ones serving in Iraq. With no outreach and little publicity, Gold Star Families for Peace -- the name is a variation on American Gold Star Mothers, a group for mothers of slain soldiers that dates from the 1920s -- gets inquiries from two or three families nearly every day, Sheehan said.

They are regular people: teachers, civil servants, stay-at-home moms and hardware-salesman dads. Most are not used to political protests or speechmaking. Their loved ones -- sons, mostly -- had joined the military because they wanted to, usually out of a sense of duty.

Patrick McCaffrey, who managed an auto shop in Palo Alto, Calif., joined the National Guard after Sept. 11, 2001.

"He wanted to protect the homeland from terrorism," said Nadia McCaffrey of Tracy, Calif., Her only child, 34 years old and with a wife and two children, never dreamed he would be sent abroad to fight. "He would never have signed up if he thought that was a possibility," McCaffrey said. "His family was too important to him."

Gold Star Families do speaking engagements or grant interviews on a moment's notice, though they know the risks. Already, some people have written them off as grieving mothers -- most Gold Star members are mothers -- whose judgment has been clouded by emotion. They also know that many military families do not share their views. The couple whom Bush honored during his State of the Union address, Janet and Bill Norwood of Pflugerville, Tex., had written to Bush to express continuing support for the war after their son, a Marine sergeant, was killed last year.

The Gold Star Families say they feel the same empathy for families such as the Norwoods as they do for one another. But they say they, too, have written letters and made calls to Bush and to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, "yet there has been no response at all," Zappala said. On Inauguration Day, half a dozen Gold Star Families, letters in hand, tried to gain an audience with Bush and Rumsfeld. They were turned away at the White House by guards.

They plan more group events but are not sure what. Many of them will meet in person for the first time when they converge with peace organizations in Fayetteville, N.C., March 19 to mark the second anniversary of the start of the war.

Then, they say, they will go full steam ahead in speaking out against the war, together, in ones and twos, and with other peace groups. The most prominent member is Lila Lipscomb of Flint, Mich., who was featured in Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11." The film shows her encouraging her son, Michael Pederson, to join the Army for its career opportunities, only to end up grieving for him two weeks after the war in Iraq began.

"I consider being in that movie such a blessing," she said, "because it has given me the opportunity to have an audience."

Bill Mitchell said Gold Star Families in general have had no problem capturing a crowd's attention. "When we get together," he said, "it's pretty powerful."

For the families, discussions always begin with their loved ones' lives.

Mitchell talks about his son, Mike, a high school track star who found time for a run the day he died. He had volunteered for the Army with friends "out of a sense of brotherhood," said his father, a retired corporate manager. After 11 months in Iraq, Mike Mitchell was killed two weeks before he was scheduled to leave. Engaged to marry a German woman who had moved her graduate studies to Southern California in preparation for their life together, he was eager to return home. But he volunteered for one last mission.

It was the same mission that Casey Sheehan, in Iraq for two weeks, was on when they were ambushed. A devout Catholic, he had also entered the Army in solidarity with friends. He did not have a steady girlfriend, and had told his mother that he wanted to stay a virgin until he married. After his tour was over, he planned to become an elementary school teacher.

"The sons and daughters dying in that war are the most decent people," said Sheehan, who raised four children while her husband worked as a hardware salesman.

Vicki Castro's only son, Jonathan, could have gone to college but enlisted in the Army as a combat engineer, almost against his parent's wishes, she said. "We told him, 'Just apply to college and we'll pay for wherever you want to go,' " said Castro, a high school math teacher in Corona, Calif. "But he wanted to learn things most people don't, and experience things you don't when you go from high school to college."

He had designed and built scooters with motorcycle parts -- "chopperscooters," he called them. Upon returning from Iraq, he planned to use the Army's small-business loan program to open a shop on the beach and rent them out. He was more than ready to return, but the Army extended his stay one year. He died at age 21 in the Dec. 21 suicide bombing that killed 22 soldiers in a mess tent in Mosul.

Diane Santoriello, who teaches troubled elementary school students in Pittsburgh, knew her son would be sent abroad. First Lt. Neil Anthony Santoriello Jr. had joined the Army after high school.

"He wanted this as a career from the time he was in fifth grade, though he knew I wasn't crazy about it," she said. Neil had been an Eagle Scout, along with friends who joined the Army with him. "Nine scouts that were with my son are currently in uniform," Santoriello said. "His two best friends are over in Mosul right now."

Like other Gold Star families, she recalls that her son began to express disillusionment over Iraq. "Some of his men had to go to civilian Web sites to get boots," she said. "He did not have enough parts for his tanks." Neil, who had married his college sweetheart at 22, was killed on Aug. 13, one month shy of his 25th birthday.

"He was very interested in government and politics," his mother said. "We all knew that he was going to change our country in some way. Maybe I consider what I'm doing now a way of carrying on his work."

Subject: What the Rest of the World Watched on Inauguration Day

Published on Friday, January 28, 2005 by the National Catholic Reporter

Dublin, on U.S. Inauguration Day, didn't seem to notice. Oh, they played a few clips that night of the American president saying, "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands." But that was not their lead story.

The picture on the front page of The Irish Times was a large four-color picture of a small Iraqi girl. Her little body was a coil of steel. She sat knees up, cowering, screaming madly into the dark night. Her white clothes and spread hands and small tight face were blood-spattered. The blood was the blood of her father and mother, shot through the car window in Tal Afar by American soldiers while she sat beside her parents in the car, her four brothers and sisters in the back seat.

A series of pictures of the incident played on the inside page, as well. A 12-year-old brother, wounded in the fray, falls face down out of the car when the car door opens, the pictures show. In another, a soldier decked out in battle gear, holds a large automatic weapon on the four children, all potential enemies, all possible suicide bombers, apparently, as they cling traumatized to one another in the back seat and the child on the ground goes on screaming in her parent's blood.

No promise of "freedom" rings in the cutline on this picture. No joy of liberty underlies the terror on these faces here.

I found myself closing my eyes over and over again as I stared at the story, maybe to crush the tears forming there, maybe in the hope that the whole scene would simply disappear.

But no, like the photo of a naked little girl bathed in napalm and running down a road in Vietnam served to crystallize the situation there for the rest of the world, I knew that this picture of a screaming, angry, helpless, orphaned child could do the same.

The soldiers standing in the dusk had called "halt," the story said, but no one did. Maybe the soldiers' accents were bad. Maybe the car motor was unduly noisy. Maybe the children were laughing loudly -- the way children do on family trips. Whatever the case, the car did not stop, the soldiers shot with deadly accuracy, seven lives changed in an instant: two died in body, five died in soul.

BBC news announced that the picture was spreading across Europe like a brushfire that morning, featured from one major newspaper to another, served with coffee and Danish from kitchen table to kitchen table in one country after another. I watched, while Inauguration Day dawned across the Atlantic, as the Irish up and down the aisle on the train from Killarney to Dublin, narrowed their eyes at the picture, shook their heads silently and slowly over it, and then sat back heavily in their seats, too stunned into reality to go back to business as usual -- the real estate section, the sports section, the life-style section of the paper.

Here was the other side of the inauguration story. No military bands played for this one. No bulletproof viewing stands could stop the impact of this insight into the glory of force. Here was an America they could no longer understand. The contrast rang cruelly everywhere.

I sat back and looked out the train window myself. Would anybody in the United States be seeing this picture today? Would the United States ever see it, in fact? And if it is printed in the United States, will it also cross the country like wildfire and would people hear the unwritten story under it?

There are 54 million people in Iraq. Over half of them are under the age of 15. Of the over 100,000 civilians dead in this war, then, over half of them are children. We are killing children. The children are our enemy. And we are defeating them.

"I'll tell you why I voted for George Bush," a friend of mine said. "I voted for George Bush because he had the courage to do what Al Gore and John Kerry would never have done."

I've been thinking about that one.

Osama Bin Laden is still alive. Sadam Hussein is still alive. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is still alive. Baghdad, Mosul and Fallujah are burning. But my government has the courage to kill children or their parents. And I'm supposed to be impressed.

That's an unfair assessment, of course. A lot of young soldiers have died, too. A lot of weekend soldiers are maimed for life. A lot of our kids went into the military only to get a college education and are now shattered in soul by what they had to do to other bodies.

A lot of adult civilians have been blasted out of their homes and their neighborhoods and their cars. More and more every day. According to U.N. Development Fund for Women, 15 percent of wartime casualties in World War I were civilians. In World War II, 65 percent were civilians. By the mid '90s, over 75 percent of wartime casualties were civilians.

In Iraq, for every dead U.S. soldier, there are 14 other deaths, 93 percent of them are civilian. But those things happen in war, the story says. It's all for a greater good, we have to remember. It's all to free them. It's all being done to spread "liberty."

From where I stand, the only question now is who or what will free us from the 21st century's new definition of bravery. Who will free us from the notion that killing children or their civilian parents takes courage?

A Benedictine Sister of Erie, Sister Joan is a best-selling author and well-known international lecturer. She is founder and executive director of Benetvision: A Resource and Research Center for Contemporary Spirituality, and past president of the Conference of American Benedictine Prioresses and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. Sister Joan has been recognized by universities and national organizations for her work for justice, peace and equality for women in the Church and society. She is an active member of the International Peace Council.

Article in the Portland Phoenix
Q&A
Sheehan vs. Rumsfeld
BY ALEX IRVINE

Cindy Sheehan’s son Casey was killed in Sadr City, Iraq, on April 4, 2004. She has since become a prominent spokesperson for military families protesting the war; this week she’ll be at a Maine Veterans for Peace dinner in Bath, and on Thursday at 3:30 p.m., Portland state representative John Eder and the Maine Green Independent Party will host Sheehan in Room 201 in the Cross Office Building at the State House. Joining her will be members of Maine Military Families Speak Out.

Sheehan: Just the realization that I can’t bring my son back, but hopefully speaking out against the war and trying to spread the truth will help end this war sooner and bring our other children home before it’s too late for them and their moms.

Q: Do you find that people are more sympathetic to you in certain places than others?

A: I’ve only been in one place that was really unsympathetic, and that was in north Florida, in the Panhandle. There were some very nice people there, but people said a lot of hateful things to me there, too. Most people find it in their hearts to listen to a mom who lost her son in the war even though they might not agree.

Q: What was your perspective on the war before Casey was killed?

A: I disagreed with it. I didn’t understand, and neither did Casey, why Iraq was an imminent threat to the United States and why we had to rush in to invade the country. After he was killed was really when all the reports and confirmations came out that there was no reason for us to do what we did.

Q: Have you had much contact with people in government?

A: No. We tried to get a meeting with Donald Rumsfeld this past week in DC. A lot of us Gold Star families tried for weeks, and then they quit even taking [our] calls. We tried to go to the Pentagon and were turned back by security guards. I’ve talked to my congressman, who’s trying to help us get this meeting, and I’ve had communications with my senator, Barbara Boxer, and she’s a real awesome lady. We just don’t know if we would get anything besides the lies they’ve already told, but we feel someone needs to be held accountable for our children’s wrongful deaths — and the people in Iraq who are dying by the thousands.

Q: You mentioned the Gold Star Families. Are they behind you, or are you doing this on your own?

A: I actually have started an organization called Gold Star Families for Peace, and we’re slowly building membership. There are many Gold Star Families, and I think most of them would still be supporting the war and supporting the president, just from my hearing other people and talking to other people. I believe that’s just their way of having to deal with their grief and making sure that their children didn’t die in vain. I believe my son died for nothing. My son died saving his buddies’ lives. He did an incredible act of courage and integrity, but I don’t believe any of them should have been there in the first place. So my way of making my son’s death meaningful is to bring peace, to end this war.

Q: What brings you up to Maine?

A: Jon [Olsen] got in touch with me after seeing something I’d written. He said Maine has an awesome peace-and-justice movement, so he scheduled some events for me. I was in DC, so it wasn’t that hard to get to Maine. I live in [Vacaville,] California, so I thought while I was over here anyway, might as well come up.

Q: Where else have you been?

A: Washington, DC, a couple of times, all over Florida, Philadelphia, Arizona, Nevada, Texas, all over California. After the election I stayed in California because I think we have to energize progressives who were so energized by the elections and kind of got let down; the peace movement’s going to come from energized progressives, and that will be a way for progressives to take back the Democratic Party. I’ve been in a lot of media, trying to organize progressives who have good hearts but not very good organizational skills.

Q: How does your family feel about you being so public?

A: They’re very supportive. They come with me whenever they can. I have three other children and my husband. Whenever they’re available, we go out together.

Q: Where does this all go? What happens over the next, say, six months or a year? What does your movement grow toward?

A: Gold Star Families for Peace is going to have a couple of regional meetings: one in California on February 19 and one in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on March 19; that’s coordinated with a big demonstration mourning the second anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. I think what us Gold Star Families for Peace are planning is just to get out into as many communities and into as many media as we can, just to start spreading the word about the human cost of war. It’s something we’ve already been doing since our sons were killed, but we’ve just been disjointed and working with other groups. We want to be able to control our own speaking engagements. Also Gold Star Families for Peace would like to start reaching out to families; after the war’s over, our loved ones are still going to be dead and we’re still going to need each other.

The military is so aggressive about recruiting our young people, and a lot of times they tell lies or exaggerate the benefits of being in the military. I firmly believe that we need a military, but the kids need to know both sides of the story before they enlist. So we’re trying to do something along with Veterans for Peace and Military Families Speak Out along those lines.

WASHINGTON — Pentagon police on Wednesday turned away family members of troops killed in Iraq who wanted to confront Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on the reasons for the war in Iraq.

The group of about 20 was stopped before entering Pentagon property by about a dozen officers, who told the protesters they did not have the proper permission to enter the building.

Organizers said they have been petitioning for the meeting for weeks, but department officials are ignoring their requests.

“The man who was too busy to personally sign the Killed in Action letters these families received is apparently too busy to acknowledge the request of the Gold Star families for this meeting,” Nancy Lessin, co-founder of Military Families Speak Out, told reporters gathered for Wednesday’s protest.

Five Gold Star families — ones who have lost a son or daughter to fighting in Iraq — brought pictures and letters to the event to present to the secretary, and asked police to pass the items along to illustrate their loss and grief.

Cindy Sheehan, a California resident whose son Casey was killed during a mission in Sadr City last April, sheltered a photo of her son from the snow with her arms as the group tried to convince police to let them by.

“I wanted them to see my son,” she said, weeping. “I wanted them to see the consequences of his actions. ... I have the feeling they feel he was a dispensable asset to them.”

Sheehan flew to Washington on Wednesday and planned to take part in the group’s inauguration protests on Thursday.

Department of Defense officials did not return calls seeking comment. Police who confronted the families offered numbers where protesters could obtain permits and set up formal interviews, but said security concerns prohibited allowing any of the group onto Pentagon grounds.

Lessin, whose son recently returned from his overseas service, said the goal of both protests is to show the war in Iraq is “a reckless military misadventure that never should have happened.”

“Shame on Secretary Rumsfeld for not recognizing these families, and shame on those who sent our children to war based on lies,” she said.

Families said they also wanted Rumsfeld to explain why troops in many cases weren’t properly trained or equipped for the fighting, and when the other troops will be brought home.

“We’re here to try and bring the truth to the Pentagon,” said Celeste Zappala, a Philadelphia resident whose son Sherwood was killed in Baghdad last April.

They have met on the Internet and on cross-country road trips. But mostly they find one another at the funerals.

Dolores Kesterson, whose son, Erik, died in Iraq, said she was plagued by doubts about the war.

As the number of American troops killed in Iraq has risen above 1,300, mothers of the dead have built a grim community of their own, mostly invisible to outsiders and separated by geography, but bound together by death. Some have met in pews, recognizing one another from newspaper photographs or with the simplest introduction: I lost my son, too.

"My closest friends now are three other mothers I have met who lost their sons," said Cindy Sheehan of Vacaville, Calif., whose son, Specialist Casey Sheehan, died in an ambush on April 4. "I feel closer to them, even the ones who live far away, than I do to the people I have known for years. I feel closer to them than to the people who knew Casey. Us moms are really the only ones who know what we're going through."

In this network linked by sorrow and empathy, however, one issue divides them: the wisdom of the war.

Relatives who believe the war in Iraq was necessary tend to gravitate toward one another, talking little of politics and more of pride, sacrifice and loneliness. And those like Ms. Sheehan, who questioned the need to invade Iraq, find one another too, wrestling with their doubts about the war and the meaning of their losses.

People on each side say they respect those on the other. Still, flashes of tension have crept up at small gatherings and group interviews, and even after condolence sessions with President Bush.

This fall, on a conference call of mothers who shared their experiences for a book project ("A Mother's Tears: Mothers Remember Their Sons Lost in Iraq," by Elliot Michael Gold) several hung up in anger after disagreeing about whether the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks had made the war in Iraq necessary.

And this summer, one mother, Nancy Walker of Lancaster, Calif., said she found herself awkwardly starting to describe why she believed the war was wrong at her first dinner meeting with a couple in Iowa, whose marine son had died the same day as her own and whom she had driven many miles to see. Clearly, she said, the couple did not agree with her.

"I think what I told her was, 'Let's not go there with the politics,' " said Nelson Carman, the father from Jefferson, Iowa, a farming town of 4,500, who met with Ms. Walker that day. "I do believe firmly in this war. Those terrorists are going to bring the war to us. They hate you. They hate me. They hate our life. They hate what we stand for.

"To bring politics into our son's sacrifice is just something that is not conceivable to me," Mr. Carman said, adding that he felt a special sorrow for those families who felt as Ms. Walker did. Coping with the death of a child, he said, was challenge enough. "If you have another set of issues, especially political, that you're dealing with, that's just another hurdle you have to get over."

Similar webs of shared mourning have grown out of other wars and disasters. Many families of those killed in the Sept. 11 attacks came together for comfort and support. But their unity fractured over questions of the nation's domestic security and intelligence needs, and who should be president.

During the Vietnam War, in which 58,000 American service members died, veterans themselves became sharply polarized, and the divisions surfaced even in the past presidential campaign. Still, the families of the dead came to lean on one another.

Ann Herd, national president of the American Gold Star Mothers, a group for mothers of slain soldiers that dates from the 1920's, said she recalled that at least by the end of the Vietnam War, "I think many of us were angry: we had the sense that they just didn't try to let those boys win." Ms. Herd's son died in Vietnam in 1970.

Once again, with the war in Iraq, the question at the heart of the divisions between families - mothers especially, but also fathers, siblings and spouses - is fundamental: Was their loss for a noble cause or might it have been in vain? For some, even posing the question diminishes and disrespects their soldier's service to the country. For others, it is a terrifying question to ponder, but one they say they cannot shake.

Karen Hilsendager, of Philomath, Ore., said she found herself struggling with her doubts about the war and what they meant for the death of her son, Specialist Eric S. McKinley, who was killed in June. Ms. Hilsendager said she was irked by a comment people often made about her son. "They tell me: 'Thank you so much for his service. He's a hero,' " she said. "And I want to say back, 'He's not a hero, he's a victim.' "

At another Oregon soldier's funeral this summer, Ms. Hilsendager met a mother whose son had also died - and who also opposed the war. The two women live two hours apart, but they have since shared phone calls, lunch and e-mail exchanges.

Ms. Hilsendager said they had leaned on each other, exchanging stories of their sons' quirks and wondering what their sons would think of their friendship. "And we talk about how mad we are about Bush, and why we're there," she said, "We really have a common thing."

Ms. Hilsendager said her feelings against the war were no blemish on her son, his service or his memory. "My son was following orders, and I'm proud of him for doing that," she said. "But I am not proud of the administration that sent them. They did it wrong. They should not have gone over there yet. I'm not saying never, but not this way."

Not far away, in Independence, Ore., Clay Kesterson and his wife, M. J., say they stand firmly and proudly behind the war that killed Warrant Officer Erik C. Kesterson, Mr. Kesterson's son and Ms. Kesterson's stepson.

Since his death in a Black Hawk helicopter crash in November 2003, the Kestersons said they had grown close to numerous other families of Oregon soldiers who died. They have been to some 20 funerals. They even camped in a tent on the lawn of one family in Klamath Falls who had just lost a son.

"When you lose somebody in these circumstances, others who have been through it immediately know what the feelings are, and what the pride is, and what the emptiness is," Ms. Kesterson said. "We understand and we want to let the other families know that we're in support. Every single soldier with a uniform on was doing something for his country."

The Kestersons said they had thrown their grief into efforts to raise money for a memorial for the soldiers from Oregon. They spend nearly every weekend now speaking to veterans' groups and seeking contributions. Last week, as part of an effort they dubbed Operation Cookie Drop, they carried cookies to soldiers at Fort Lewis, Wash., who were wounded in Iraq.

"We've got to do something," said Mr. Kesterson, 64, who volunteered and fought in Vietnam. "The alternative is to crawl into a hole."

Ms. Kesterson said she felt compassion for those who did not agree with the war and said she thought their struggle must be even harder. "It is a relief that we not only understood the mission but that we understood the uniform," she said. " 'Freedom isn't free' means that our country was founded on heroes like ours. We'd love to turn back the clock, but you can't have it both ways. It's why Erik put on the uniform. He was totally willing to take the risk.

Erik's father, Clay Kesterson, with his wife, M.J., at a memorial for Erik in Independence, Ore., supports the war.

"Our son would be disappointed if we didn't honor the decision of President Bush," she said. "Out of respect for Erik, we can't possibly think otherwise. It would be dishonoring him."

But even within the Kestersons' extended family, there are divisions. Dolores Kesterson, Erik's mother and Mr. Kesterson's former wife, who lives in Santa Clara, Calif., said she was plagued by her doubts about the war and what it meant about her only child's death.

"I feel it was a waste, like Vietnam," she said. "All these deaths are as big a waste as Vietnam."

In a way, she said, she wishes someone who lives in Iraq could change her mind for her. "Can't I see the light or something and look at it differently?" she said on a recent afternoon. "I wish I could. But then I watch and it gets worse over there."

Dolores Kesterson said she had grown close to two other mothers who are as troubled by the war as she is. She exchanges e-mail and talks with them on the phone, she said, but she cannot bring herself go to all the soldiers' funerals, as some people do. It would be too crushing, she said.

But the funerals keep coming, 21 months after the first ones, and some mothers say they feel compelled now to keep watch for any other soldier who dies from their town or county or state and to attend as many funerals as possible, even those miles away, just as other grieving mothers did for them.

Many said seeking out other families was not an option, but a necessity. Their new bonds became their only solace over months, they said. These were the only people who could really understand the dizzying memory of those first uniforms at the front door, the tears that might come at any time, the sons who reappeared in dreams, the emptiness of the holidays.

Karen Fisher, the widow of Sgt. Paul Fisher, who died when his Chinook helicopter was attacked more than a year ago, said she tried formal support groups in her area, but little she heard seemed to apply. The group for relatives of those who had died of cancer or disease did not fit, nor did the one for those of murder victims. Some of the widows of Sept. 11 began including Ms. Fisher, who lives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in their e-mail messages, sending her words of wisdom and guidance.

Ms. Fisher said she had grown closest to other wives of Iowa soldiers, particularly one woman whose husband died in the same incident as her own. Most of their talk, she said, is about small things, not war or politics, just making their way through the days.

"We call each other if one of us is going on a vacation or buying something new," she said. "That's the kind of thing that happens in this: you're afraid to sell anything or to buy anything new because what will people say? Or I call if I had a good day, because part of me isn't sure if that's right. Sometimes you feel guilty even for having a good day.

"I guess I call," she said, "to see if she's doing what I'm doing." Rarely, if ever, Ms. Fisher said, do she and her friend talk about the necessity of the war and the political forces behind it.

That is not a road I want to go down," she said.