The Call
Varifrank
Cindy Sheehan, mother of deceased Army Specialist Casey Sheehan said this at President Bushs Crawford Texas Ranch:
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“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”
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and
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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.
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I could do a whole essay just on those two little nuggets, but I wont.
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 remember 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?
Cindy Sheehan herself.
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.
He was a Volunteer.
He was a Patriot.
He was a Hero.
He was a Man.
and yeah, he was also someones baby boy.
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.
varifrank.com
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 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.
varifrank.com
timesonline.co.uk
frontpagemag.com
en.wikipedia.org |
