Go Home and Take Care of Your Kids

On the Sheehan website there is an open letter to President Bush, it says,

“George, it has been seven months today since your reckless and wanton foreign policies killed my son, my big boy, my hero, my best-friend: Casey. It has been seven months since your ignorant and arrogant lack of planning for the peace murdered my oldest child. It has been two days since your dishonest campaign stole another election…but you all were way more subtle this time than in 2000, weren’t you?” (open letter by Cindy Sheehan to President G.W. Bush)

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Within a week of setting up "Camp Casey" she had already given more than 100 media interviews, calling for US troops to be withdrawn from Iraq. But the pressure of the media attention appears to have proved too much for her husband, Patrick.

Last Friday he lodged a divorce petition at Solano County court, northeast of San Francisco, it emerged today. His lawyer did not immediately return calls asking for comment.

Mrs Sheehan says that the stress of the death had already led the couple, who were high school sweethearts, to separate. She admits that he does not agree with the "level of intensity" she has devoted to peace in the past year.

She has had to dissuade her younger son, Andy, from joining the Army. "I said there was no way this Government was going to get another of my children."

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Local residents have protested that the campers are trespassing, and the local paper, the McGregor Mirror, has run an open letter to "the woman complaining about her son's death in Iraq" from Ann Lehman, a Crawford resident.

"You dishonour the President, yourself and God when you deny your son the freedom in death that he had in life to choose. He knew the risk when he joined the military, just as President Bush knows the risk for his life every day!" it read.

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Cindy Sheehan: "This whole thing was like so freaking spur of the moment."

"I'm not afraid of anything since my son was killed," she says.

Father Michael McFadden, a priest she once worked for, calls her "very defiant, very stubborn, very strong willed" when dealing with authority.

Her friends call her Attila the Honey.

Sheehan lost her job at Napa County Health and Human Services because of all her absences, she says. Husband Pat, 52, couldn't bear having Casey's things at home and put most of them in storage. "We grieved in totally different ways," Cindy says. "He wanted to grieve by distracting himself. I wanted to immerse myself." A car tinkerer, he added two 1969 VW Bugs to his collection recently and diverted some of his sorrow into them. The couple separated in June.

Daughter Carly, 24, wrote a poem that begins, "Have you ever heard the sound of a mother screaming for her son?" Surviving son Andy, 21, supports his mother in principle but recently sent her a long e-mail imploring her "to come home because you need to support us at home," he says. Casey's aunt Cherie Quartarolo e-mailed a California radio station last week to rebuke Cindy, writing, "She appears to be promoting her own personal agenda at the expense of her son's good name."

At her roadside uprising, Sheehan feels only muted satisfaction. Sitting in a van, momentarily insulated from followers and other reporters, she says more than once that she feels like a failure. Even if the troops came back tomorrow, it would still be too late for her son.

"I really failed Casey. I really did," she says, tearing up. Throughout his childhood in California, Casey and his mother were close. An altar boy for 10 years, Casey enlisted in 2000 hoping to make a career as a military chaplain's assistant. He had decided to wait to have sex until he was married. "He took lots of heat for that in the Army. Pat and I always wondered why he would even tell anyone he was still a virgin," Sheehan wrote on TruthOut.org "but he did."

Casey Sheehan was killed in Sadr City on April 4, 2004, less than a month after he arrived in Iraq as a humvee mechanic. He had gone out on a voluntary mission to rescue injured soldiers when his unit was ambushed. Six other soldiers died with him. Says his brother Andy: "He lived to help people, and he died helping people." On the day he died, Cindy saw a burning humvee on CNN and says she knew instinctively that her son was among the dead.

Sheehan's impulsive decision to come to Crawford -- with five people, some chairs and no flashlights -- has spawned a small phenomenon. A busload of counterprotesters, organized by a conservative radio personality in Dallas, arrived to sing God Bless America. A Japanese peace-activist group donated money for Porta Potties.

Chad Griffin, a Los Angeles-based p.r. agent who worked in the Clinton White House, came up with the idea of cutting an ad featuring Sheehan's plea to speak with Bush. With $12,000 in donations, the ad is running in Crawford.

A senior aide who was present at many of the meetings estimates that a little less than 10% of the relatives tell Bush their loved ones died in vain.

"He's had a couple wives who were very upset," says the aide. "They didn't yell at him or hit him or anything like that. But on more than one occasion, they've made very clear their position."

White House aides say they worry about the precedent, should Bush see Sheehan again. "If the President meets with her, does he have to meet with every protester who camps out in Crawford or in Lafayette Park [in Washington]?" asks a Bush aide. "Does he have a second meeting with every mother or wife who asks for one?"

Thursday, Aug. 18, 2005 11:12 a.m. EDT

Sheehan's Hubby: Cindy Go Home

The husband and son of Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan are urging her to end her anti-war protest outside President Bush's Crawford, Texas, ranch, saying she's doing a disservice to their family.

"I don't think she's done the best for the family," Patrick Sheehan, 52, tells People Magazine. "When we see Cindy talking about Casey, we all relive the loss."

Casey Sheehan was killed while serving in Iraq last year. But even his brother, Andy, 21, doesn't agree with his mother's antics, telling People, "I think she should come home."

Patrick explained: "My kids and I feel like we've had two losses, Casey, and now our wife and mother. The kids are angry and lonely for her."

Mr. Sheehan filed for divorce earlier this week.

Mrs. Sheehan told People that she understands her kids would like to have her back home, but still claimed that "they're supportive."

"They understand what I'm trying to do," she insisted.

Looks like the daughter, CARLY, is taking after her mom going by her poem.

I confess that I have not read every thread or article on Cindy Sheehan so maybe someone else more versed in the history of her dealings with her son knows better if that was true or false.

I put the disclaimer to the statement because I read it once but have not stayed on top of the articles enough to know whether it is true.