[Davis Democrats] FW: GOLD STAR FAMILIES FOR PEACE

[John Chendo]

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From: SCINDY121 at aol.com
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005 15:44:01 EST
To: SindyLouLee at cs.com
Subject: GOLD STAR FAMILIES FOR PEACE

dear friends
this is a great article. thank you for your continued support!!
 


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For Some, a Loss in Iraq Turns Into Antiwar Activism
Gold Star Families Band Together to 'Make People Care'

By Evelyn Nieves
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 22, 2005; Page A03

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."
Love and Peace!!!
Cindy Sheehan
Mother of Hero: Spc Casey Austin Sheehan KIA 04/04/04
Casey's Peace Page <http://www.angelfire.com/sk3/spkhntrca/Casey.html>
Co-Founder of Gold Star Families For Peace
http://www.gsfp.org/