I haven't blogged about Cindy Sheehan since so many others are doing such a great job of it. But two events conspired to get me to write this post. Last night's candlelight vigils around the country in support of Cindy and an e-mail that I got earlier this week.
The vigils held all around the US and in several countries around the world have only increased the public and media focus on all of the false reasons we were given for invading Iraq and the resulting mayhem and deaths of our soldiers. You can read about them here. Finally, perhaps, the press and the country are waking up to what's really going on in Iraq; sometimes it takes something to hit you in the heart rather than in the head.
The second event that inspired this post had to do with a friend I mentioned in an earlier post who had been killed in Iraq; Colonel Ted Westhusing. On Monday, I received an e-mail from Ted's oldest brother thanking me for the kind words I'd written in the above post and in a letter that was published on Eric Alterman's Altercation blog on MSNBC.
This was a wonderful gesture on the part of Ted's brother. It was also a harsh reminder that despite the lack of real sacrifice asked of the rest of us, there are many among us, not just the Cindy Sheehans who get on TV, that have lost something in this neocon misadventure. So as the right-wing spin machine begins its knee-jerk sliming of everyone involved in the vigils and as the amnesiac media moves on to the "next big story," we should all remember and mourn with the mothers, fathers, spouses and children - and big brothers - who have lost a loved one in a war of choice and a war of lies.
Cindy Sheehan is just one reminder of this; a reminder, it appears, that this country sorely needs.
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