A new small tent was set up today next to the enormous one at Camp Casey 2. It will serve as a base for organizations that have joined this effort but are not the central focus of it. The focus, of course, is on veterans and military families who want answers from Bush about why this war was fought.
Ann Wright, a career diplomat, said "Every diplomatic skill I have ever had has come into use," in the work of including disparate groups and a range of issues without diluting the powerful focus on Cindy's demand. "But it's been wonderful," she said. "Everyone is here because they support this woman's action and want this war to end."
Ann and I had to stop chatting when the ice truck arrived.
On the pro-war side, I spoke to a woman named Betty Grant. She said her grandson was headed for Iraq next February. (Not if we end the war first!) "I'm trying to show that we're proud," she said. "I hope to make him as proud of me as I am of him."
Grant said that Bush has a job to do and should not take time to meet with Sheehan. She said she was sympathetic with Cindy for her loss, but wondered "where would we be today if people had her attitude when Hitler was around?"
Grant said, "My Granddaddy's generation would have known how to handle [Sheehan's protest]." I asked her to be more explicit, and she said "Well, they wouldn't have made the president go talk to her."
A man to Grant's right jumped into the conversation uninvited to say "My brother is over there now." He pointed to his brother's framed photo hanging on the wire fence. The man's name was Steve Silvas of Temple, Texas, and his brother Sandy Silvas.
Steve said he'd gotten an Email from his brother last night saying that morale was high among his troops. He'd already asked his brother's permission to display his photo and tell his story. His brother, he said, had told him to do it as close as possible to the anti-war protesters, and to "make sure they spell my name right."
Sandy Silvas, Steve said, is a Sergeant First Class at Forward Operation Base War Horse, and has been in Iraq since Thanksgiving.
I asked Steve Silvas what he would tell Cindy Sheehan her son died for. He hesitated, and then said "I would tell her I support the President."
I asked again what reason he would give for the war that Casey Sheehan died in. "He knew what he was getting himself in for," Silvas said.
Grant said, "I would ask her what her son would say."
"Or, what the people in his unit would say," added Silvas.
Then Silva asked me whether, if Cindy were an Iraqi mother whose son had died, anyone would care. I replied that the media clearly would not, since so many thousands of Iraqi sons had been killed. But he missed my point, as I had missed his. He went on:
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