Military Families and Gold Star Families Going To Crawford, TX This Month

Dear Members of Military Families Speak Out,

As you may know, MFSO member and Gold Star Families for Peace co-founder Cindy
Sheehan has camped out close to President Bush's Crawford ranch while he vacations
there for the month of August -- seeking to meet with him personally to ask about
the "noble cause" that took the life of her son Casey Sheehan on April 4, 2004 in
Sadr City, Iraq. Thus far he has refused to meet with her.

We spoke to Cindy last night -- she would love it if Military Families Speak Out
members and members of Gold Star Families for Peace could join her in Crawford. She
is planning to be there for the month of August. If your situation allows, and you
are able to join her -- for a day, a few days or longer -- it will help build the
powerful message that is now going out across the nation and around the world. The
voices of Gold Star Families and the voices of families whose loved ones are
currently in Iraq or about to deploy are particularly powerful right now.

If you think you might be able to go to Crawford, please get in touch with us right
away. The Military Families Speak Out press person will be going to Crawford to help
get our voices out, so we'd like to know as soon as possible who is considering
making this trip.

Accommodations will range from camping out (Veterans for Peace and other supporters
are collecting camping gear, so you don't need to bring it if you're coming by
plane) -- to other arrangements. Check on the Crawford Peace House website
http://www.crawfordpeacehouse.org under "Protests" for a list of accommodations in the
Crawford area.

Below is today's New York Times article about Cindy in Crawford. Again -- let us
know right away if you are considering making the trip to Crawford!

In peace and solidarity
Nancy Lessin and Charley Richardson
for MFSO
http://www.mfso.org



August 8, 2005
New York Times
Of the Many Deaths in Iraq, One Mother's Loss Becomes a Problem for the President
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON
CRAWFORD, Tex., Aug. 7 - President Bush draws antiwar protesters just about wherever
he goes, but few generate the kind of attention that Cindy Sheehan has since she
drove down the winding road toward his ranch here this weekend and sought to tell
him face to face that he must pull all Americans troops out of Iraq now.

Ms. Sheehan's son, Casey, was killed last year in Iraq, after which she became an
antiwar activist. She says she and her family met with the president two months
later at Fort Lewis in Washington State.

But when she was blocked by the police a few miles from Mr. Bush's 1,600-acre spread
on Saturday, the 48-year-old Ms. Sheehan of Vacaville, Calif., was transformed into
a news media phenomenon, the new face of opposition to the Iraq conflict at a moment
when public opinion is in flux and the politics of the war have grown more
complicated for the president and the Republican Party.

Ms. Sheehan has vowed to camp out on the spot until Mr. Bush agrees to meet with
her, even if it means spending all of August under a broiling sun by the dusty road.
Early on Sunday afternoon, 25 hours after she was turned back as she approached Mr.
Bush's ranch, Prairie Chapel, Ms. Sheehan stood red-faced from the heat at the
makeshift campsite that she says will be her home until the president relents or
leaves to go back to Washington. A reporter from The Associated Press had just
finished interviewing her. CBS was taping a segment on her. She had already appeared
on CNN, and was scheduled to appear live on ABC on Monday morning. Reporters from
across the country were calling her cellphone.

"It's just snowballed," Ms. Sheehan said beside a small stand of trees and a patch
of shade that contained a sleeping bag, some candles, a jar of nuts and a few other
supplies. "We have opened up a debate in the country."

Seeking to head off exactly the situation that now seems to be unfolding, the
administration sent two senior officials out from the ranch on Saturday afternoon to
meet with her. But Ms. Sheehan said after talking to the officials - Stephen J.
Hadley, the national security adviser, and Joe Hagin, a deputy White House chief of
staff - that she would not back down in her demand to see the president.

Her success in drawing so much attention to her message - and leaving the White
House in a face-off with an opponent who had to be treated very gently even as she
aggressively attacked the president and his policies - seemed to stem from the
confluence of several forces.

The deaths last week of 20 Marines from a single battalion has focused public
attention on the unremitting pace of casualties in Iraq, providing her an opening to
deliver her message that no more lives should be given to the war. At the same time,
polls that show falling approval for Mr. Bush's handling of the war have left him
open to challenge in a way that he was not when the nation appeared to be more
strongly behind him.

It did not hurt her cause that she staged her protest, which she said was more or
less spontaneous, at the doorstep of the White House press corps, which spends each
August in Crawford with little to do, minimal access to Mr. Bush and his aides, and
an eagerness for any new story.

As the mother of an Army specialist who was killed at age 24 in the Sadr City
section of Baghdad on April 4, 2004, Ms. Sheehan's story is certainly compelling.
She is also articulate, aggressive in delivering her message and has information
that most White House reporters have not heard before: how Mr. Bush handles himself
when he meets behind closed doors with the families of soldiers killed in Iraq.

The White House has released few details of such sessions, which Mr. Bush holds
regularly as he travels the country, but generally portrays them as emotional and an
opportunity for the president to share the grief of the families. In Ms. Sheehan's
telling, though, Mr. Bush did not know her son's name when she and her family met
with him in June 2004 at Fort Lewis. Mr. Bush, she said, acted as if he were at a
party and behaved disrespectfully toward her by referring to her as "Mom" throughout
the meeting.

By Ms. Sheehan's account, Mr. Bush said to her that he could not imagine losing a
loved one like an aunt or uncle or cousin. Ms. Sheehan said she broke in and told
Mr. Bush that Casey was her son, and that she thought he could imagine what it would
be like since he has two daughters and that he should think about what it would be
like sending them off to war.

"I said, 'Trust me, you don't want to go there'," Ms. Sheehan said, recounting her
exchange with the president. "He said, 'You're right, I don't.' I said, 'Well,
thanks for putting me there.' "

Asked about Ms. Sheehan's statements, Trent D. Duffy, a spokesman for the White
House, said Sunday: "The president knows one of his most important responsibilities
is to comfort the families of the fallen. That is why he has personally met with and
grieved with hundreds of families who have lost a loved one who made the ultimate
sacrifice. We can only imagine how painful and difficult it must be for a mother to
lose her son. Our hearts and prayers are always with the moms and dads and spouses
and children of those who have fallen."

It is not clear how the White House will handle Ms. Sheehan. Mr. Bush usually comes
and goes from the ranch by helicopter, but he might have to drive by her on Friday,
when he is scheduled to attend a Republican fund-raiser at a ranch just down the
road from where Ms. Sheehan is camped out. She will no doubt get another wave of
publicity on Thursday, when Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice join Mr. Bush at the ranch to discuss the war.