Cindy Sheehan: Mother And Quiet Warrior

Cindy Sheehan lives with pain. She is the president of Gold Star Families for Peace and a grieving mother who lost her son, Casey Sheehan, on April 4, 2004 in Iraq. Sheehan has made it her mission to go after the Bush administration for her son's death and on behalf of every soldier killed or maimed in the Iraq quagmire.

On Wednesday night, she appeared on MSNBC's Hardball and heard the mother of a wounded soldier (now home from Iraq) make this statement:

I think now is the time to be united with our president, with our country, with our troops, to support them. Whether we believe in what is right and what is wrong, we need to support our men and women that are over there fighting, whether you believe in what they're fighting for is just or unjust. As an American, I'm going to support my president, the country, the troops in whatever means they need.

In a composed and dignified way, Cindy Sheehan gave this incredible response:

This war, nobody should have been there in the first place. Not one person should be killed. And I don't believe that we support our government when they're wrong. It is wrong. There's innocent people dying. There's innocent Iraqis dying. And Americans should never have been over there. We don't support our country when it is wrong.

We try to fight and make it a better place. And we need to keep pressure on the administration. They don't support the troops. You know, my son was killed doing a job he was not trained for. He was not wearing the proper body armor. He was not in an armored vehicle. And he was killed in a political mess, a political mess that our leadership made. That's not supporting the troops, as far as I'm concerned.

They have to pay for their own laundry when they're over there. They're getting killed guarding mercenaries who make $1,000 a day, when they barely bring home $2,000 a month. They're losing their homes here in America. They're not being supported by their government. I think the only way we can support our troops who are only there doing their jobs and doing the best they can to stay alive and doing their duties is to bring them home, because it is a lie.

And we're building permanent bases there. And our government doesn't intend on bringing our troops home. So, we have to put pressure on them. And we have to tell the American people that this war is wrong.

What an amazing person. We need to send some of our Congressional Democrats to Ms. Sheehan for a lesson in heart and courage.