Johnny_Blaze_47
08-21-2005, 02:08 PM
You won't read this at the end of the coumn, but Fred Afflerbach is a regular columnist for The University Star. We were originally slated to run this column, but he smartly held it when the Star-Telegram picked it up.
Fred's always had a strong voice and brings a different student perspective to whatever column he writes.
-----
Posted on Sun, Aug. 21, 2005
Finding Cindy Sheehan
By Fred Afflerbach
Special to the Star-Telegram
On Aug. 12, I took a day trip deep in the heart of Texas to find out what lies deep in the heart of Cindy Sheehan.
Is she a puppet of the left? Or is she a folk hero standing up to injustice?
On my way to Crawford, listening to talk radio, it was pointed out that Cindy met the president in June 2004, two months after her son's death. But after I arrived, she said that the president was impersonal, wouldn't look at pictures of her son Casey, and referred to him only as "your loved one."
"He called the last meeting," Sheehan told several reporters, "I'm calling this one."
With her brown eyes squinting into the Texas sun -- she wears no sunglasses -- Sheehan handled tough questions with the skill of a politician and the kindness of . . . well, a mother. Her soft voice belies her resolve.
Sheehan addressed an open letter circulated on the Internet by relatives who oppose her: "We've always been on opposite sides politically." Then she added, "They barely knew Casey," and accused them of "using his death" to further their beliefs.
Regarding doubts about Sheehan's motives, I asked point-blank, "Did anybody put you up to this?" She quickly responded: "No, it was totally my idea." And explaining why her son re-enlisted, she said that he didn't want to return to Iraq but felt obligated to his comrades.
She shrugs off what her supporters decry as a "smear campaign" against her: "I can take it if it means saving more lives."
But above all, she finds reprehensible the president's assertion that the war in Iraq is a noble cause. She wants to ask the president, face to face, what "noble cause" her son died for.
Amongst everything I heard Sheehan say, two simple words stuck with me. They came shortly after I focused my camera on her ankle tattoo recording the years of her son's birth and death. She surely wouldn't wear sandals and then complain about intrusion.
After snapping the picture, I noticed that Sheehan had stopped talking with reporters and was looking at me. Like a pickpocket caught in the act, I looked guilty. But she merely smiled and resumed her conversation.
After the crowd thinned out, I offered an apology. She smiled again and softly said, "That's OK."
Compassion amid confusion, I thought.
Throughout the day, the only ebbs in the continuous flow of media interviews were caused by the presidential motorcade. Black SUVs with tinted windows, escorted by troopers with the Texas Department of Public Safety, passed on the way to and from a fund-raiser at the nearby Broken Spoke Ranch.
With helicopters hovering above, Sheehan held up a homemade sign reading, "Why do you make time for donors and not for me?"
My day trip to Crawford revealed that protesting is not glamorous -- TV cameras don't blow cool air or supply shade. No air-conditioned makeup trailer waits nearby, and Sheehan's flat, matted red hair showed the effects of Texas heat and humidity.
There was only one portable toilet on site. Watching Sheehan deal with the media, I noticed her fiddling with two empty plastic water bottles -- not Evian but rather a local discount brand.
I also saw firsthand how her protest has grown like Johnson grass along the county road where her supporters are camped.
Some protesters arrived unprepared for the climate and conditions of Central Texas in August. A friend of Sheehan's who flew in from San Diego was quickly attacked by fire ants. I sprayed the red bumps on her ankles with antiseptic, and word spread that I was the guy to see for fire-ant bites.
When a Vietnam War veteran approached me, I was stung by the irony of offering first aid to someone who was fighting in the jungles of Southeast Asia when I was a Little Leaguer.
Later, a member of Veterans For Peace picked up my ice chest and headed towards a shade canopy. I hailed him: "Hey, that's my cooler."
He asked if it was OK to give Sheehan a bottle of water. Fortunately, my face was already sunburned -- my blushing went unnoticed.
I met two writers who have recently published books about the war in Iraq.
Phil Kiver, author of 182 Days in Iraq, confronted Sheehan. He believes that it's not possible to oppose the war and support the troops. I watched Sheehan, who is 6 feet tall, push back a microphone and wrap an arm around Kiver's shoulders. After a private conversation, Kiver autographed a copy of his book. Then they hugged.
We should have applauded.
The other author, Elliot Michael Gold, can hardly talk about his book, A Mother's Tears, without tearing up himself. Gold has compiled interviews of 19 mothers who "remember their sons lost in Iraq." One of those mothers is Sheehan.
During the heat of the day, someone laid a sheet of plywood across a 55-gallon trash can. A wicker basket containing a loaf of brown bread was added, and the makeshift altar was complete. A loud voice announced, "A call to worship, no faith, any faith."
Words from Mathew 5:1-11 drifted across the open prairie like a soft summer breeze: "Blessed are they that mourn ... blessed are the meek ... the merciful ... the peacemakers."
After the service, the Rev. Andrew Weaver of New York reflected on the state of the nation: "The country is in a lot of pain."
Sadly, I watched two men -- a gray-haired Vietnam veteran and a mustachioed father of a soldier killed in Iraq -- square off. The veteran repeatedly asked if the other man knew what it was like to watch men die in battle for corporate greed. The father of the soldier killed in Iraq asked if he knew how it felt to stand over a dead son's coffin. Pain.
Sheehan's activism has taken a personal toll. Her husband recently filed divorce papers. More pain.
I came to see Cindy Sheehan, but what I saw outside the president's gate was a microcosm of what's going on all over this country: "A lot of pain."
Shortly before I left, a truck from Waco arrived with three green portable toilets. A soft, tired cheer rose up from the protesters.
On the back roads home, it was easy to feel disconnected with the war in Iraq. The rolling hills of Coryell County are remarkably green for August.
Then I was delayed in Copperas Cove, a town perched on the western flank of Fort Hood, when the arms at a railroad crossing stopped traffic. Flatbed rail cars loaded with khaki-brown tanks, probably headed to Iraq, rolled past.
Suddenly, the war was not so far away anymore.
Fred Afflerbach is a student at Texas State University in San Marcos.
Fred Afflerbach spent 26 years in the moving and storage industry before returning to college.
© 2005 Star-Telegram and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.dfw.com
Fred's always had a strong voice and brings a different student perspective to whatever column he writes.
-----
Posted on Sun, Aug. 21, 2005
Finding Cindy Sheehan
By Fred Afflerbach
Special to the Star-Telegram
On Aug. 12, I took a day trip deep in the heart of Texas to find out what lies deep in the heart of Cindy Sheehan.
Is she a puppet of the left? Or is she a folk hero standing up to injustice?
On my way to Crawford, listening to talk radio, it was pointed out that Cindy met the president in June 2004, two months after her son's death. But after I arrived, she said that the president was impersonal, wouldn't look at pictures of her son Casey, and referred to him only as "your loved one."
"He called the last meeting," Sheehan told several reporters, "I'm calling this one."
With her brown eyes squinting into the Texas sun -- she wears no sunglasses -- Sheehan handled tough questions with the skill of a politician and the kindness of . . . well, a mother. Her soft voice belies her resolve.
Sheehan addressed an open letter circulated on the Internet by relatives who oppose her: "We've always been on opposite sides politically." Then she added, "They barely knew Casey," and accused them of "using his death" to further their beliefs.
Regarding doubts about Sheehan's motives, I asked point-blank, "Did anybody put you up to this?" She quickly responded: "No, it was totally my idea." And explaining why her son re-enlisted, she said that he didn't want to return to Iraq but felt obligated to his comrades.
She shrugs off what her supporters decry as a "smear campaign" against her: "I can take it if it means saving more lives."
But above all, she finds reprehensible the president's assertion that the war in Iraq is a noble cause. She wants to ask the president, face to face, what "noble cause" her son died for.
Amongst everything I heard Sheehan say, two simple words stuck with me. They came shortly after I focused my camera on her ankle tattoo recording the years of her son's birth and death. She surely wouldn't wear sandals and then complain about intrusion.
After snapping the picture, I noticed that Sheehan had stopped talking with reporters and was looking at me. Like a pickpocket caught in the act, I looked guilty. But she merely smiled and resumed her conversation.
After the crowd thinned out, I offered an apology. She smiled again and softly said, "That's OK."
Compassion amid confusion, I thought.
Throughout the day, the only ebbs in the continuous flow of media interviews were caused by the presidential motorcade. Black SUVs with tinted windows, escorted by troopers with the Texas Department of Public Safety, passed on the way to and from a fund-raiser at the nearby Broken Spoke Ranch.
With helicopters hovering above, Sheehan held up a homemade sign reading, "Why do you make time for donors and not for me?"
My day trip to Crawford revealed that protesting is not glamorous -- TV cameras don't blow cool air or supply shade. No air-conditioned makeup trailer waits nearby, and Sheehan's flat, matted red hair showed the effects of Texas heat and humidity.
There was only one portable toilet on site. Watching Sheehan deal with the media, I noticed her fiddling with two empty plastic water bottles -- not Evian but rather a local discount brand.
I also saw firsthand how her protest has grown like Johnson grass along the county road where her supporters are camped.
Some protesters arrived unprepared for the climate and conditions of Central Texas in August. A friend of Sheehan's who flew in from San Diego was quickly attacked by fire ants. I sprayed the red bumps on her ankles with antiseptic, and word spread that I was the guy to see for fire-ant bites.
When a Vietnam War veteran approached me, I was stung by the irony of offering first aid to someone who was fighting in the jungles of Southeast Asia when I was a Little Leaguer.
Later, a member of Veterans For Peace picked up my ice chest and headed towards a shade canopy. I hailed him: "Hey, that's my cooler."
He asked if it was OK to give Sheehan a bottle of water. Fortunately, my face was already sunburned -- my blushing went unnoticed.
I met two writers who have recently published books about the war in Iraq.
Phil Kiver, author of 182 Days in Iraq, confronted Sheehan. He believes that it's not possible to oppose the war and support the troops. I watched Sheehan, who is 6 feet tall, push back a microphone and wrap an arm around Kiver's shoulders. After a private conversation, Kiver autographed a copy of his book. Then they hugged.
We should have applauded.
The other author, Elliot Michael Gold, can hardly talk about his book, A Mother's Tears, without tearing up himself. Gold has compiled interviews of 19 mothers who "remember their sons lost in Iraq." One of those mothers is Sheehan.
During the heat of the day, someone laid a sheet of plywood across a 55-gallon trash can. A wicker basket containing a loaf of brown bread was added, and the makeshift altar was complete. A loud voice announced, "A call to worship, no faith, any faith."
Words from Mathew 5:1-11 drifted across the open prairie like a soft summer breeze: "Blessed are they that mourn ... blessed are the meek ... the merciful ... the peacemakers."
After the service, the Rev. Andrew Weaver of New York reflected on the state of the nation: "The country is in a lot of pain."
Sadly, I watched two men -- a gray-haired Vietnam veteran and a mustachioed father of a soldier killed in Iraq -- square off. The veteran repeatedly asked if the other man knew what it was like to watch men die in battle for corporate greed. The father of the soldier killed in Iraq asked if he knew how it felt to stand over a dead son's coffin. Pain.
Sheehan's activism has taken a personal toll. Her husband recently filed divorce papers. More pain.
I came to see Cindy Sheehan, but what I saw outside the president's gate was a microcosm of what's going on all over this country: "A lot of pain."
Shortly before I left, a truck from Waco arrived with three green portable toilets. A soft, tired cheer rose up from the protesters.
On the back roads home, it was easy to feel disconnected with the war in Iraq. The rolling hills of Coryell County are remarkably green for August.
Then I was delayed in Copperas Cove, a town perched on the western flank of Fort Hood, when the arms at a railroad crossing stopped traffic. Flatbed rail cars loaded with khaki-brown tanks, probably headed to Iraq, rolled past.
Suddenly, the war was not so far away anymore.
Fred Afflerbach is a student at Texas State University in San Marcos.
Fred Afflerbach spent 26 years in the moving and storage industry before returning to college.
© 2005 Star-Telegram and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.dfw.com