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This is an article that I’ve just completed for several “on-line” publications and is currently in the editing stages and will be published soon, your comments are always welcome. However, this is an opinion piece, and while creative dialog is always appreciated, please use common sense and good taste when responding.
Casey Sheehan, a hero’s memory tarnished
By Robert Amoroso
Like most Americans I've become extremely concerned about the war in Iraq, and it seems we can no longer turn a page within a newspaper or view a newscast without hearing reports of casualties and witnessing before our eyes unimaginable atrocities and carnage and like most Americans I've become inpatient with our President and I want this blood letting to stop.
Why are we there? Why are we fighting and dieing in this wasteland called Iraq? Why are young American lives being sacrificed? Certainly there must be a reason, why would a president risk his presidency on such a war, and a soldier his life?
As a New Yorker I don’t need to be reminded, all I need to do is cast my gaze out my window and look south at a landscape forever changed and remind myself once again of the carnage that took place on that faithful September day. Within an instant, life as we knew it forever changed.
And like thousands before him in times of national crises young Casey Sheehan answered the call to duty and swore an oath under God “to protect and defend” this great nation, the exact same oath that George Bush took as President.
Perhaps to Cindy Sheehan “America isn’t worth dieing for”. Perhaps in Cindy Sheehan’s world heroes like Senator John McCain are “warmongers”, and perhaps she believes that her son "was killed for lies and for a ... neo-con agenda to benefit Israel” and perhaps she knows something we don’t that "We are waging a nuclear war in Iraq right now”, and “that country is contaminated” and “it will be contaminated for practically eternity now."
I have no quarrel with Cindy Sheehan she’s a mother who lost her son (as countless others have), to war, and of course she has every right to protest, and parrot words from the radical left, and make whatever foolish statement she wants. These are freedoms that good men like Casey died for and President’s have agonized over, when to send young men and women into harms way.
Army Spec. Casey Sheehan died in Baghdad, on April 4th 2004, when his unit was attacked with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire. He was assigned to 1st Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, in Fort Hood, Texas.
Sadly what Cindy Sheehan fails to mention in her continued diatribe is that her son Casey died a hero, and volunteered to be part of a quick response team when rioting started in Baghdad, a testament to what he believed in.
Perhaps in Cindy Sheehan’s world a commercial airliner filled to capacity with flammable jet fuel and carrying hundreds of innocent civilians and used as a missile into building is nothing more than a “criminal act”. Again she has every right to make foolish remarks.
However there comes a time when foolish remarks need to be addressed, if September 11th wasn’t enough of a reason to defend this country than what is? If three thousand plus innocent lives murdered in a horrific event within hours weren’t enough, than what is? If an unprovoked attack on American soil isn’t enough, perhaps another 5,000, 10,000, 20,000 American lives?
As a New Yorker I witnessed first hand the bloodshed and carnage of that day, I witnessed a city turned into chaos, as young lives holding hands leaped to their deaths, rather then being burned alive, from towering infernos, a “criminal act” Cindy or an act of war?
Army Spec. Casey Sheehan died a hero as hundreds of others have protecting and defending the values of this country. Cindy Sheehan again has every right to protest, and every right to say whatever foolish thing she wants.
However does she have a right indeed a moral obligation not as a mother who lost a son in combat, but rather as a mother who respected her son’s choices? How else then does one explain her behavior, to denigrate what her son believed in and what he died for.
To hide behind a photo of a fallen hero, and mouth someone else’s words of discontent rather then baring witness to actual deeds of this hero, tarnishes his name and the principles he held dear. ________________________________________________________________
Robert Amoroso (Amo) is a published author, public speaker, and a contributing political columnist. His novel entitled JOURNEY is currently in the marketplace. For more information on Mr. Amoroso, please log on to; authorsden.com/robertamoroso
Copyright 2005 Robert Amoroso
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