CABL Forum - Open letter from a counselor to Cindy Sheehan

I'm sure many of you have seen this, but it's worth a re-read. Although I don't agree with our reasons for being at war, I do remind myself continually (with my hub's help, of course!) that my son and daughter joined VOLUNTARILY and knew the possibilities of being in the military. Thanks as always for all your good thoughts!

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> >> I have been happily married for 35 years, and am also a
> >> counselor, in the San Diego area. I am the mother of two happily married children, and two happily born "grandies."
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> >> Please find attached a copy of an editorial I submitted last week to the San Diego Tribune, and the LA Times. Both were run, resulting in a veritable barrage of hate letters and phone calls. I don't care.

> >> People have got to wake up end again, somehow, take up the reins of responsibility and accountability.
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> >> Dr. Barbara Collier
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> >> Open Letter to Cindy Sheehan
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> >> OK, you have gotten your "mad" out there. You've been noticed. You've attracted pity. You've had your say. Now, please, go home and stop embarrassing yourself and shaming your own son's memory.
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> >> Don't think, for a single moment, that you have the market cornered on grief and loss. There are countless mothers who have lost loved ones. My son fought in the war, but I never had the President of the United States greet me, but if he had, he wouldn't have remembered my son's name either.
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> >> I am a counselor, and I meet with people all the time, who come to me with emotional wounds. It is a natural thing to feel personally wronged when a loved one, particularly a child, is taken, from them... regardless of the cause. They have lost something precious, and they are angry. They want someone, anyone, to "pay." And you have decided that the one "to pay" you for the loss of your son, Casey, is going to be George Bush. And you are "not leaving Crawford until he's held accountable."
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> >> Congratulations! You have now, single-handedly, shamed your own son's memory. Your son VOLUNTARILY, enlisted in the military armed forces, so that people such as yourself could retain the right to speak their minds, make public fools of themselves, verbally attack the office of President of the United States, and (essentially) try to hold him hostage.

> >> You are just a different type of terrorist yourself, and doing the very thing your son died for: resisting.
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> >> War, in case you have never cracked open a history book, is ugly.

> >> People die. Had there not been ranks and files of anguished mothers who also lost their sons during the Revolutionary War, you would not be living here in America, enjoying the rights and freedoms you obviously take for granted, and feel you deserve. Freedom is paid for with blood. Had your son died in the Twin Towers on 9-1-1, you would be chaining yourself to a fence in Crawford, Texas, demanding that George Bush go bomb the hell out of some terrorists.
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> >> Your anger is really towards your son, because he joined the cause of freedom, of his own free will, and you disagreed with his choice to do so. You had personal goals and dreams for him, and now they cannot happen. His life was cut short, and YOU are feeling ripped off and ronged.
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> >> George Bush is not intimidated by you. He is not frightened by you. And quite frankly, he doesn't have the time for you. There are some 300,000,000 people in this country, and he knows precious few of them by name. Get over it. You do NOT speak for the majority of us. You speak for yourself and have, already, embarrassed way too many of us. Pack up your soapbox, and your Jane Fonda want-to-be cause, and go home. Go sit at your son's graveside and apologize to him for shaming him, the cause HE stood for, and his memory you have belittled.
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> >> Dr. Barbara Collier
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Open letter from a counselor to Cindy Sheehan