OT: Cindy Sheehan goes home

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'It's up to you now': Sheehan quits

 

By ANGELA K. BROWN, Associated Press Writer

 

FORT WORTH, Texas - Cindy Sheehan, the soldier's mother who galvanized an

anti-war movement with her monthlong protest outside

President Bush's ranch, said Tuesday she's done being the public face of the

movement.

 

" I've been wondering why I'm killing myself and wondering why the Democrats

caved in to

George Bush, " Sheehan told The Associated Press while driving from her

property in Crawford to the airport, where she planned to return to her

native California.

 

" I'm going home for awhile to try and be normal, " she said.

 

In what she described as a " resignation letter, " Sheehan wrote in her online

diary on the Daily Kos blog: " Good-bye America ... you are not the country

that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can't

make you be that country unless you want it.

 

" It's up to you now. "

 

Sheehan began a grass roots peace movement in August 2005 when she camped

outside Bush's Crawford ranch for 26 days, demanding to talk with the

president about her son's death. Army Spc. Casey Sheehan was 24 when he was

killed in an ambush in Baghdad in 2004.

 

Cindy Sheehan's protest started small but swelled to thousands and quickly

drew national attention. Over the next two years, she drew huge crowds as

she spoke at protest events. But she also drew criticism for some actions,

such as meeting with Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's leftist president.

 

" I have endured a lot of smear and hatred since Casey was killed and

especially since I became the so-called " Face " of the American anti-war

movement, " Sheehan wrote in the diary.

 

Kristinn Taylor, spokesman for FreeRepublic.com, which has held pro-troop

rallies and counter-protests of anti-war demonstrations, said dwindling

crowds at Sheehan's Crawford protests since her initial vigil may have led

to her decision. But he also said he hopes she will now be able to heal.

 

" Her politics have hurt a lot of people, including the troops and their

families, but most of us who support the war on terror understand she is

hurt very deeply, " Taylor said Tuesday. " Those she got involved with in the

anti-war movement realize it was to their benefit to keep her in that stage

of anger. "

 

When Sheehan first took on Bush, she was a darling of the liberal left.

" However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards

that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and

the 'left' started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used, " she

wrote in the diary.

 

She said she sacrificed a 29-year marriage and endured threats to put all

her energy into stopping the war. What she found, she wrote, was a movement

" that often puts personal egos above peace and human life. "

 

She said the most devastating conclusion she had reached " was that Casey did

indeed die for nothing ... killed by his own country which is beholden to

and run by a war machine that even controls what we think. "

 

Sheehan told the AP that she had considered leaving the peace movement since

last summer while recovering from surgery.

 

She decided on Memorial Day to step down and spend more time with her three

other children. She said she was returning to California on Tuesday because

it was Casey's birthday. He would have been 28.

 

" We've accomplished as much here as we're going to, " Sheehan said, saying

she was leaving to change course. " When we come back, it definitely won't be

with the peace movement with marches, with rallies and with protests. It

will be more humanitarian efforts. "

 

Last year, with $52,500 in insurance money she received after her son's

death, Sheehan bought 5 acres near downtown Crawford as a permanent site for

protests.

 

" Camp Casey has served its purpose, " she wrote in the diary. " It's for sale.

Anyone want to buy five beautiful acres in Crawford, Texas? "

 

" Don't be afraid to try new things. After all, the Ark was built by

amateurs, and the Titanic was built by professionals "

-Unknown

 

 

 

 

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