Wednesday's Events for the Peacerul Warrior

The Lone Star Iconoclast Online

UPDATES ON CINDY SHEEHAN VISIT TO CRAWFORD
Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2005

12:35 a.m., Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2005

Bill Mitchell, Whose Son Was Killed Same Day As Cindy's,
Flies To Texas From California To Offer Support

Iconoclast Publisher Makes Midnight Visit To Camp Casey

By W. Leon Smith
Publisher, The Lone Star Iconoclast

PRAIRIE CHAPEL ROAD — A distinct calm permeated the grounds of Camp Casey as the midnight hour slipped into Wednesday morning. Crickets sang amid the backdrop of trees on one side, as lights from Waco in the far distance on the opposite side outlined the open prairie in between.

The camp was dark, save the predictable flicker of a thunderhead in the south and the occasional light-up of a cell phone that doubled as a flashlight for a few human night owls seeking a place to get comfortable.

An intermittent sweep of drizzle kept the air muggy, but cool. A few tents and numerous graffiti-scribbled signs were silhouetted as they jutted up from the grass.

In all, about 15 vehicles had made their way to the sanctuary in the ditch where fate decreed an icon of peace to take her stand.

Cindy Sheehan chats with a friend. — Iconoclast Photo By Allison Smith

Cindy Sheehan was seated in a lawn chair next to a friend, who had come to Crawford to lend support for her cause. He, too, had felt the pangs of losing a child to a war he didn't believe in.

It had been a long day for Sheehan, whose voice had softened in the wake of seemingly endless interviews. With worldwide attention focused on her quest to expose the war in Iraq as ignoble, the press had become a constant companion.

But she was tired and it was late; and the unknowns of tomorrow would require strength, so she hugged her friend good-night and wandered toward her tent.

Her friend was weary, too, for California is a long way from Texas and the trip can be exhausting, but he agreed to visit awhile with the publisher of The Lone Star Iconoclast to explain his interest in supporting Cindy.

Bill Mitchell, of Atascadero, Calif.— a city that lies along the central coast halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco — said that he came to Crawford to support Cindy Sheehan, with whom he holds a special bond.

Here is the interview:

MITCHELL: My son, Sgt. Mike Mitchell, was killed in Iraq on 04-04-04 in the same battle with Casey Sheehan. My daughter connected up with the Sheehan family shortly thereafter. I was in Germany at the time with my son's fiancée. I started e-mailing Cindy when I was in Germany.

ICONOCLAST: Were you in favor of the war prior to his death?

MITCHELL: In February 2003 there was a worldwide rally against the war and I was in San Francisco with 200,000 other people carrying signs and marching against the war. This was a month before the war started. I haven't seen war myself, but I am a vet and understand the camaraderie and the military mentality.

ICONOCLAST: How are you dealing with this?

MITCHELL: Not very well. My life's been devastated. It's been turned upside down. Very few aspects of my life have a similarity to the past. It just kind of churns you up, shakes you out, and drops you off. I'm doing much better than I have been.

ICONOCLAST: Does it help to bond with other people who have had similar experiences?

MITCHELL: Extremely. Extremely. I come to events like this and I really get empowered from being with other people and working for the cause. I met Cindy shortly after our sons' deaths. We did some military speak-out events together. I realized there was a power in her speaking and in her stories. Even those people who don't agree with the war, or our opinions, see this.

We have a certain credibility. We're not someone up there that's just espousing some ideology or some belief. We're victims of this war like many other people are.

ICONOCLAST: What do you foresee happening with the war?

MITCHELL: Unfortunately, I see it dragging on — unless we are able to put a stop to it. I can tell you that I first spoke out eight weeks after my son's death, on Memorial Day. That was my first speaking event, at a rally. I've pretty much been speaking out since then, just telling my story.

ICONOCLAST: What was he doing in Iraq when he was killed?

MITCHELL: Mike and Casey died on the same day.

Mike was part of the 1st Armored Division and Casey was with the 1st Cav. Mike had been in Iraq for 11 months. He went there in May 2003 after mission had been accomplished. He was there as part of the stabilization force. Up until April 4th — 11 months in Iraq — not one soldier in their company had died.

On April 3rd, my son and all his buddies packed up all their equipment. They were headed to Kuwait the next week because Casey and the 1st Cav. were the reinforcements that came. This was much different than the Vietnam days. In the Vietnam days, you had maybe a thousand guys flying in everyday and a thousand guys flying back, so you had people there who knew the jungle. They had tribal knowledge.

I am relatively confident that Mike and Casey never met until they were in that plane. That picture that was taken in Kuwait on April 7th? Mike Mitchell and Casey Sheehan were in those boxes.

But Mike couldn't tell the new guys how to get by in Iraq — the tribal knowledge you get being there 11 months. For instance, Mike had basic Arabic down.

Forty-five minutes before Casey died, the general from the 1st Armored Division passed over the command to the general in the 1st Cav. So this whole uprising took place on the day when they were transitioning from the 1st Armored to the 1st Cav.

So what happened on April 4th is that 20 soldiers from the 1st Cav. got ambushed in Sadr City. Mike spent eight months at Sadr City. These guys in the 1st Cav., it was their first day there. They'd never seen Sadr City before. Those 20 guys that got ambushed didn't realize when they drove into the city that there were piles of tires and rubbish and junked cars, whatever, blocking the access back out. These guys were stuck there within the city.

Mike had been out running with his buddy, Carl, and they came back into the camp and there was a buzz going on. One of the tank commanders came to my son and said, "Mitch, Ineed you to ride loader today, in Sadr City." Mike goes, "I'm with you."

Mike had spent two years at Fort Hood. He was part of the 1st Cav. when he was at Fort Hood. I'm sure he felt a certain camaraderie to those new guys that had been ambushed in there.

They send young men to war because they think they're invincible. My son thought he was Mighty Mouse. He kind of laughed when anyone expressed too much concern about his well-being. He told his older sister, Terri, he goes, "There's 35,000 of the 1st Armored here. What's the chance of getting me?" particularly my son being a mechanic. The loader on the tank is a guy sitting there with an M16 machine gun. So that's what my son was doing the last day of his life.

So, eight soldiers were killed that day, seven from the 1st Cav., one from the 1st Armored. That was the first death in Mike's company in 11 months.

We were all back in the states, having suffered through 11 months of Mike being there in Iraq and... he was on his way home. He was a week from going to Kuwait, two weeks in Germany, and three months from his wedding date. He had a fiancéee in Germany who was just crushed. But I pretty much adopted her and am helping her continue on.

So, anyway, I'm here in Crawford, Texas today to support my friend, Cindy Sheehan. I appreciate what she's doing. I was against the war beforehand. I wish I could sit here and tell you how much you should appreciate my son for your liberty and freedom, but, you know, I didn't believe that before the war, and when my son died I surely couldn't grab that and cherish that feeling, because I know it's lies that got us there.

We have no reason to be in that country. There's no reason that Mike or Casey or that the other 1,800 men and women should have died.

ICONOCLAST: You drove here from California?

MITCHELL: I was going to drive, but I ended up getting a plane ticket because Cindy said, "I need you here now." So I flew down to be here and support her and the work she's doing. She's just incredible.

I don't know whether Americans just have too many distractions or are too busy with their own lives, but, you know, this war doesn't touch that many people in America.

ICONOCLAST: What do you think it would take to fix things?

MITCHELL: The mothers of America to all stand up.

It may take the draft. If the recruiting continues to fall short and they are forced to bring the draft back, maybe that might wake people up. But people aren't affected by it. Sometimes, we'll tell people that our sons died in the war, and they go, "What war?"

Every morning when I wake up, it's — hopefully it's my first thought. If I go through five minutes of the morning without thinking about Mike, and all of a sudden I see one of his pictures hanging on my wall, it's kind of a shock again. I'm really kind of happy when I wake up and I have Mike there in my mind because it's not such a shock, a jolt that you go through again.

He was the baby of the family, Casey was the big brother of the family. It's like a little pebble into a pond. There's a ripple effect. There's brothers, sisters, aunts, and uncles.

One of my biggest fears while Mike was in Iraq was that he would never see his grandmother again. (pause) Mike's grandmother had to go to his funeral. She's devastated still by it. My mother's a very sentimental, a very emotional woman. She's having some health issues in her life. I was afraid she would die before Mike got home.

ICONOCLAST: Is there anything you'd like to add?

MITCHELL: I'm sure Cindy has said it, but we know what it feels like to lose a child — to have a child killed in this war. And we're just doing whatever we can to end it so quickly that no one else has to experience that same pain and devastation, the same upset in their lives.

My life has not been the same since my son was killed.

I have three other daughters. I have eight beautiful grandchildren. I was at a very good point in my life. Life had been very good to me. And then this just came and turned it upside down.

I had been hanging out, waiting for Mike to get back from Germany. I was going to jump on a plane after he and Bianca had a few weeks together, fly to Germany, spend a few weeks with him, travel around Spain and Portugal a little bit.

I was back to Germany in August, for Mike and Bianca's wedding and the only other plan I had in my life at that point was Mike and Bianca coming home for Christmas together. Mike was bringing his new wife home.

(long pause)

This is the work I do now — to tell my story and to bring the reality, the pain of this war, back to people in America.

It doesn't so much matter whether I'm out speaking in the name of peace and my son's name or whether I'm out camping having a good time, when I come home to my little four walls, my son's still dead. The death of any child is a devastating event for a parent. A piece of your heart dies when your child dies. So I just want to stop this. I don't want to hear about anybody else dying, American or Iraqi.

When Cindy wrote the couple of quotes about Bush, about him wanting to honor the fallen, I don't want any more blood in my son's name. My son wouldn't want any more blood in his name either. My son was a very sensitive, very caring young man. He'd been with these guys for 11 months. There's a real camaraderie that develops. It was about his buddies. It's not about democracy in Iraq, it's not about freedom and liberty in America. It's his buddies, that develops in a military unit, especially in a war zone.