Numbers
by Cindy Sheehan
The now famous black shirt with white lettering that I was wearing on January 31st to the State of the Union address originally read: 2000 Dead. How many more? That shirt was made by Veterans for Peace on the occasion of the 2000th U.S. soldier killed in Iraq. That tragic number was reached on September 25th, 2005.
About four months later, on the morning of January 31st, before my fellow peace activist and partner in patriotic dissent, Ann Wright, and I set out for our day's adventures, Ann put masking tape over the zeroes in the 2000 and wrote: 242. Thus changing the number to 2242, which was the upsetting casualty total for that day.
Before I set out for my fateful trip to the Capitol Building, we discovered that the number had sorrowfully risen to 2245. While Ann and I were giving the People's State of the Union address that afternoon with Congressman John Conyers, courageous Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey and Katrina rights activist, Malik Rahim, three more American families were sent into a tailspin of loss, grief and despair from which they will never fully recover.
The number on my shirt was changed to 2245. 2245 Dead. How many more?
As of January 31st, at least 2245 North American families had paid the ultimate price for this administration's stupid and careless policies in Iraq. Thousands upon thousands of our young men and women have been wounded, some grievously, for the arrogance of empire. Innumerable Iraqis have been slaughtered for just going about their lives that day and for the heartless and supercilious policy of "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here."
Today, in the City of Brotherly Love, I attended an awards ceremony for the Shalom Peace Center where I was given an award for being a prophetic voice. (It's not an easy job). But, that's not the important thing. The important thing is that one of my friends and biggest supporters brought some masking tape and a marker and many of the attendees were wearing about four inches of tape with the number 2250. That means five more angels were sent to an early grave since Tuesday, five more Mothers were unjustly and needlessly given a life's sentence of pain, five more Fathers will be beginning an odyssey of mostly silent heartache: countless families ruined for our country's preemptive foreign policy against imaginary enemies.
I believe that whether one supports the wars of aggression of the malicious empire that is taking away our civil liberties as it is sending our young people off to kill and be killed, or whether one opposes preemptive murder, we should all be honoring our children who have given their lives nobly for such an ignoble cause.
Numbers frighten people. The number of crosses that the Veterans for Peace
put up each Sunday on some California beaches scares the living daylights out of the people who support George and his murderous policies. These people claim that the VFP are making a political statement and want the numbers to go away and not disturb them. Being confronted with numbers, faces, and reality is too much for some people. As a former math teacher, I know that many people have an unreasonable fear of numbers. The number of our war dead in Iraq is very fear inducing. I know numbers are very alarming especially when there is no logical reason for them.
We know George Bush went AWOL from his dangerous 'Nam duty in the Alabama Air National Guard. I suppose he was fighting them in Alabama so they wouldn't have to fight them in Massachusetts. We know George Bush did not have the tiniest bit of the courage of our troops when he wouldn't meet me face to face on his adoptive turf of Crawford, Tx. Now the world knows that he doesn't even have the fortitude to face a t-shirt.
As humans, we all know that it is very hard to face one's mistakes, especially when undeserving people have paid a horrible toll for that foolishness. But what am I talking about? From failures in his business life to compound, harmful and inexcusable failures in his public life, George Bush has never even admitted a mistake, let alone faced one.
Well, it's time George faced this mistake and is somehow made to feel intense shame for the biggest mistake of his miserable mistake filled life.
I call on people that are for peace and justice to wear the number on their chests every day...near their hearts. To honor our dead, but to also confront the ones who are waging this war, and supporting the wagers of death, but who won't risk their own flesh and blood for the crimes against humanity that are perpetrated on a daily basis. I implore everyone in the U.S. to remember that each number in the grisly count represents a living, breathing, wonderful, loving and indispensable member of a family, community, and our nation. They are not just numbers. They were human beings before they were exploited for oil and greed.
Wear the number for our dead. Wear the number for their families. Wear the number for our wounded. Wear the number for our children still in harm's way whose confusion about the mission is growing and who only want to come home. Wear the number for people who will be in the way of the future wars of aggression that the war criminals in DC are already planning. Wear it for the people of Iraq who only want us to go away.
Wear the number for peace.
To find the number each day go to: www.iCasualties.org
Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Spc. Casey Austin Sheehan who was killed in Iraq on April 04, 2004; Founder and President of Gold Star Families for Peace (www.GSFP.org) and author of Not One More Mother's Child available at www.KOAbooks.com. Cindy is also the very proud mother of Carly, Andy, and Janey Sheehan who hold down the fort in Vacaville, Ca.
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Cindy Sheehan honored here Anti-war activist among 4 hailed at synagogue
By REGINA MEDINA
Philadelphia Daily News | 02/06/2006 | Cindy Sheehan honored here
LAST TUESDAY, peace activist Cindy Sheehan was arrested, handcuffed and removed from the U.S. House gallery shortly before President Bush's State of the Union Address.
She was wearing a T-shirt alluding to her anti-war sentiments - "2245 Dead. How many more?"
Yesterday, Sheehan had the same basic message, but wore a long black dress with a large photo of her fallen son, Army Spec. Casey A. Sheehan, hanging from a ribbon around her neck.
This time, her 250-strong audience at Congregation Mishkan Shalom in Roxborough was much more receptive to her words than Capitol police. (Authorities later dropped charges and apologized to Sheehan.)
"Every day I wear this," said Sheehan, referring to the photo. "I don't want anybody to see me without him."
Sheehan and three others - progressive activist and writer Jeffrey Dekro; White Dog Cafe owner Judy Wicks; and Celeste Zappala, a fellow Gold Star Families for Peace activist - were honored by the Shalom Center for their social-justice endeavors.
Sheehan, the California activist, gained national attention last summer when she set up a mock graveyard, Camp Casey, near the entrance to Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas.
Yesterday, she was the keynote speaker and is close with Rabbi Arthur Waskow, director of the Shalom Center. Waskow introduced her, calling her a "prophet."
Teacher Lynn Robinson, who was handing out fliers at the event about an upcoming Presidents' Day demonstration, said Sheehan has "the spirit of Martin Luther King."
"I'm so glad that I got to see her speak in public, finally," said Robinson, 51, of Erdenheim. "The media has not relayed the essence of her message very accurately. They marginalize her as a sentimentalist."
In her talk, Sheehan demanded an investigation into "the lies" that led to the war in Iraq.
Sheehan referred to Bush as "King George, our tyrant King George III." When she said Bush should be "impeached and removed from office," the crowd responded with loud applause.
"I want to accept this honor in Casey's memory, Sherwood's memory and Seth's memory," she said.
Army Sgt. Sherwood Baker is Zappala's son, killed on April 26, 2004. Army 2nd Lt. Seth Dvorin, killed two years ago this past Friday, is the son of activist Sue Niederer, who attended yesterday's event.
Space was rented at the synagogue on Freeland Avenue near Shurs Lane by the Shalom Center organizers.
The Bush administration is "creating new damaged veterans" who return from Iraq with emotional problems and suicidal tendencies, Sheehan said.
"Everyone who leaves, goes over there and dies," she said. "Not one of them comes back the same person who left."
Sue Niederer strongly agreed on that point, saying after Sheehan's speech that families are being torn apart by the war.
Niederer was arrested in Hamilton, N.J., before the 2004 presidential election when, she says, she asked First Lady Laura Bush, "If the war is justified, why aren't your daughters enlisted?"
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Sheehan's message lost in the furor
Cindy Sheehan should send a thank you note to Beverly Young. Sheehan is the anti-war activist whose son was killed in combat in Iraq. Young, the wife of a powerful member of the Republican majority that runs Congress with an iron fist, is an unabashed supporter of the Iraqi war.
The women shared a common fate the night President Bush gave his State of the Union address. Both were made to leave the House of Representatives gallery after security officers spotted them wearing T-shirts adorned with messages.
Sheehan wore a shirt emblazoned with the message, "2245 Dead. How many more?" It was an allusion to the body count of American servicemen and women who have died in Iraq since Bush ordered U.S. forces to invade that country.
Young, who has been as brash in supporting the war as Sheehan has been in criticizing it, had on a T-shirt that bore the message: "Support the Troops - Defending Our Freedom." Capitol Hill police accused both women of violating an unwritten rule against mounting a protest in the House chamber.
But from that point, their paths took different directions.
Sheehan, the first to be booted out of the gallery, was handcuffed before being led out of the seating area in advance of Bush's address - a speech in which he talked at some length about his efforts to bring democracy to Iraq and other parts of the Middle East.
According to The Washington Post, Capitol police said Sheehan became "vocal" when she was told to cover up her T-shirt, a charge she denied. What's certain is that she was arrested and unceremoniously hauled off to the Capitol police station.
Young, whose husband - Republican C.W. "Bill" Young of Florida - chairs the House Appropriations subcommittee on defense, was ushered out during the president's speech. She admits calling an officer "an idiot" for saying her T-shirt in support of the troops constituted a protest. She also told a reporter from the St. Petersburg Times that she was so angry that she "got real colorful" in her exchange with the cops. But Young was not handcuffed or arrested.
Sheehan was released on her own recognizance after being charged with a misdemeanor. But that charge has been dropped, most likely because Rep. Young went ballistic over the treatment of his wife. The next day, he took to the House floor to decry her removal from the gallery.
In fact, the powerfulcongressman was so upset that he called Capitol Hill police Chief Terrance Gainer "and asked him to get his little tail over here," Young told the St. Petersburg Times. Gainer beat a path to Young's office and quickly fell on his sword, apologizing to the chairman and his wife.
Afterward, Gainer released a statement apologizing to both women. What happened was all a mistake. Well-intentioned officers had overreached their authority, he said.
That conclusion likely was prompted by Rep. Young's ire, not the earlier protestations of Sheehan, who got no audience with the police chief before Young took him to the woodshed.
You can bet the farm that if Beverly Young hadn't been ushered out of the House gallery, Sheehan would still be facing a court date for her "protest." That she isn't says more about the raw power that Republicans wield in Congress - over even the Capitol police - than it does about the tolerance of our democracy.
"Our nation is grateful to the fallen, who live in the memory of our country," Bush said in his State of the Union speech after Sheehan was removed from the gallery. "We're grateful to all who volunteer to wear our uniform - and as we honor our brave troops, let us never forget the sacrifices of America's military families."
That's exactly the message Cindy Sheehan tried to drive home with the T-shirt she wore that night.
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