Mother seen as betraying the memory of fallen son

Cindy Sheehan is not just taking a stand against the war in Iraq.

She is also dishonoring her son's memory, say family members of fallen Utah soldiers.

The California woman has waited outside President Bush's Texas ranch since Aug. 6 for a face-to-face meeting with the commander in chief and has served as the poster child of dissent against the war in Iraq. Thursday she announced she is temporarily leaving her post outside the ranch to be by her ailing mother's side.

Sheehan's son, Casey, 24, died in an ambush in Sadr city in April 2004.

"Her son chose to go to Iraq. He did what he thought was right, and we feel that she is not," said Julie Cawley Hanson, whose brother, Staff Sgt. James Cawley, was the first Utahn to die in Iraq. "She is dishonoring his memory."

Stan Parkin lost a stepson. Cpl. Matthew Smith was killed in January after a sandstorm caused his helicopter to crash in an Iraqi desert near Rutbah. Another 29 Marines died in the crash, as well as a Navy medic.

Parkin said he doesn't like war and wishes U.S. troops didn't have to continue fighting abroad, but emphasized that he will continue supporting the war effort, because that is what his stepson would want.

"That's all he wanted to do — serve his country," Parkin said. "It irritates the hell out of us, this renegade mother trying to corner Bush. She doesn't know what she's doing. She's got her own agenda."

If Bush will grant a meeting, Sheehan said she plans to demand he bring home the 138,000 U.S. troops serving in Iraq. Sheehan told reporters Thursday that she was leaving her post in Crawford, Texas, to rush to the Los Angeles area to be with her 74-year-old mother, who just suffered a stroke.

She had vowed to remain at the makeshift campsite off the road leading to Bush's ranch until he met with her, or until his month-long vacation was over.

"I'll be back as soon as possible, if it's possible," Sheehan said. After hugging some of her supporters, she got in a van and left.

Multiple families of Utah's fallen soldiers contacted by the Deseret Morning News Thursday said the president should "stay the course" and finish what their loved ones didn't get the chance to do. At least 1,861 servicemen have died since the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, according to Pentagon figures Friday.

"If we pull out now, all those 1,800 men and women who have been killed will have died in vain," Cawley-Hanson said.