This covers another side of Cindy Sheehan's story, and those who have come from all over the country to show their support. From Editor & Publisher:
Cindy Sheehan, Bill Mitchell and the Lost Boys
Reading some of the ample coverage of the Cindy Sheehan protest at the Bush ranch this week, I was shocked to discover that a man I know, who also lost a son in Iraq, had flown to her side. But that wasn't the only surprise.
By Greg Mitchell
(August 11, 2005) -- With the U.S. death toll in Iraq approaching 2,000, and a like number of grieving families, what were the odds that the one father I know personally in that mournful position would end up at Cindy Sheehan's side in Crawford, Texas, this week?
Since he's been protesting the war before it began -- and before he lost his son -- I probably shouldn't have been so surprised.
Yesterday, visiting the Web site of the Lone Star Iconoclast (better known as "George Bush's hometown paper") in Crawford, I came across a firsthand account of a visit by the publisher and editor of that paper, W. Leon Smith, to the Sheehan encampment. She is the woman now famous for demanding to meet with the president to find out from him why her son had to die in Iraq last year, and for what.
Smith, on his suddenly-popular Web site, recounted in Q&A form his interview that day with a man who had also lost a son in Iraq, and had flown in from California to stand with Sheehan.
Lo and behold, the interview subject was none other than Bill Mitchell (no relation), who I interviewed on several occasions last year, and have kept in contact with ever since via e-mail. There was even a picture of the two men chatting, so I finally got to see what Bill looks like: thin, fair, with a moustache.
I'd read a fair amount about Sheehan, and knew Bill's story very well, but still I was shocked when I read in the interview that Mitchell's son Mike had died on the same day, April 4, 2004, as Sheehan's son Casey -- and in the same Sadr City incident.
Read the rest HERE.
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