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Another Gold Star Mom Speaks Out
Will Celebrity-Addicted
America Miss the Point?
A BUZZFLASH READER
CONTRIBUTION
by Mike Ferner
“Some people are trying to paint her as one crazy woman against the
war, and she’s not. A lot of people feel like her and want to
know what the noble cause is,” said Karen Meredith, referring
to Cindy Sheehan.
Meredith should know. Her son, Ken Ballard, was killed
in Iraq. And she’s going to Crawford, Texas this weekend.
However, the 51 year-old mother, whose only child was killed by small
arms fire in Najaf, May 30, 2004, is making the trip from Mountain
View California for somewhat different reasons than what prompted Sheehan
to camp out near George Bush’s vacation home and wait for an answer.
“Personally, I don’t want to meet with the President. I don’t
think there’s anything he could tell me,” Meredith said. “One
of the reasons I’m going is because there’s a whole other
story going on besides Cindy. I don’t want to take anything away
from her,” but wants to keep the focus on the larger question
of the war in Iraq.
Meredith’s presence and that focus will apparently
be appreciated by Sheehan, whose cause has attracted worldwide media
attention. Quoted
in papers across the country today from the camp named after her son,
Casey, Sheehan said, “The media focused more on me and not the
message. I’m not the only one that wants answers.”
In an interview
this morning, Meredith explained that although she is against the war, “people
need to understand that we’re
not anti-military,” adding that her father is a retired Lt. Colonel
and her son, a 27 year-old Lieutenant, was a fourth-generation Army
officer. “But we never got a proper explanation for why we should
invade Iraq.”
Active in Gold Star Families for Peace, Meredith handles the mounting
email traffic for the group and corresponds with many other families
who have lost loved ones in Iraq. “All our stories are sad, and
people need to know that. Every day we hear the news and it just takes
us back to that first day when we learned he was killed.” She
said several family members from the organization are in Crawford and
others are arriving.
When she speaks for Gold Star Families, she said responses are “mostly
positive. There are a few horrible people shouting at us, but everyone
has to figure out what the war means in their own minds.” One
thing she’s learned from her public appearances is that “the
country is terribly divided on the war.”
In hundreds of cities around the country tonight there will be vigils
in support of Cindy Sheehan. Karen Meredith talked with the organizers
of a vigil near her and was told it was going to be a silent event. “I
thought that was odd – that in support of Cindy not even a Gold
Star mom was going to be able to speak. I asked them if they wanted
a real mom or a virtual mom? If all they want is a virtual mom then
they don’t understand the reason Cindy’s in Texas.”
A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION Ferner is a freelance writer from Ohio, writing a book about his trips
to Iraq before and after the U.S. invasion. He can be reached at mike.ferner@sbcglobal.net.
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