This is great. A local Northwest Paper (beautiful country) asked for comments on Cindy Sheehan from its readers. Here is what they received:

My son, who is just 22 years old, is proudly serving his country as a combat medic … just a few miles north of Baghdad. He has completed half of his 18 month tour there, and will be home on leave mid-September. He rotates between the camp aid station and duties with the scouts during convoys throughout the city of Baghdad. He has had some close calls himself, and also has saved more than a few lives (ours and theirs!), and I am incredibly proud of him.

I both cry with and cringe at Mrs. Sheehan. This is a sad, tragic burden that no one can share with her. She will carry it alone despite her attempts to involve the country in her grief. I fear that however long this stand of hers runs on, it is delaying that vitally important grieving process she must go through. Delaying it will create bitterness. Bitterness breaks the spirit; it does not heal it. Bitterness will not honor her son’s precious memory. It will prolong her emotional suffering. Her son would not want this for his mom.

I do not feel comfortable standing with her. She has not remembered that there was no draft. She has not remembered that her son was a grown adult. She has forgotten that her son thought over his decision. She has forgotten that her son went to war to serve his country, so honorable a thing to do. I sadly believe that her son would be both embarrassed with her behavior and disappointed that she has not respected his decision to serve his country. I fear that when this all quiets down, everyone will go back to their own towns, and she will still be alone, at the same point in the grieving process she was when all of this started, at the beginning.

And from the other side:

I have taped to my computer a photo of Cindy Sheehan in an agony that I know too well. … For me the pain has not dissipated in six months, nor I suspect will it in six years or 60 years.

How can the president refuse to see and speak to this mother and yet give basketball champions and oil executives his ear and his constant attention? Tell me who has given more to this country than Cindy or I?

In disregarding Cindy I feel that he disregards me and all mothers who have made this sacrifice. That piece of paper I received that said thank you “from a grateful nation” with Bush’s signature means nothing to me. Words are cheap but actions speak volumes.

Note: the second one has this footnote:

(Fallstone’s son, Spc. Alexander Fallstone, 23, was killed Jan. 31 in a training accident at Fort Lewis.

Worth a read.