Crawford Texas 2005: Cindy Sheehan and I

Gold Star Mom of Sgt. Jeremy R. Smith Looks Back at the Long Days of Protest in Crawford 

CRAWFORD, TEXAS, AUGUST 2005

By Amy Branham

For me, it began with a phone call from Cindy.  We had planned to meet at the annual Veterans For Peace Convention to be held in Dallas, Texas where Cindy was to be one of the keynote speakers. 

“I heard today that George Bush said our kids died for a noble cause.  Why don’t we just go down to Crawford and ask him, What Noble Cause?” Cindy said when I answered the phone.

I thought she was crazy, at first.  Texas is a big place, and you don’t just decide to get in your car and drive 120 miles in August!  But I didn’t hesitate and said “I’ll be there!”

Cindy and I had been online friends for a few months.  We had met through Gold Star Families for Peace online and had corresponded a few times, talked on the phone a couple of times.  I had joined this group about a year after my only son, Jeremy, died just before he was to leave to go to Iraq in 2004.  The members of this group helped me to deal with my pain, anger and mourning in a way I had not been able to before.  I was particularly anxious to meet Cindy and her sister, Dede. 

Well, the day finally arrived for us to go to Crawford.  I didn’t know what to expect.  I thought we’d just load up on a couple of cars and head down there.   I was asked to ride on the VFP Impeach Bush bus with Cindy and some of the vets who also wanted to make the trip.  When we headed out of Dallas early that hot August morning, there was a long caravan of cars following behind us.  It was a hot, noisy trip in that old bus.  We stopped along the way to refresh ourselves and refuel, then hit the road again.

We were to stop at the Crawford Peace House, who was helping to organize our visit.  When we drove up, there were cars every where, people milling around in the yard and in the house, and a host of media waiting for us to get off the bus.  I was pleasantly surprised. 

I had been living in Texas for a number of years and had learned that the people of Texas, for the most part, supported the war and supported their President wholeheartedly.  One thing you did not do was go against the grain and protest the war and, heaven forbid, you did not say anything bad about George Bush or the Bush Family!  Until that moment, I had felt so alone and alienated living in Texas, being against the war, seeing so clearly what was going on while my friends and neighbors could not – or would not.

Cindy and I waited for the others to get off the bus, and then we got off together.   The media immediately encircled her for interviews.  I wandered around, checking out the Peace House and meeting people. 

After awhile, we all met inside and got the scoop on what had been planned for us.  Then we got back on the bus (with a few extra people along for the ride!) and, with an escort from the local law enforcement, headed out to Prairie Chapel Road. 

Dede, Cindy Sheehan and Amy Branham in Crawford Texas 2005

We were met, again, by massive amounts of media who marched with Cindy, Dede and I in the lead followed by members of MFSO, VFP, CodePink and others,  down the side of that road under the hot August sun.  We did not get very close to the President’s ranch because when the long line of protesters started to walk on the black top of the road (as opposed to the weedy bar ditch on the side of the road); the local law enforcement stopped our march.  So we set up on the side of the road.  It was a quiet, lonely place with only the sun and a farmer for company.  But the media was there and they were getting the story out of a mother whose son had died in Iraq.  She wanted to confront the President and ask him, “What Noble Cause?”

By midafternoon almost everyone had gone back to either Dallas or wherever they had come from.  Cindy and I went back to the Peace House to cool off.  We both had heatstroke, I think.  By sunset we were back on the side of the road, the place that became the original Camp Casey, and we spent the night.  There were only a handful of us there that first night.  Some of us slept in our cars, others slept in small popup tents. 

By morning, the media was back and people starting pouring in from across the state.  They wanted to take a stand with us; they wanted to make their voices heard. 

I couldn’t stay, as responsibilities at home called me back to Houston.  But Cindy stayed.  She was joined by thousands upon thousands of people from across the nation who also wanted their voices heard.  Other Gold Star families joined Cindy in Crawford to lend their voices to hers.  Military moms and daughters, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives went to Crawford to have their voices heard.  Veterans from WWII, Korea, Viet Nam, Afghanistan and Iraq joined Cindy to have their voices heard. 

We did not want even one more life to be lost, either civilian or military, to this misguided war.  We did not want another family to experience the heartache and grief we had and we did not want our vets to come home only to find they would not be cared for in the way they should be.

Since that time, Cindy’s life and my life have taken very different courses.  She has been in the public limelight, traveled, and made a huge difference with her message that has never changed, but become stronger and more knowledgable.  We have remained friends and I am very proud of her and the work she has done to promote not only peace, but to hold the leaders of our country accountable for their actions.   Cindy has worked tirelessly in her efforts. 

My life has been quiet as I have worked to not let myself and the rest of my life fall victim to the war and the hideous governing practices of our elected leaders who have, time after time, let the megalomaniacs in the executive office take away our freedoms and rights one by one. 

Cindy is now running against Nancy Pelosi for Congress in San Francisco.  Some say it is THE most important election in the country right now.  I think Cindy stands a good chance at winning. 

My family will soon become a military family again.  One of my daughters is marrying her sweetheart who is in the Army and will be going to Iraq (orders subject to change to Afghanistan, we’re told). 
 
I wish we could have stopped this war long before now.  I wish the leaders of our country would listen to the people who elected them and stop this war.  Our nation is in shambles.  Our Constitution is crumbling.  We are in a state of crisis.  The one thing that would help our economy the very most is to end the war.  Quit spending the trillions of dollars it has cost to continue this war that cannot and will not ever be won in a place where we should never have gone. 

I will always look back in my life with pride at the moment I first stepped foot off the Impeach Bush bus in Crawford and took a stand against what I believed was an egregious wrong.  What we all did in Crawford that hot August in 2005, together, made a difference.  It has helped to influence and change the way people in this country view the war/occupation of Iraq and helped to shed light on the atrocities our government has committed in our name and on our behalf.  We’ve come a long way from that day, all of us. 

The last day I was at Camp Casey in August of 2005, a hot wind blew in late in the day.  It blew over tents and chairs and sent us scrambling to grab everything that wasn’t tied down.  We were about a mile from the President’s ranch.  I looked in the direction the wind was coming from and thought to myself: “the winds of change are blowing.”  Those winds were from Hurricane Katrina that was plowing through New Orleans at that very moment.  The winds of change, indeed!

About the Author: Amy Branham is a Gold Star Mom of Sgt. Jeremy R. Smith.  She lives in Houston, TX.  She can be reached via email at [email protected].  Please visit her web site at: http://amybranham.blogspot.com