Me#1You#10
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Joined: 06 May 2004
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 Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 3:12 pm Post subject: Thomas Lipscomb: "A day to accept a memorial" |
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Thomas Lipscomb with a gentle reminder on some unfinished business...
| Quote: | A day to accept a memorial
A famous casualty of the Iraq war may - and should - get the monument he deserves.
Thomas Lipscomb
May 23, 2006
On a pleasant hillside in the Vacaville-Elmira cemetery in California, there is a grave that still has no gravestone almost two years after a brave young soldier was buried there.
According to his mother, he was born on Memorial Day and died at age 24 on April 4, 2004, fighting with the First Cavalry Division in a militia- and terrorist-infested district of Baghdad named Sadr City. He was not an unknown soldier. In fact, thanks to his mother's constant use of his name in media appearances, he may be the best-known soldier of the Iraqi war. He's Casey Austin Sheehan, the son of antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan.
The expense of a memorial gravestone is a problem for many people on limited incomes. But Cindy Sheehan was the beneficiary of $250,000 from her son's insurance policy. Besides, the federal government pays for funeral expenses and a simple marble marker. As a veteran, Casey Sheehan also merited a free plot with perpetual care in one of the nation's many national cemeteries.
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So with all of these resources, why is Casey Sheehan's grave still unmarked? His mother made an effort of her own lately. In the January issue of Vanity Fair she is pictured in a two-page spread lying on her son's unmarked grave in a black jumpsuit with tennis shoes.
<snip>
Cindy Sheehan says she was too broken-hearted to do anything but occasionally put flowers on her son's grave the first year. And perhaps she had some inner resistance to accepting a government gravestone from a Bush administration she detests. But she should remember that the stone doesn't come from one administration. It comes from the government of all of the American people who wish to honor her son's service.
The good news is that Casey Sheehan's father, Patrick, has had enough of this and has quietly arranged with a local monument company to erect a memorial. Wouldn't it be fitting if it were in place in time for Casey Sheehan's birthday, which this year once again falls on Memorial Day?
The Philadelphia Inquirer - cont'd |
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