Karen Starnes Pantzer

A Voice unearthed

from it's dark hole

has recognized

it's fragile role.

When kept within

it stays without

but if released

it learns to shout.

Unmasked, unchained

emerging free,

do not let storms

take liberty.

When freedom sings

to give the choice

don't let the silence

steal your voice.

from Page 2 ... Party People

The "trash troops" return, sweaty and tired, but ready to party! They head over to Double Dave's to celebrate pristine road conditions and Huey's 70th. Some more UU friends drop in to deliver birthday blessings and join in the fun.

Go to our website (www.uulongview.com) to see more pictures.

Published on Friday, October 7, 2005 by CommonDreams.org

by Cindy Sheehan

There were many nights after Casey was killed and we buried him that I had to restrain myself from swallowing my entire bottle of sleeping pills. The pain and the deep pit of hopeless despair were almost too much to cope with. How can a person be expected to live in a world that is so full of pain and so devoid of hope? I

One day about three weeks after Casey was killed, my daughter Carly came out and hit me with my reason for living - her poem : A Nation Rocked to Sleep. One stanza reads:

Have you ever heard the sounds of a mother screaming for her son?

The torrential weeping of a mother will never be done,

They call him a hero, you should be glad he's one, but,

Have you ever heard the sound of a mother weeping for her son?

The first stanza reminded me that I was not the only one in the universe who had such excruciating grief, but the verse that helped me claw my way out of the pit of despair, one agonizing inch at a time, is the last stanza:

Have you ever heard the sound of a nation being rocked to sleep?

The leaders want to keep you numb so the pain won't be so deep.

But if we the people let them continue, another mother will weep.

Have you ever heard the sounds of a nation being rocked to sleep?

I knew when she recited those lines to me that I would have to spend any amount of time, money, or energy to try and bring the troops home before another mother would have to weep. I was ashamed of myself that I didn't try to stop the war before Casey died. I foolishly thought: "What can one person do?"

Well, I now felt that if I couldn't make a difference, I would at least try. If I failed, I vowed that I would go to my grave knowing that I gave it my best shot. .....

Then in August of 2005, after I had already separated from my husband of 28 years, I was sitting at home watching TV (a very rare occurrence) and I saw that 14 Marines from Ohio were killed in one incident. If that weren't heartbreaking and sickening enough, George Bush came on the TV and said that the loved ones of fallen soldiers can rest assured that their loved ones died for "a noble cause." That enraged me and inflamed my sense of failure. I didn't believe before Casey was killed, after he was killed, and on August 3, 2005 that invading a country that was about as much threat to the USA as Switzerland, killing tens of thousands of innocent people all for greed for power and money is a noble cause. I decided to go to Crawford to ask him what the "noble cause" is.

Then George had the unfortunate temerity to say something that has enraged me for months. He said we had to: "Complete the mission to honor the sacrifices of the fallen." I have been publicly calling for him to stop that for months. I don't want one more mother to have her heart and soul ripped out of her for no reason: for lies and crap. I wanted to go to Crawford to demand that George quit using my son's honorable and courageous sacrifice to continue his dishonorable and cowardly killing. .....

... at Camp Casey we remembered something after almost 5 years of a virtual dictatorship of control we have in America now: we the people have all the power. ... see Hope Page 4