Cindy Sheehan to speak,
receive award at November CTA conference

America's best known mother of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq, Cindy Sheehan, will receive CTA's 2006 Leadership Award at the national conference Nov. 3-5 in Milwaukee. She will also be a featured speaker.

A practicing Catholic from Vacaville, Calif., who served for eight years as her parish youth minister, Sheehan grieves for her son Casey, 24, an Army Humvee mechanic killed by insurgents on April 4, 2004, Palm Sunday, three weeks after arriving in Iraq. Casey had been an altar boy for ten years, a Eucharistic minister, and an Eagle scout. He was the oldest of Cindy's four children. He had re-enlisted after serving one stint in the Army because he thought it was the right thing to do.

Cindy connected with other Gold Star Mothers of slain U.S. troops, and started speaking out on July 4, 2004. She has been speaking out ever since. In August 2005 she and her sister traveled to Crawford, Tex., to speak to President Bush, was refused access, then announced she would camp outside Bush’s ranch until he agreed to meet with her. National television and print media focused on her vigil at “Camp Casey,” and hundreds of like-minded opponents of the U.S. war in Iraq soon gathered around her. She then began a nationwide speaking tour under the banner of “Gold Star Families for Peace.”

Cindy was arrested in front of the White House last September, gave a keynote address at the World Social Forum in Caracas in January, and was arrested at Bush's 2006 State of the Union address merely for wearing a t-shirt that said, “2,245 Dead. How Many More?” She is the author of two books, Dear President Bush and Not One More Mother's Child.

Sheehan and Gold Star Families for Peace will re-open Camp Casey outside the Bush ranch in Crawford, Tex., April 13-16 while the president is there for the Easter holiday. Speakers and music are planned at the checkpoints guarding the ranch.

Visit the Gold Star Families’ website at www.gsfp.org. It has links to dozens of other groups opposing the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq.