cover image Not One More Mother's Child

Not One More Mother's Child

Cindy Sheehan. Koa Books, $15 (224pp) ISBN 978-0-9773338-0-6

Casey Sheehan, perhaps the most famous GI to die in Iraq, was an Eagle Scout who wanted to be a church Deacon, according to his mother, Cindy. That was before a ""lying, fooling, and betraying"" George Bush and the ""arrogant and ignorant neocons"" sent him to die in an unjust and immoral war-this, too, according to Sheehan and her high-profile supporters. Congressman John Conyers claims in the preface that Sheehan is his hero, and writer Thomas Hartmann adds praise by comparing her to Julia Ward, who penned ""The Battle Hymn of the Republic."" No doubt Sheehan has become a hero to many. This collection of her writings does very little, however, to perpetuate her heroism other than to recap what has already been seen and heard in the media. There are diary entries, letters and speeches, most of which reiterate her anti-Bush, anti-war stance. In fairness, she is a mother, not a writer; an activist and founding member of Gold Star Families for Peace, not a journalist. The book gains momentum when Sheehan describes her decision to go to Bush country in August 2005 to stage the ""peaceful occupation"" of Crawford. But it gets bogged down with florid declarations of her waging a ""Holy War against the War on Terrorism."" Though Sheehan's anguish is made brutally palpable, this book reads like an extended rant, not an instrument of resistance.