Normal Life Over for Protesting Mother [View All]

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Normal Life Over for Protesting Mother

Saturday August 13, 2005 10:16 PM

By MARTHA MENDOZA

AP National Writer

VACAVILLE, Calif. (AP) - Before her son was killed in Iraq, before she began a peace vigil outside President Bush's Texas ranch, before she became an icon of the anti-war movement and the face of grieving mothers, there was a time when Cindy Sheehan's life was, by all appearances, incredibly normal.

She grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles, and married her high school sweetheart, Patrick Sheehan. They had four babies, one almost every other year. They drove their growing clan in a huge, yellow station wagon nicknamed the ``BananaMobile.'' She volunteered at a Vacaville church and later, as the children grew, she worked there.

Normal life ended for Cindy Sheehan in April 2004, when her oldest son Casey, 24, a father of twin girls, was killed in Iraq.

First, she says, ``I was a Mom in deep shock and deep grief.''

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5208256,00.html