Left-wing anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan is demanding that President Bush meet with her in person. She states that she has that right, because her son was killed in the war in Iraq. Most Americans sympathize with her plight as a grieving mother. But, many —perhaps most — Americans disagree with her using her son’s corpse as political sniping bait.

For those unfamiliar with the technique, sniping bait is depicted quite well in the final scenes of the movie “Full Metal Jacket”. (That movie was a graphic portrayal of the book Dispatches, by Vietnam War correspondent Michael Herr. I read the book shortly after it was published — long before the movie.) In the heat of battle, a soldier is wounded. He lies on the ground, writhing in pain. His squad looks on from a position of cover. Then, someone is sent out to rescue the wounded soldier. But, just as he approaches the first victim, the rescuer becomes the victim of a sniper. (The technique doesn’t hinge upon whether the first victim fell to the sniper’s rifle, or was simply injured by any random act on the battlefield.) Now, two soldiers are lying in the open, in obvious pain. (The sniper’s preferred targets are knees and ankles, because self-rescue becomes painfully impossible.) It becomes difficult to find volunteers to go out for another rescue, and the pinned-down unit becomes demoralized. Sometimes, the sniper adds to this factor by loudly taunting the unit from a hidden position.

Cindy Sheehan is loudly taunting President Bush, albeit from a very visible position — willingly provided and protected by the “Mainstream” Media (MSM). Any attempts to “rescue” the situation will obviously be met by more sniping. But, because of the visibility and firepower provided by the MSM, the president cannot “disengage and outflank” Sheehan. So, she continued (until recently) to demand a meeting with President Bush.

Pundits on both ends of the political spectrum have pointed out, though, that Mrs. Sheehan has previously met with President Bush. She had her chance, because the meeting was specifically about the loss of her son. She did not have to set it up with anyone, or steer the conversation, or elbow her way past a throng of staffers. She could have said then all the things that she is saying now. So, why didn’t she? (In her own words, her direct comments to President Bush were centered on her own emotions, and not on any anti-war sentiments.)

This may sound harsh, but I’ll say it. Then, I’ll spell out some facts to “put the foundation under it”, to paraphrase Henry David Thoreau. Cindy, please move on. (Yes, I’m saying it that way to mock the fact that you’ve been supported by the Hillary-centric, hard-Leftist, anti-anything-conservative MoveOn.org. That organization is funneling political ammunition to promote Bernie Sanders to the US Senate. The Left-leaning “Mainstream” Media [MSM] refers to Sanders as an “Independent”, but he is really an open Socialist.) If she was sincere about being against the war, then Cindy Sheehan had an opportunity to prove it when the MSM was at her disposal after her meeting with President Bush. And, her recent change of tactic — no longer demanding a second meeting with the president — only underscores the fact that she’s against more than just the war. My experience in observing Leftist political activities is that they are much more energetic about being “against” things than being “for” things. (That is one reason that I’m a “converted liberal”. It was the liberals themselves that converted me.)

There’s more logic to my advice that Mrs. Sheehan “move on”. Her son was killed in a war. It is an unfortunate fact of the human condition: killing is what happens in wars. But, most of the time, those killings are done “quickly and efficiently”. Casey Sheehan volunteered to be part of a quick-reaction team (QRT). The men in his team were killed in an attack by rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). An RPG round in a vehicle is often instantly deadly to all occupants. The point of these facts is that Casey Sheehan went into the situation knowing the risks, and those risks got the better of him. To read the op-ed accounts, it is almost as though Cindy Sheehan thinks that President Bush personally singled out her son for death. Cindy, please move on.

By contrast, some people die very slowly — drained of life in many ways. In one of the true ironies of this situation, Cindy Sheehan mocked the death of Terri Schiavo as less important than continuing front-page coverage of … Cindy Sheehan. Terri’s family fought valiantly — in several different ways, in at least two different legal systems, over a period of several years — to stop her greedy husband from depriving her of simple food and water in a nursing home. (At their very core, isn’t food and water exactly what “nursing” homes are for?) If that isn’t an example of “me first” by Cindy Sheehan, then I don’t know what is. Those parents — also Catholic, like Sheehan — were forced by circumstance to watch daily as their daughter’s health deteriorated, and then our government forced Terri into a days-long “adult-onset abortion”. Terri Schiavo suffered death in ways that are parallel to Jesus’ crucifixion (knowing ahead of time that it would happen, aching from thirst, having family and friends watch it slowly happen). Cindy Sheehan owes Terri’s parents an apology for her selfish article. Cindy, please move on.

In the same article, in her own words, Cindy Sheehan puts Terri Schiavo’s case on the same level as news coverage of accused child molester Michael Jackson. But, like the parents of Terri Schiavo, the parents of those children suffered anguish that continued to be prodded for years. By contrast, Army Specialist Casey Sheehan has long stopped suffering. Whether one agrees or disagrees with the war, the hard fact is that her son is no longer subject to the pain of his combat situation. But, sexually-abused children and their families suffer for years after the incident — even if they get help. Cindy, please move on.

OK, now it’s time to get personal.

In my own life, I’ve suffered the loss of a child in a different way. My child was “protected” from me by a drunken Republican judge that had a political axe to grind. In 1994, I was the only anti-abortion candidate in a three-way congressional race. (News reports from “Christian” groups — which claimed that “no pro-life candidate lost a congressional race in 1994” — intentionally overlooked me, because I’m a conservative but not a Republican.) Both the Democrat and the Republican candidates were pro-abortion. Spending only $3,000, my campaign got over 4,400 votes in a 200-mile-wide district. And, my campaign prevented a wealthy Republican (whose views were far to the Left of what most Republicans support) from getting elected. And, after the election, the Republican candidate had a heart attack.

During my 1994 campaign, my first wife left me. (She had been looking for an excuse, and an opportunity to “make it hurt”, for several months.) In the wake of the “downsizing” of my military career — for blowing the whistle on an illegal environmental dumping incident — I was unable to get a job with anywhere near the pay and benefit package that I had in the Air Force. Rather than blame macro-economic circumstances, she just blamed me. When the money ran out, so did she. Then, we entered divorce court.

Rather than go into lengthy and painful details, I will simply say that the aftermath of the divorce gave the opportunity for said drunken judge to get revenge on behalf of his Republican colleagues. (In the courtroom, Judge Herbert Ray was unable to read my court papers — first because he did not have the file in the courtroom, and secondly because he held the papers upside-down after sending an aide to get the file. He slurred his words throughout the hearing, and later cited the wrong cases in his written decision. Several area lawyers have told me that they know that he is frequently drunk in the courtroom. But, they refuse to go on record, because they know what will happen to their incomes if they do. The New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct later censured Judge Ray for funneling “law guardian” payments to a political rival — in exchange for him withdrawing from the election for Judge Ray’s seat on the Family Court bench. But, that same NYSCJC refused to investigate my five-page, detailed complaint about his intoxication on the bench.) One of my pro-se motions did cause Judge Ray to recuse himself. The very next judge (we’ve had six!) told me — in chambers, of course, “Mr. Kovach, your combative nature has not served you well.” He was specifically referring to my motion — to force an open hearing in my “closed door” Family Court case — when he said that. I won the battle, but lost my daughter.

She has grown up thinking of her father as an abuser. It is not true, and never was. But, truth doesn’t matter when facing certain politically-motivated situations. Ten years have been carved out of our father-daughter relationship. The divorce was precipitated by the fact that — in their haste to get rid of this whistleblower — I was discharged without a physical exam (in violation of Federal law, and Air Force regulations), and thus denied even the opportunity for a medical retirement (for spinal injuries suffered in a high-speed parachute malfunction). If the retirement money had been coming in, my first wife probably would not have had an opportunity to make the false allegations against me. (Although things were sometimes rocky, we did love each other, and the financial strain became more than she could bear. Thus, the divorce probably would not have happened if the financial cushion had been there. And, the allegations were only made when she moved to have me thrown out of our home.) Regardless of the money factor’s influence on the divorce itself, the money from a military retirement might have enabled me to afford a lawyer to defend against the false allegations of child abuse. (I learned “under fire” to become a pro-se, but at an obvious cost.) It is another unfortunate fact that false allegations of child abuse are extremely common in divorce cases, and that those false allegations reward lying spouses financially. But, that’s another story — covered extensively by MensNewsDaily.com.

OK, what’s the point, Tom?

The point of all of this personal whining is that one phone call from the President of the United States could change much of my current circumstance, and my daughter’s. Back in 1999, when I did some calculations in an attempt to correct the problem within the system, Uncle Sam owed me more than a quarter-million dollars in back pay from my illegal discharge. Our Commander-in-Chief can make one phone call, and order the Pentagon to make my situation right. (All I want are the pay and promotions that were denied me illegally. I’d gladly forego any “punitive damages”, in exchange for the money, and the title “Master Sergeant, USAF, retired”. They get a bargain, because everyone that knew me said that I was destined to make Chief Master Sergeant … early.)

But, chances are that the phone call will never happen. Why? Simple. I don’t “play well with others” when it comes to suppressing the truth. (And, I have information stored in certain places that would be politically devastating to certain people in power. They know what some of it is.) When the president’s detractors have relied upon liars for their “facts”, I’ve written about it. On those occasions when President Bush has been right, I’ve written about it. But, on those occasions when he has been wrong, I’ve written about that, too. And, it is an unfortunate fact that the Republican Party is no longer the party of true conservatives in America (if it ever was).

During the ten years that my daughter was denied access to her father (her mother would not even allow her to mail me a school photo for most of that time), my daughter became someone much different than the little girl to whom I taught the alphabet. Yes, I know that people change; and, that some of those changes might have happened anyway. But, not all of them would’ve happened. And, a lot of pain could’ve been avoided all the way around (even for my ex-wife).

The point is that my daughter has gone through ten years of being drenched in lies, and suffers in ways that she doesn’t even realize. Casey Sheehan’s suffering was brief. I can do much to relieve my daughter’s suffering, if only I had the resources that were wrongfully taken from me. Cindy Sheehan can do nothing to change her son’s circumstances — which he voluntarily chose as an adult. My daughter has a chance for a successful future here on Earth, if I could provide certain things to her that I’ve been blocked from having the opportunity to provide. Cindy Sheehan has no such opportunity, even if the president were to meet with her every day. The MSM reports every little detail of Cindy Sheehan’s activity. (Well, at least every detail that is favorable to the Left. There are some things about Cindy Sheehan that the MSM glosses over. I have not heard any MSM report that -- in her own words -- Cindy Sheehan threatened to run over her son with a car to prevent him from returning to Iraq.) And, the MSM does not report that Cindy Sheehan is viewed unfavorably by the majority of Americans — overwhelmingly so when military families are polled.

The MSM has refused to report the aftermath of my whistleblowing, because of the fact that certain Left-wing politicians did nothing about the environmental incident. The MSM purportedly fights injustice, but won’t mention the multiple injustices that caused me to lose my military retirement, my home, my first marriage, and much of my relationship with my daughter. (Thank God, despite all the obstacles, we have begun to rebuild it in recent weeks.) The Federal government refuses to obey its own laws and regulations, unless someone in power forces certain departments to follow the rules and to correct their mistakes.

So, when do I get to meet the president?

Tom Kovach