The Real Story

For so long, I have been curious about Casey . . . Who was Casey you might ask? He was a soldier, he was a mechanic, and he was brave.

Now if someone asked me to tell his story? I would shrug my shoulders and wrinkle my brow and stutter a little before uttering . . . I don’t know.

I just know bits and pieces. He got a purple heart and a bronze star. He had a mother, we saw her pain. All mother’s know the cringe when their child gets hurt . . . And many know it when theirs is taken before themselves.

And that’s where I am . . . I’m on a covert mission crawling through the mires of internet sites trying to find every detail about this young GI’s last precious moments. And you know, it’s as though it’s classified. But you want to know the truth? No body cares enough to know.

But I care . . . I want to know his story. Maybe if you read this quote, you might feel just a little of what a mother feels.

“This war has devastated my family, but especially me. My sweet boy who never passed up a chance to kiss my behind and tell me he ‘wuvs’ me is gone forever . . . “ Said Cindy Sheehan, Casey’s mother.

Put yourself in her place . . . And so my day dreams did . . . I remember the first moment I laid eyes on him . . . He was so tiny, so fragile. The first sound he made was a screeching cry. It started weakly and then it filled the room. That was my boy and I wanted to hide. That’s when it hit me, I was responsible for him. I needed to protect him from the world of evil. If he got hurt, I needed to be there. Now, I was working to put him through school. Every word, ever action was part of me. My knees buckled . . . My nerves were rubber. And when the nurse came in, I was the proud Daddy, vowing to myself never to let anything bad happen to my son.

And now I now what happened in Iraq. I can feel Cindy’s pain . . . For the real story is not Casey’s but a mother’s.

Dan Hanosh