Editor, the News-Herald:

The Jason Norman article (&uot;A mother’s motives,&uot; Aug. 19) was interesting but ultimately disappointing.

Disappointing because, like most other articles of its kind I have read, it failed to address a fundamental, all-important question: Why are we in Iraq? Kay Hurley alludes to it when she asks &uot;why we are sacrificing so much in our lives.&uot; A good question. But the fact is that most of us, except for people like Cindy Sheehan, are &uot;sacrificing&uot; nothing. Perhaps if we were there would be more people asking our leaders the hard questions.

But at least I can understand where Ms. Hurley is coming from. I would have hoped that some of the others who expressed their opinions would have given us the benefit of their reasoning. Why, for example, is Mr. George O’Berry &uot;[in favor of] what’s going on over there&uot;? And what is the &uot;it&uot; we need to stay and take care of?

Mr. Paul McClenny seems to reduce it all to politics. He seems to be saying that if you support Cindy Sheehan then you must be a Democrat. Not so, Mr. McClenny. I’m a life-long, right wing, Goldwater-voting Republican. And I agree with Jackie Knight when she says, &uot;I’m totally against the war.&uot;

But most of all I would like to hear Mr. Harold Howell elaborate on – or justify, if you will – his position that &uot;Her [Sheehan’s] son got killed because he was protecting us.&uot; What was he protecting us from? Iraq was a beaten and decimated country as a result of 12 years of embargos and almost daily bombing, and posed no threat to our security. Saddam had no WMDs, no atomic weapon capability, no ties to Bin Laden and Al Quida, and no connection to the 9/11disaster. So just what was it Casey Sheehan and the other nearly 1900 American dead were protecting us from?

My mind is open. Someone please answer the question for me. Certainly our president and his chicken-hawk cronies don’t seem to be able to – or want to.

And as for Ms. Bradshaw, one can only assume her daughters are not in the service. But she suggests that because Casey Sheehan was in the army &uot;by choice,&uot; that somehow makes it OK that he died in an unjust, illicit (and unexplained) war. My son is currently in the Navy. If he were to die in Iraq, the fact that he is a &uot;volunteer&uot; would neither justify his loss nor ease the pain there from.

As members of a free, democratic society, we deserve some answers. And that goes for Cindy Sheehan as well.

John M. Sharpe

Suffolk