Cindy Sheehan and Vets for Peace in Texas

Progressives are climbing on board the campaign to help Cindy Sheehan, the mother who lost her son Casey Sheehan in Iraq and is camping out next to President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas to demand answers.

Cindy's encampment was part of a trip to Texas by Veterans for Peace, who were also targeting Bush's vaca spot. Retired Special Forces Sgt. Stan Goff offers some good context on the Vets for Peace gathering in Dallas, and the growing movement among military families who are resisting the war -- including Sgt. Kevin Banderman, who's been thrown in prison for 15 months for filing a conscientious objector application with the Army:

Soldiers and soldier's families are constantly instructed on something called courage. People can only hear that word so many times before they begin to actually reflect on what it means; and the briefest reflection reveals something much deeper than the pumped-up physical bravado required to engage in gunfights with strangers.

This administration knows now that the very training and indoctrination that prepares troops for battle can slip the leash and provide the will to face first the truth, and then themselves, and then even prison.

That really sucks for them, for Bush and Rumsfeld, who can never understand anything but the bravado of the rich bully. Because history will be far kinder to Kevin and Monica Benderman than it will be to George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld.

Read the whole thing here. And while you're at it, go here for a revealing look at how right-wing pundits really view military families.