She was just a mom from California who lost a son in Iraq.

She dared to ask the president to answer a simple question, “For what noble cause did my son die?”

She endured the taunts, condemnation and name calling of the right wing establishment and media.

She camped out in a ditch in Crawford, Texas, hoping to get an audience with the president and to get an answer to her question.

She motivated and mobilized a movement against the Iraq war when the majority of the country still thought that Iraq had something to do with 9/11.

She has quit her quest to get that answer and is going home. This is part of what she said in her farewell letter:

The most devastating conclusion that I reached this morning, however, was that Casey did indeed die for nothing. His precious lifeblood drained out in a country far away from his family who loves him, killed by his own country which is beholden to and run by a war machine that even controls what we think. I have tried every since he died to make his sacrifice meaningful. Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives. It is so painful to me to know that I bought into this system for so many years and Casey paid the price for that allegiance. I failed my boy and that hurts the most.

You can read the entire letter here. Cindy became totally disillusioned, as many of us have, when the Democrats caved to the president and sent him a bill to fund the war with no time-lines for withdrawal of our troops. When 72% of the country wants us out, it is hard to understand why they caved.

Anyway, I wanted to say a public thank you to Cindy for being the brave soul that she was and for putting herself out there when the rest of us were reticent or thought it couldn’t possibly go on for this long. I wish for her some good sleep in a comfortable bed and lots of hugs from her children, but most of all I want her to feel proud of what she has done for Casey and for us all.