Army Spc. Casey Sheehan, who was killed in April 2004 in an ambush in Sadr City, Iraq, was “a very dedicated young person, very willing to help people,” recalled Father Benedict DeLeon, a pastor in Diocese of Sacramento.

Whether he was helping as an altar server, a youth ministry leader or an extraordinary minister of Communion at his home parish, St. Mary Church in Vacaville, the young man was always there, “unselfish and generous, always willing to give a thousand percent,” Father DeLeon told The Herald in an interview.

The priest made the comments as the dead soldier’s mother, Cindy Sheehan, remained camped out along a road near President George W. Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas. She was protesting the U.S. war in Iraq and demanding that Bush talk to her.

Now pastor of St. Thomas the Apostle Parish in Oroville, Father DeLeon was pastor of St. Mary Church from 1996 to 2001. He remembered Cindy and Patrick Sheehan and their four children being “regulars” at the Sunday night youth Mass. At that time, Cindy Sheehan was the parish’s youth minister, a position she held for eight years.

Cindy Sheehan began a vigil in front of Bush’s ranch Aug. 6. Last year, shortly after her son was killed, Bush met with her and other number of parents who lost children in the war. At the time she said she was grateful for the meeting. But now, she said, her feelings have shifted from shock to anger and she wants the president to answer her questions about the war.

Two of his advisers met with her but Bush has not said if he will.

“I want to let (Bush) know that millions of Americans believe that the best thing we can do for our security, for our soldiers and for the Iraqi people is to bring the U.S. troops home from Iraq now. If I do meet with the president, it will be for all Gold Star Families for Peace who lost children in this war,” said Sheehan in a commentary published in the Sacramento Bee Aug. 13.

Sheehan, who did not respond to requests from The Herald for an interview, is co-founder of Gold Star Families for Peace, a group of military families who want to end the war, which was organized in January 2005. Her makeshift camp has attracted about 100 anti-war protesters and dozens of counterprotesters.

Patrick Sheehan told The Herald that his eldest son, who attended Catholic school from kindergarten through eighth grade, had a special love for his church.

“We always speculated that Casey would enter the seminary,” he said. He recalled that his son enlisted in the Army in August 2000 with the goal of becoming a chaplain’s assistant but was told that a position in that program was not available at the time so Casey Sheehan was deployed as a mechanic.

Patrick Sheehan, who has been separated from his wife since June and filed for divorce in Solano County District Court Aug. 12, said that several months after his son was killed, he had a conversation by e-mail with a soldier in Iraq who told him how Casey had spent one of his last days there.

“He was part of a small group that had waited for a priest to arrive for Communion, but when it became apparent the priest was not going to show up, they decided to have a prayer service,” Patrick Sheehan said. “Ultimately Casey died the way he lived, serving other people.”

He told The Herald that his life is now focused on one thing: “I use to try to live up to my ideals of my father, but I will spend the rest of my life trying to live up to the ideals of my own son,” he said.

Vacaville resident Rita Irwin’s three children were active in the St. Mary Church youth group with Casey Sheehan during the mid-1990s.

“(Cindy Sheehan) was 100 percent dedicated to the youth program and put all her energy and passion into it,” said Irwin, who recalled their family spending Thanksgiving dinners with the Sheehans. “The youth group was our family.”

She said she found it remarkable the way Casey Sheehan quietly went about doing the work that needed to be done as a teen-ager and later as a young man who enlisted in the Army to serve his country.

While completing Army training at Fort Hood, Texas, Casey Sheehan served as a eucharistic minister, altar server or usher, whatever was needed at the chapel where he attended Mass.

“Wherever Casey was, he was always doing God’s work,” Irwin said.

Steve Tholcke, who is director of Camp Pendola, a diocesan-operated summer camp program in the Sierra foothills, first met Casey, then 17, when he arrived to work as a youth volunteer. He was an Eagle Scout who had a passion for the outdoors.

“He was just this tall, quiet gentle giant who was about service,” said Tholcke, who watched a young man who seemed to be everywhere, from working in the kitchen serving meals to leading youth retreats.

“Casey’s world was other people, not about Casey,” Tholcke said. “Casey lived his faith.”

Since the young man’s death, Camp Pendola’s Web page has been filled with memories of him from volunteers, staff and campers.

With memorial donations, the camp has created “Casey’s Grove,” located in the pine trees at the start of the camp’s meditation trail.

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