There are times when a messenger becomes so controversial, so polarizing, that the message itself is lost. Such was the case with Cindy Sheehan.

After her 24-year-old son, Army Spc. Casey Sheehan, was killed in Iraq on April 24, 2004, she became one of thousands of grieving parents whose child was claimed by the war.

But by August 2005, Sheehan had turned that grief into anger and spearheaded a one-woman anti-war movement by camping outside President Bush's Texas ranch for 26 days, demanding to speak to him about her son's death.

Since then, Sheehan has been at the forefront of the growing movement against the war, attracting thousands of supporters at rallies and protests.

She was an easy target for Republicans, who labeled her a radical and argued that her cause was harmful to our troops. Democrats used her as a poster child for the human cost in Iraq, but quickly turned on her when she began criticizing the party for voting to fund the war.

Criticism is the price one pays when they put themselves and their opinions out there — and, indeed, Sheehan put hers out there. It was difficult to understand how someone could seemingly abandon their life to take on the president of the United States. Now that she has announced that she is "resigning" from the movement, her chapter in the war in Iraq may well be dismissed as radical or unpatriotic.

But that would be a shame.

Whatever your opinion of Sheehan, her actions were that of a citizen, a voter, and above all, a soldier's mother. She held both parties accountable for their actions and demanded answers. In this crucial time of war, that is absolutely vital.

With the addition of two Schofield Barracks soldiers killed on Memorial Day in Iraq, bringing the death toll to 201 from our state, it would serve us well to focus on the message — that of peace, resolution and accountability — not the messenger.