this makes me want to PUKE

'I'm So Sorry'

In emotional private meetings with the families of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, President Bush offers solace—and seeks some of his own

Aug. 22, 2005 issue - The grieving room was arranged like a doctor's
office. The families and loved ones of 33 soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan
were summoned to a large waiting area at Fort Bragg, N.C. For
three hours, they were rotated through five private rooms, where they met with
President George W. Bush, accompanied by two Secret Service men and a photographer. Because the walls were thin, the families
awaiting their turn could hear the crying inside. President Bush was
wearing "a huge smile," but his eyes were red and he looked drained by the time
he got to the last widow, Crystal Owen, a third-grade schoolteacher who had lost
her husband in Iraq. "Tell me about Mike," he said immediately. "I don't want my
husband's death to be in vain," she told him. The president apologized
repeatedly for her husband's death. When Owen began to cry, Bush
grabbed her hands. "Don't worry, don't worry," he said, though his choking voice
suggested that he had worries of his own. The president and the widow hugged.
"It felt like he could have been my dad," Owen recalled to NEWSWEEK. "It was
like we were old friends. It almost makes me sad. In a way, I wish he weren't
the president, just so I could talk to him all the time."

...........Bush likes to play the resolute War Leader,
and he has never been known for admitting mistakes or regret.
But that does not mean that he is free of doubt. For the past three years, Bush
has been living in two worlds—unwavering and confident in public, but sometimes
stricken in private. Bush's meetings with widows like Crystal Owen offer a rare
look inside that inner, private world

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bring our women and men home, you won't have to pretend to cry any longer