Excerpt from the Code Pink Appeal to Congress:

“In the 1870s, Julia Ward Howe, appalled by the carnage of the Civil War, wrote a proclamation that gave birth to Mother’s Day. It said in part: ‘Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.’ She implored women around the world to gather together in counsel to seek ways to disarm.

“This Mother’s Day, we ask you, we beseech you, we implore you for the sake of our children, to stop funding further bloodshed and bring our troops home in 2007. Please heed the cries of women over the centuries who long for the embrace of loved ones sent off to battle. Commit to us that you will bring our soldiers home by the holidays.”