I just finished my interview with Gary Qualls. As many of you already know, Mr. Qualls is the father of LCpl Louis Wayne Qualls, who was killed in action November 16, 2004 in The Battle for Fallujah.

I’ll be dedicating most of this afternoon to Mr. Qualls and his story. The first thing I want to address is the cross Cindy Sheehan’s supporters created bearing the name of Louis Qualls. There has been much controversy about this cross. Some of Sheehan’s supporters claim they only created one cross, like they have for all the other fallen soldiers in Iraq. However, Qualls told me that in fact three crosses and one Texas flag “memorials” were created. He’s taken back each one and continues to hold them in his possession.

“It’s disrespectful. They have these crosses is a ditch. That is not honoring fallen soldiers. I went to ‘Camp Casey’ and asked them if they had a cross with my son’s name on it. As we were talking, one of the protesters came up with a cross and a pen. He wrote my son’s name on it and stuck it down in the ditch right in front of me.”

Qualls was then asked by CNN and several other media outlets if they could film him removing his son’s cross from “Camp Casey” and Qualls agreed:

“I knelt down and took my son’s name from that ditch. When I was doing this, one of the protesters came running over to me. He was going to attack me. I’m just a disabled man who doesn’t know much but won’t let people disrespect the name of his son. If I had to stand there and face this man, then that’s what I was going to do. But one of the protest organizers saw all the cameras and grabbed a hold of him before he could attack me.”

“When I came back out the next day, they had put up another cross with his name, so I took that one down too. And then when they set up the tent for ‘Casey II’ I went there and found a third cross. I took that away and made sure the organizers knew I would not stand for them using my son’s name to support their political cause without my permission. When I came back out yet again, they had set up one of those Texas flags with my son’s name. But the same organizers I had spoken with had already removed it and handed it to me.”