The mother of a Palo Alto body shop manager who was killed in action in Iraq in June 2004 has joined the Cindy Sheehan protest outside of President George W. Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas.

Nadia McCaffrey, mother of Army Sgt. Patrick McCaffrey, 34, flew to Texas to join Sheehan, who has gotten national media coverage for her attempt to ask the president why her son died in Iraq.

“I want the killing to stop, the killing of American soldiers and the killing of women and children in Iraq,” Nadia McCaffrey told the Tracy Record newspaper last week before she left. She lives in Tracy.

In an interview with the DemocracyNow! program broadcast on National Public Radio, McCaffrey said last Friday that “I had to be here. I had to support Cindy and I had to support the mothers. I came because what she started is very important. I think it’s going to make history.”

Patrick McCaffrey had been the manager of the Akins Collision Center on Park Boulevard in Palo Alto, where he had worked for 13 years.

He had joined the National Guard after Sept. 11, 2001 to contribute to the country’s efforts, his coworkers said last year.

McCaffrey was deployed to Iraq in March, 2004. He was killed in an ambush June 22, 2004. He was posthumously promoted to sergeant.

— Don Kazak