Flickering candles held by hundreds of demonstrators dotted Frick Park at dusk in protest of the war in Iraq and in solidarity with Cindy Sheehan, the dead soldier's mother who has attracted worldwide attention with her vigil outside President Bush's Texas ranch.

	Alyssa Cwanger, Post-Gazette Diane Davis Santoriello, left, of Penn Hills, holds a photo of her son, Neil, who was killed in Iraq in August 2004, while speaking with Michele Feingold, organizer of last night's anti-war vigil in Frick Park. Click photo for larger image.

As a nearly full moon rose over the Squirrel Hill park last night, the event opened with the brief, somber remarks of Diane Davis Santoriello, of Penn Hills, who told the crowd of her son's death in Iraq last year. As a battery-powered megaphone struggled to project her voice across the natural amphitheater by the Frick Park playground, a companion held a portrait of her dead son in uniform.

Army Lt. Neil Anthony Santoriello was killed by a roadside explosion on Aug. 13, 2004.

"Cindy Sheehan is a good friend of mine," said Santoriello, who was wearing a sign that read: "Bush Lied, My Son Died."

"She is my sister in sorrow."

The Pittsburgh gathering, supported by groups including MoveOn.Org, and Code Pink, was one of hundreds planned across the country. In Crawford, Texas, Sheehan continued her watch near the president's ranch. The grieving mother's gesture that has become an international news media event shifted its encampment down the road to land belonging to an Army veteran who said he sympathized with the protest.

The growing protest has sparked opposition as well as solidarity. Earlier this week, a truck veered off the road knocking down crosses that had been placed there to commemorate slain GIs.

"I was really upset yesterday about the crosses being smashed," Santoriello said last night. "Neil's was one of them."

The Frick Park gathering was overwhelmingly peaceful. No counter-protestors were in evidence. Riders in passing cars occasionally waved their fingers in V signs or beeped their horns.

Sheehan, of Vacaville, Calif., has vowed to remain through Bush's monthlong ranch vacation unless he meets with her and other grieving families. Bush has said he sympathizes with Sheehan's loss and her right to protest, but has made no indication that he will agree to a second meeting with her. Sheehan and other families of Iraq war victims met with Bush two months after her son's death before she became a vocal opponent of the war.

Army veteran Fred Mattlage, the new host of the Sheehan protest, told The Associated Press: "I just think people should have a right to protest without being harassed. And I'm against the war. I don't think it's a war we need to be in."

Ashley Rotko, a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh, said she decided to come to Frick Park last night in part because her fiance is in the Army and her brother is in the Marines and scheduled to serve in Iraq. "We don't know why we're over there," Rotko said. "If the war was legitimate, I would support it."

Marty B. O'Malley, of Forest Hills, who was wearing a Vietnam Veterans cap, said he was there because " I think Cindy is asking some good questions. Why did her son die?"

O'Malley said that he was distrustful of what he characterized as the president's shifting explanations for the decision to invade Iraq. "You' can't flip-flop on war ... we're being lied to," he said.