In May, Mrs. Storey received a surprise telephone call from the White House inviting her to a Memorial Day reception there.

The president wanted to see her in the Oval Office.

The Storeys, of Palmer, Mass., joined a growing list of bereaved families granted a private audience with the commander in chief

Mr. Bush often says he hears their voices — “don’t let my son die in vain,” he quotes them as saying — when making decisions about the war. The White House says families are not asked their political views. Yet war critics wonder just whose voices the president is hearing.

Like Melissa Storey, Bill Adams, who has been leading war protests in Lancaster, Pa., wrote Mr. Bush a letter — not to praise the president, but to question the military’s account of the death of his son, Brent.