Peace Vigil 8/16/06
""There isn't anyone here who doesn't support the troops," says Ben Fain, one of the vigil organizers.
The weekly gatherings began a year ago this week to support the efforts of Cindy Sheehan, who set up camp outside President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas. Sheehan, the mother of a solider killed in Iraq, became the public face of Americans grieving over a loved one taken in war.
Since then, the Beaverton group has never missed a Wednesday, gathering at 6:30 p.m. through blistering heat, numbing cold and Oregon rain. " Oregonian Article: A vigil for the dead . . . and for peace
The Vigilers also showed support for Lt. Watada and raised over $400 for his defense fund.
My son, Wesley.
Ben, one of the wonderful Vigil Organizers
Most wore black to show mourning for a sad anniversary.
My family and our hockey buddy (his first vigil)
Phil Ochs, Woody Guthrie & The Youngbloods!
New friends. My husband, in VFP shirt, today was his birthday. He met another USN ET Vet. Both Veterans for Peace. One from Viet Nam, one from Gulf War... both standing for Peace.
This machine kills fascists!
Peace!
The weekly gatherings began a year ago this week to support the efforts of Cindy Sheehan, who set up camp outside President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas. Sheehan, the mother of a solider killed in Iraq, became the public face of Americans grieving over a loved one taken in war.
Since then, the Beaverton group has never missed a Wednesday, gathering at 6:30 p.m. through blistering heat, numbing cold and Oregon rain. " Oregonian Article: A vigil for the dead . . . and for peace
The Vigilers also showed support for Lt. Watada and raised over $400 for his defense fund.
My son, Wesley.
Ben, one of the wonderful Vigil Organizers
Most wore black to show mourning for a sad anniversary.
My family and our hockey buddy (his first vigil)
Phil Ochs, Woody Guthrie & The Youngbloods!
New friends. My husband, in VFP shirt, today was his birthday. He met another USN ET Vet. Both Veterans for Peace. One from Viet Nam, one from Gulf War... both standing for Peace.
This machine kills fascists!
Peace!
posted by Janet @ 11:01 AM
2 Comments:
At 11:32 AM,
Janet said…
Email from the Peace Vigil Organizer:
Unbelievable!! 130 of you stood together as we marked 1 year of standing for peace. You are the greatest! And, we even successfully had 5 minutes of silence with the help of one of our participants.
Thanks also for your generosity! We collected over $400 for Lt. Watada. Because several people indicated they would like to donate next week, I will wait until then to send the check.
Never give up...we are gaining momentum!
In Peace,
Susi
At 5:40 PM,
Janet said…
This is from my hockey buddy and good friend's email who attended. He's the one with the sign "No War in Iran"
My first vigil was a very satisfying experience. I had a lot of thoughts racing through my mind afterwards.
First of all was the response of people passing by. I was surprised at how overwhelmingly positive the reaction was. It seemed like close to half the cars driving by honked, waved or flashed the peace sign. Negative responses occurred also, but much less frequently than I expected. And that made me realize that one of the truely valuable and powerful affects of the vigil is to raise awareness. Because sometimes as I'm driving around town in my car I look at all the other cars and wonder about the people in them.
Are they Bush supporters? Do they oppose the war in Iraq? How do they feel about it? Are they just to busy to be bothered? Seeing the overwhelmingly positive response from across social, ethnic and economic spectrums made me realize that I'm not alone and that they probably felt the same sense of relief at seeing people publicly expressing the same thoughts, concerns and outrage that are burning inside themselves. I admit I got choked up about it a couple times. It made me realized there's a vast amount of discontent beneath the surface of our society, but people are afraid to speak up and so many people think they are alone. And that's how the vigil helps raise awareness. Standing on the street corner waving a sign is not going to end the war or bring about necessary changes, but it can be the catalyst for bringing people together and giving them the confidence and strength in their ideals in order to act on them and do the right thing.
One of the more interesting moments was the five minutes of silence. There was a marching band conference across the street in the park in front of the library. Just as we began the silence, the band launched into a medley of the Marine Corp Anthem, "Off We Go" (Air Force anthem), Battle Hymn of the Republic
and other military anthems. What surprised me was that I didn't find this at all incongruous with what we were doing. The songs still stirred the same pride in me that they did when I was young. I realized that it is not contradictory nor hypocritical to believe in a strong military defense but also support peace and diplomacy and oppose unnecessary and unwarrented military intervention. Let's not succumb to the polemic argument that opposing the war is a sign of weakness.
Random images continue to float through my mind: police cars rolling by with police officers flashing peace signs at us, a group of three cars with middle eastern-looking women wearing Muslim style clothing waving and honking (I got the impression they didn't think we were supporting terrorists). And the rage of a few passing by who disagreed. Rude gestures and verbal assualts. One shouted something that I only caught the end of, "Blah, blah, blah...kill them all!" That haunted me the rest of the evening. It only reinforced my perception that I was in the right place doing the right thing. We must raise these people's awareness, too, no matter how unpleasant it may be for them.
And finally, the ones who stared straight forward and kept driving, some seemingly oblivious to what we were doing. We need to reach these people too, and convince them it really does matter.
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