Posted 3/17/2005 9:28 PM Updated 3/17/2005 9:30 PM
Soldiers' families to hold anti-war rally at Ft. Bragg
By Charisse Jones, USA TODAY
Military families and veterans are helping organize a major anti-war rally outside Fort Bragg in North Carolina that could draw several thousand people Saturday, the second anniversary of the Iraq war.
Groups such as Iraq Veterans Against The War and Gold Star Families for Peace, whose members have lost relatives in Iraq, will play a prominent role.
"We figured if we formed and used our grief in a positive way that could be very powerful," says Cindy Sheehan, a member of Gold Star Families For Peace from Vacaville, Calif., near San Francisco.
Sheehan says U.S. soldiers in Iraq need to come home, but she knows her son will not be among them. Casey Sheehan, a 24-year-old Army specialist, was killed in April during an ambush in the Sadr City section of Baghdad.
Groups like Gold Star Families For Peace, made up of 60 families, and Iraq Veterans Against the War, with nearly 200 members, were formed within the last nine months. The members were brought together by grief and opposition to the Iraq conflict. More than 1,500 U.S. servicemembers have died in Iraq.
These new groups are one component of a national anti-war effort, says Andrew Pearson of the North Carolina Peace and Justice Coalition, one of the march's organizers. Since the November elections, there has been "a strategic reorientation for the anti-war movement. And a lot of it coming from the direction of leadership of military families and veterans," he says.
Nancy Lessin of Military Families Speak Out says the march outside Fort Bragg this weekend could draw several thousand people to nearby Fayetteville, N.C. The Army base is home to the 82nd Airborne Division and has 46,000 active-duty soldiers. Fifty-three soldiers from the base have died in Iraq.
"We're showing folks all over the country and the world that even in the military community, there's huge opposition to the continuation of the Iraq war," Pearson says.
A similar rally in Fayetteville on the first anniversary fell short of the 2,000 people predicted, city spokesman Jason Brady says. He said the local police are working with this year's organizers "to make sure it works out smoothly."
Lessin, of Boston, says military families calling for an end to the U.S. presence in Iraq are battling the notion their stance is disloyal. "There's a code of silence we struggle with that says we shouldn't be speaking out," Lessin says. For many people, supporting the troops means supporting the war, she says.
Her group's 2,000 members have met with members of Congress, held educational forums and will be speaking at protests throughout the country.
"Real support is to bring them home now," Lessin said of the troops in Iraq. "We fully recognize you don't bring 150,000 troops out overnight, that this is going to take some months to do safely, but that's really what needs to happen."
Others disagree. "I think what they're doing is reprehensible," says KristinnTaylor of the Washington, D.C., chapter of Free Republic, a national group dedicated to conservative causes that plans to have counterdemonstrators at the North Carolina rally. "They're working to undermine the morale of the families and the soldiers."
United For Peace and Justice, a coalition of anti-war groups, says various organizations are planning protests beyond the anniversary and workshops to counter military recruiters.
About 500 people from more than 270 anti-war groups met in St. Louis the weekend of Feb. 19 to plan educational campaigns and counter-recruitment seminars, says Bill Dobbs of United for Peace and Justice.
In Vermont, 49 of 57 communities approved non-binding resolutions March 1 — the state's Town Meeting Day — calling for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. Most of the resolutions also call for an assessment of how the state is being affected by the high deployment of its National Guard.
Tiny Vermont has the highest per capita death toll of U.S. troops in Iraq. And on a per capita basis, the Vermont National Guard has the second highest deployment of troops overseas, says Lt. Veronica Saffo, spokeswoman for the state's National Guard.
"I think more and more people are beginning to understand that the costs of the war extend beyond the horrible number of deaths ... occurring in Iraq," says Joseph Gainza of the American Friends Service Committee, which helped lead the petition drive.
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