Thursday, March 20, 2008

Five years of war

Five years. It is hard to believe that we have been at war that long. The picture to the left is of me and Cecile in 2003, protesting the start of the war in a massive demonstration in SF. It makes me so sad to look at it. How can the war still be going on?

I attended a candlelight vigil in Mountain View last night that was put on by MoveOn and Mountain View Voices for Peace. We had a good turnout, about 50 people with signs and candles standing on the corner of El Camino Real. We had an amazing response from the cars driving by. Over half of the cars honked in support or gave us a thumbs up or a peace sign. People shouted "thank you!" and "bless you!" out of their car windows at us. What a contrast to the protest that I organized in 2004 in Mountain View where almost no one honked. In 2004 we even had one guy shout "You're a bunch of COWARDS!" out the window at us.

After we had held up signs and candles for about an hour, we got together to listen to the vigil organizer, Karen, speak. She told us how her son was killed while serving in Iraq four years ago. Ken would have turned 30 last year--along with Vince and I--if he had not been killed. It was heart-breaking to hear her story. It haunts me. She asked us to do something everyday to end the war. I told her that I would. As we were packing up from the vigil she shook her head and said, "We don't want to have to be here next year."

1 comment:

Charles CĂ©leste Hutchins said...

Can you post what things you're doing to end the war? I sort of feel like I have no idea what to do. (I mean, I'm not even in the US, so it's different, but still.)