On March 17th 2007, the number of antiwar rallies that I have attended against the Iraq War out numbered the ones I attended against the Viet Nam War. This war protest was different from all of them. The raw anger and hatred spewed by the anti- anti-war protesters chilled me more that the subfreezing temperatures of the day. Why did these people hate so much.?
For this event, I traveled to DC with my husband, my 20-year old son to meet up with my daughter who lives there. We hoped to join up with our friends from out hometown.
Dressed for the freezing weather, we lumbered from the metro line down the Washington DC mall with our peace signs folded inside our backpacks. We could hear competing bullhorns alternating between angry outbursts and songs. The closer we came to the Viet Nam Memorial the crowds increased with characters much different from all past protests. Metal studded, black leather jackets with an open winged eagle on the back covered the rotund middle-aged figures. Each carried one or two US Flags on skinny wooden sticks. They milled around as if they were protecting “their” territory. Bleachers, stands and gates surrounded the memorial so we moved quickly on knowing this was not the time to show my peace loving son the granite wall with thousands of names.
We approached my favorite memorial, the Lincoln Monument, but the commotion of thousands of people distracted me from even looking in to see the giant sitting man. Advice—be sure to follow directions given to you when attending a peace rally.
We could see there was a fence separating us from “our people” friendly, kooky, skinny vegetarians. We asked the overwhelmed policeman where to go and he directed us to the left. WRONG—we later found out the gait was only a half block to the right. We progressed slowly through the crowd of angry leathered flag-wavers. We tried to ignore signs like, PEACE SUCKS, TRAITORS and THERE NOT HERE (do they really believe that propaganda?).
Where are our people? Our peace sign, still folded inside our bag, did not give us away to this crowd. My typically talkative children walked big-eyed following their Dad. We knew our way to safety was to run between the police, cross the street and step on the friendly turf on the far side. Police-sticked men could not slow us. As we ran across the street we could hear, “traitor-b*tch” shouted at us. I suddenly understood the police were there to protect us!
On the other side it was a completely different world. A river of people, 20 people wide flowed between the leather-clad row and us. The sound of can drums, shouts of “Peace Now” and ‘NO MOR WAR” almost drowned out the shouters across the street. Numb from cold and fear, we decided we could best support the peace movement by staying on the grassy bank and cheering on the marchers while holding our “Pray for Peace, Act for Peace” sign.
We actually enjoyed ourselves, reading the creative signs and poising for pictures as people read our sign. We shouted back ”Now” when asked when do you want peace?
The “anti-antis-“ continued to shout at the marchers, “Faggot”, “ Mother F**ers” giving the finger and adding. “We hate you”. The young protesters sang back, “We love YOU” repeating it again and again. The green leprechaun for peace ignored the man spewing hate directly in her face.
After an hour the marchers had all crossed the bridge and we once again were facing the “anti-anti’s” hate group. You could feel the anger move in waves across the street with the policeman buffering the tide. I felt as if we needed to outlast them, or at least hold our ground. Eventually they moved down the hill for a warmer place. They either got cold or they became bored of us as we just stood quietly with the Pray for Peace” banner.
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Walking to a sandwich shop for both warmth and food, my family talked about what we had just witnessed. Raw anger and hatred directed squarely at us. It was frightening and startling, something new for us as white middle class Americans. We had done nothing in our estimation to warrant such a response, something like what recipients of hate crimes and prejudices experience.
As we ate our chips and subs, three burly leather jacket men with eagles on their backs
http://www.usvetdsp.com/... sat by the window. We instinctively wanted to cover our small peace buttons. We talked about how mean-spirited it was. In our minds, we bunched them in to a group of fat, bald headed, uneducated, middle age, white men who believe all the propaganda of the Bush regime.
We had taken in their anger, intensified it and sent it right back to them while they sat with their backs to us drinking their coffee.
The day before we had a training on civil disobedience taught by the Christian Peace Witness for Iraq.
http://www.sojo.net/...
We had taken the non violence pledge including:
-We will be open and respectful toward each person we encounter
-We will not use violence, verbal or physical toward any person, especially those who we disagree
-We believe all people hold at least one truth to which we can connect.
Yikes that last one was hard for us to stomach! I had taken my adult children to a worship service at the National Cathedral last night to help to “spread the light of Christ’s peace to our world.”
Later as we waited in line for our plane tickets to return to Chicago, a large bearded man with an eagle on his leather jacket rolled his luggage past us. I couldn’t help but say out-loud, “Dear God, please do not make me sit next to that man!”
Bob in his protective mode said, “If you do, do NOT talk about the antiwar rally!”
Our family had been scattered throughout the plan and as I walked down the aisle, my empty seat was waiting, right next to eagleman. Testing, testing, remember my training, Each of us has a truth to which I can relate-------
I had to just listen and learn to understand his “alternate reality”. That was my challenge; to step into this man’s reality.
I told him I had just visited my daughter in a very cold DC. He proceeded to tell me how cold he had been while participating in an “anti’anti” war rally. I listened and kept my mouth shut.
What motivates us to be activists? What could possibly propel this man to travel by himself from southern IL to go to DC and harass antiwar protesters? So I listened. He said he traveled to DC to protect the Viet Nam war memorial from the peace activists. (I did have to interject that they would never harm it). Why would he believe such a thing? Listen, listen to understand why he transferred his anger and suspicion to us.
Yes, he is a Vet and served in Viet Nam. He is a marine and “they are my bothers forever.” He counseled returning serviceman. “ There is too much head trauma,…The veterans hospital mistreats veterans and knows of at least 3 hospitals that do.”
Yes—I was hearing a truth I could relate too. But, why did he feel such anger and why was he so protective of the Viet Nam memorial? I asked him if has had a reunion with the marines that he had served with. He paused and I looked sideways at him from my airplane seat.
His eyes teared over. “No, I haven’t. You see they gave us all new M16 rifles. We didn’t know they were no good, defective. The bullets would get stuck in the barrel from the mud and moisture of the swamps, but I liked my old M 14 so I had kept mine. We were sent into a big battle (and stated the name of it.) We lost over a thousand marines that day. My marine buddies.
And all that was left of them were the names on that granite wall.
It was displace anger and I feel someone has taken advantaged of it, but I can understand him a little more.