UPDATE: Some commenters below point out that Dee Dennis is a woman. Whoops. Sorry, Dee. I guess the name should've been my first clue. I've made edits below that maintain my original post...
I've been following the growing discontent, feeding it, feeling solidarity, etc.
I've gotten into the almost hourly-routine of checking Kos, Atrios, Americablog, Rawstory, BradBlog, CrawfordBlog, Truthout, Iconoclast-Texas, et al, so I can stay on top of the latest developments.
Truthout's coverage has been outstanding, thus far. Not only do they have updates throughout the day, they've been posting videos of noteworthy events.
I just started watching a video of families who arrived today. It was shot at Camp Casey 1, right in front of the "Arlington West" memorial. They step up to the mic, struggle to get out the name of their lost loved ones, some making fairly strong anti-war statements.
Up comes a diminutive and portly fellow(ess) with a not-too-deep voice, dark complexion and long black hair.
(s)He almost immediately starts crying as (s)he says:
<AAAAH! You have to read the extended entry.>
"Hi, my names Dee Dennis(?), and I'm here because my cousin, Lori Ann Piestewa died on March 23...2003....."
(s)He sniffs and walks off camera, unable to say any more.
Wow! Lori Ann Piestewa was Jessica Lynch's good friend who died in the same incident in which a wounded Lynch was captured, later to be rescued in a now-in-dispute account pushed by the military. Lori Ann was the first Native American (Hopi) to die in the conflict.
I had just read an earlier diary about the soldier who captured Hussein appearing on Olbermann today to say it's time to bring the troups home. One diary commenter even said, "who's next [to come out against the war], Jessica Lynch?"
Well, we're pretty close to that, now, from the looks of it.
Here's a link to the
video. Really moving stuff. Worth watching for all of the folks who get up to talk. (Warning, this is the hi-res Quicktime file - go to www.truthout.org/cindy.shtml for smaller files.)
And, some relevant photos of Lori Ann and Jessica: