March 3
The sun is bright today. We
like to joke that it is a sign that God is on our side.
After all, if every corner of a violent world can
claim divinity, why not take one moment for peace?
I step to the stage and begin the process of
offering an alternative, of saying that there is a better option than
this oil-baron grabbin, right-wing stabbin, two-bit cowboy drama. And I look out over the complacent faces as
they pass by to pump their SUVs full of glee, and wonder if we make a
difference here, or has our world been so inoculated with fear that
they really believe there is a terrorist threat in Terre Haute,
Indiana, where the only weapons of mass destruction come from VX
storage facilities? This is not Red
Dawn, I am not Patrick Swayze, and they—the impenetrable they—are
not coming for your backyard, merely your welfare, veteran’s benefits,
and educational supplements. And I am
sorry, Ms. Albright, but half a million children is not an acceptable
cost. Three hours later, the silence sets
in.
i have spoken for days on end
but now i am without words
as we cut down our banners
“Make Love Not War”
“Peace is
Patriotic”
and you wrap them so comfortably in your arms
i can feel my world changing
bending
like light around the sun
your eyes
where rays pull the tightest
glow the brightest
i had forgotten what it was like to feel alive
but beside you
in the afterglow of peace
i have hope again
yes, i am lost in the slope of your cheeks
but i believe
i believe
“As
our coalition takes away their power, we will deliver the food and
medicine
you need. We will tear down the apparatus
of
terror and will help you to build a new Iraq that is prosperous and
free.”
April
3
Gene Bolles is the chief of neurosurgery at
Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. A
civilian, he contracted to help the military after the carnage of
September 11, wanting “any way to help out.” If
anything, he may be remembered as the man who repaired the back of
Jessica Lynch. But she was one of many.
“These are young kids that are going to be, in some
regards, changed for life,” he says. “I
don’t feel that people realize that.”
There were also the five soldiers injured in a
windstorm before the war even began, one of whom had a tent pole
through his skull. Another had his spine
fractured by collapsing equipment. There
were the two soldiers who had to have blood and brain matter removed
after being shot in the skull. There are
more every day. Unlike Lynch, though, they
will go unreported.
“I am opposed to any war,” says Bolles.
“I am doing what I am doing because I
am a doctor, not because I have a political agenda.”
March
17
I am sitting in the basement of Margaret-Mary church
surrounded by death penalty protesterss as we listen to the president
explaining
why we need to go to war with Iraq:
“The United States and other
nations did nothing to deserve or invite this threat, but we will do
everything to defeat it. Instead of
drifting along toward tragedy, we will set a course toward safety.”
I’m not sure how war brings safety, but I stay
silent, wondering if this speech will become known as St. Patrick’s
folly, the day our president snaked into the desert.
“events in Iraq have now
reached the final days of decision…Saddam Hussein and his sons must
leave Iraq within 48 hours.”
And although Saddam will not go, I do decide to
leave, choosing to breathe in the evening air with my friend Casey. We walk down the road, quickly moving the
conversation away from war and lethal injections to romantic struggles,
something more immediate and seemingly manageable.
Across Third Street, we make our way into
Priscilla’s, where Casey needs to tell a friend about the protest in
the morning. As he speaks to her, I calmly
scan over the rows of vibrators, massage oils, and porn
videos, wondering how other friends are spending the evening.
Back at the church, we retire to a first grade
Sunday school classroom. “If you touch me
in here, we go to hell,” I say as I lay down. “As
if that’s in doubt,” Casey replies. “Besides,
I feel a responsibility
to go to hell to be with my friends and loved ones in their time of
need.” I roll over, state, “My life has
been reduced to
vibrators and lethal injections and Jesus, oh my,” and go to sleep.
In the morning Casey puts his arm around me as the
Federal Marshall takes our picture for singing. The
Gulf War Veteran was executed, but at least we’ll have a picture of
ourselves
together in our FBI files.
April
9
Outside of Najaf, Army chaplain Josh Llano stands
beside his 500-gallon pool of water, as the soldiers look on. Many have not bathed in a month.
Most would gladly have more water to drink. But this pool is a baptismal.
And this water is only for those who become Southern
Baptists.
“War
criminals will be punished.”
“It’s simple,” he says. “They
want water. I have it, as long as they get
baptized. You have to be aggressive to
help people find themselves in God.”
March 25
“Every dollar we spend must serve
the interest of our nation”
I think back to an
ex-girlfriend telling me about the week she spent living under a bridge
in Austin. I never knew what to say then,
but I wonder how the world is protecting her now. Of
course, I always have the answers these days. Even
when they’re the words I’m not supposed to say. When
they ask
if I support the troops, I ask if they’re protesting the cuts from the
VA. When they mention violent dictators, I
ask about Pinochet. When they talk about
gas, I talk about American funds.
and then
you ask
what it is i am scared to say
why i am looking away
and i can only close my eyes
“Do
not destroy
oil wells, a source of wealth that belongs to the Iraqi people.”
April
6
Angelica Amaya stands outside of a pro-war rally, a
Valley Rally for America, in Wheeling, West Virginia.
“I’m scared,” she says, realizing that her voice is
one against one thousand, one
thousand who invoke images of God and country beside those of war. She is spit upon, as many others have been,
will be. She is yelled at, called
un-American, told she hates her country. She
is asked if she remembers 9-11. And she is
called ignorant and naïve. Why? Because she is standing with a sign that
reads, “I love my country, but…” and has a picture of an Iraqi woman.
A mob forms around her, vitriolic,
angry…representative. But through it, one
man walks. He is a veteran of the Korean
“conflict” named Bill Milan. He stands his
granddaughter before Amaya and says, “Listen to her.
She’s right, you know…There are other ways to do
this.”
was it
somewhere in ohio
where you placed my pillow upon your leg
my head in your lap
as the car drove steadily forward to d.c.
to another protest
with henry rollins screaming in my ear
complaining about the point in life where girls become women
and i wonder if i was a boy or a man
so vulnerable there drifting asleep against you
was it
real
when you placed your head upon my shoulder
your hand around my arm
and whispered “i’m nervous”
as i failed in trying to hold you close enough
to clarify my caring
to wrap promises
instead of the cool night air
was it
the end
when i fell asleep with your hand in mine
that one time
has the slipper
finally slid away
with the only comfort i have found in this chaos
“have
pursued patient and honorable efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime
without war”
March
15
In the sunlight of a new day, we begin our drift
away as the crowds fill in, streaming thousands beneath the Washington
Monument, bodies pressing against us like my arms would like to wrap
around you, my comfort coming in the hope of thousands of peaceful
voices, in the knowledge that my “focus group” is larger than CNN’s.
I drown myself in the words of a higher cause,
smiling at my new favorite poster: “Mainstream White Guys for Peace,”
and trying to
maintain focus. We flash peace signs for
the Swedish
journalist and listen as Patti Smith sings, wondering if we are
teetering on the eve of destruction. Near
the stage, drums pound out the rhythm of the masses, as Larry Holmes
speaks: “Bush wanted
this war months ago; the anti-war movement has held him back. War is not inevitable.” And
I fill with hope as we march around the White
House; the White House that was abandoned for a trip to the Azores. I fill with hope that there are other
possibilities
in this world. I fill with hope, and I
march
on.
“The
terrorist threat to America and the world will be diminished the moment
that Saddam Hussein is disarmed.”
March 20
The war has begun and I am standing alongside the
Federal Building in Terre Haute with forty others.
Somewhere, I know that children are dying, as they
have before, as they will continue to do. I
wonder how we can liberate with bombs, and I wonder what the point of a
war against terrorism is when Brooke is in
Jasper, more afraid now than she was before. She
is young enough for this to be new to her. And
I realize that terror is so relative.
are you scared of dying you asked
and i said no
death is not what scares me
wanting to reply, “you are”
but still too afraid of honesty
Here on the side of the road, I cannot shake your
memory, even as I am spit at for suggesting that compassion is better
than violence. One man even reaches across
his young daughter’s face to flick us off. Are
these the American values worth going to war for?
“Our
nation enters this conflict reluctantly.”
i will
collapse in sleep tonight
pull the twenty-year-old quilt around me
and dream of you near
death is not frightening
but decay is
and i do not want to be alone tonight
not on this night
We pack our signs up and head home, heavy, but
hopeful. I keep trying, for the world. For you. I never
want to hear you so afraid again.
“The Iraqi regime will be ended. The Iraqi people will be free.
And our world will be secure and peaceful.”
March 31
They say that the real pain from a bullet is not the
entry—that is clean, warm—but the exit, the ripping of the skin in the
back,
the tearing of the organs as it passes through the body.
This is what Bakhat Hassan is left to wonder, after
trying
to drive his family to safety at an American checkpoint.
They were gunned down by Marines.
“I saw the heads of my two little girls come off,”
his
wife says. “My girls, I watched their
heads
come off their bodies. My son is
dead.” The fliers dropped over Karbala
had said, “Be safe.” They tried.
“You just fucking
killed a family because you didn’t fire a warning shot soon enough!”
April
5
I am in Chicago, one of my favorite cities in the
world, standing in Federal Plaza. The Post
Office is on one side of me. And on the
other three sides of the square, there are thousands of police in full
riot gear lining any possible exits.
“The
tyrant will soon be gone. The day of your
liberation is near.”
They will follow us throughout our march, lining
each side of the street, allowing no more than two people to exit the
road at any
one time.
“One
reason the U.N. was founded after the Second World War was to confront
aggressive dictators actively and early, before they can attack the
innocent and destroy the peace.”
There will be no arrests this day—nothing to match
the 600 two weeks earlier—only chants of “No Blood for Oil” and
questions of “who
got got” the last time. As the hands
raise into the air, I turn to Tony, “You know, the police don’t really
scare
me, but Orwell did.”
“The
power and appeal of human liberty is felt in every life and every land,
and the greatest power of freedom is to overcome hatred and violence,
and turn the creative gifts of men and women to the pursuits of peace.
That is the future we choose.”
March
31
when i was in rome
i stood by the clear reflection of tremeti fountain
watching tourists throw their change into the water
hoping to someday return
but i have no money
to wrap my hopes for humanity in
so i will merely place my pebble of peace
against this everest of destruction
by whispering another phrase that i’m not supposed to say
“i love you
i need you
i am incomplete without you”
and dreaming
that we can begin the march forward with our own steps
that we can build at least one castle of compassion
in this desert of death
“Good night, and may God continue to
bless”
the peacemakers.