Local Cape Anners March for Peace
WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 – At 8:35 a.m., protesters are already beginning to gather in downtown Washington. At the mouth of the Federal Triangle Metro stop, senior citizens are consulting maps and schedules, sporting protest T-Shirts and buttons and carrying signs. Two adults and a middle-school-age girl stand by a directory of the area. The girl adjusts some buttons she has pinned to the knee of her blue jeans. One with the letter W crossed out is readable, even at a distance.
On the other side of the courtyard, Sally Takekawa of Gloucester and Nina Samolioff of Rockport are making their plans for the day. Takekawa says they did manage to sleep “somewhat” on the bus. Now, in search of breakfast, they decide to follow the flow of people on the street.
On the way, they discuss other protests they have known. Samolioff talks about coming down to protest the second inauguration of President George W. Bush.
“There were security checkpoints everywhere,” she says. She adds that she was forbidden to take in a button she brought, because security wouldn’t allow her to bring anything with a pin near the parade route. People also were not allowed to have fruit to eat.
“I think they were afraid we would throw it,” Samolioff said.
Over breakfast, the two women talk about politics, fuel efficient cars and Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show”. Takekawa also tells the story of her life as a military family member. Her first husband was in the military and she had to be very careful, she says, with any activism.
“If I ever wrote letters to the editor, I had to leave my husband’s name out of it, and just write for myself,” she says. Takekawa added that she is glad to see groups like Military Families Speak Out, because she believes it’s a change in the culture of silence that she observed on bases.
Takekawa has two sons, one of whom, Peter Johnson, is in the army in Iraq. He is a black-hawk mechanic stationed in an airbase in Balad, which is north of Baghdad. Near the end of his second three-year hitch in the Army – he had been to Kosovo – Johnson thought that because he had already served in a war zone he wouldn’t get called to go to Iraq.
However, Takekawa’s son got called to Iraq on the stop-loss program, which allows the Army to send soldiers who have more than 90 days left to serve to anywhere they might be needed for a year.
“This make me very angry at the people who say, ‘You know, there’s not a draft. These people signed up – they get what they get,’” Takekawa says.
Her son left for Iraq during what Takekawa describes as “the year from hell.” Her husband was seriously ill, then she herself was diagnosed with breast cancer.
“Halfway through my chemo, they sent my son to Iraq. Actually, It wasn’t even halfway through. I had just started.” Soon after, Takekawa’s father passed away. Johnson was not allowed to come home for the funeral.
“That was so distressing,” she says.
She also talks about the worry that comes with her position.
“Every morning I wake up with that feeling in my stomach, you know?,” she says. She reads everything she can find about the war and the war zone – torn between wanting to know and worrying about what she might find out, she says.
Takekawa says she is frustrated by the war and the reasons it is being fought – angered by the government’s insistence that weapons of mass destruction was the reason, when they turned out not to exist.
“I wonder why more people don’t feel betrayed, why they don’t feel like they’ve been tricked,” she says.
After breakfast, Takekawa and Samolioff join the stream of people flowing towards the mall. Samolioff says, “Where’s Cindy?” referring to activist Cindy Sheehan and her “Bring them home now tour” which traveled cross-country from Texas to Washington in buses for this demonstration.
Sheehan’s people have set up crosses and stars of David in rows in the shadow of the Washington Monument. Nearby, the Veterans for Peace have set up a tent with information. People are roaming the mall with signs, stickers, petitions and musical instruments.
Samolioff notes that there are fresh roses on many of the crosses. “That took time and money to set up,” she says.
The women head to the right of the monument, towards the area south of theWhite House. Samolioff picks up a pre-made sign comparing the victims of the Iraq war and the victims of Katrina. It exhorts the nation to “stop the war on the poor”. Takekawa picks up a pre-made sign from United for Peace and Justice, but she has brought her own small sign, as well, which she tapes to the back.
Her sign has a picture of her sons Peter and Ken. Written on it in black magic marker are the words, “Bring Pete home, his brother misses him, AND SO DO I!”
The rally hasn’t started yet when they get to the Ellipse. Occasionally, someone on the stage tries to get people to chant something, but the crowd quickly loses interest. People keep streaming into the area around the stage. Takekawa frequently darts off to take pictures of people who have particularly clever signs. She takes one picture of a girl from California whose sign says, “I am 13, I paid my own way here, and I hold Bush personally responsible for the deaths in Iraq.”
By the time the speakers start at 11:30, the lawn is packed. The emcee says people are still coming in and that “there are buses that haven’t arrived yet, from New York.”
Speaker after speaker, including Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.), the Rev. Jesse Jackson and, of course, Cindy Sheehan say the same things – war should end, Bush should be held responsible, corporate interests are driving the war in the first place, and the troops should come home now.
Some of the speakers are not nationally known – there are some who speak of the soldiers as family – brothers, sons, husbands. These seem to move Takekawa and Samolioff the most.
The rally runs over the time appointed. By 1 pm., the crowd is clearly restless. Some of them are shouting “march!” and screaming, “no!” whenever a new speaker is brought to the stage.
Eventually, Samolioff and Takekawa decide to join the growing tide of people heading to march in spite of the organizers’ wishes. Just as they are about to leave the stage area, Takekawa notices a group of people all wearing T-shirts that have pictures of a young man, a name and two dates. She speaks to one of them, an older woman, and asks if it is her son.
“She said it was her brother’s son,” says Takekawa later, “She just hugged me and said, ‘I hope your son comes home.’”
She is subdued by this encounter. As she goes off to march she says, “Seeing a group like that with the T-shirts is a little scary – more than a little scary. I think how lucky I am that my son is all right.”
Takekawa says one of the things that moved her the most during the rally was a speaker who mentioned a story she had already read about. A young serviceman who came home later hung himself because he was haunted by what he had to do.
“I think about all these people who are going to have nightmares and images – and how do you fix that?” she says. “There’s isn’t any government programming that’s going to make that better.”
She and Samolioff say they are impressed by the sheer number of people who came out. Moving slowly forward in the march route, Samolioff observes, “Wow. It’s huge!”
In spite of the emotional impact of the day, both women are glad they came. Says Takekawa, “I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.”
As she said earlier in the day, “[Our troops] are still in the military to protect our right to do what we’re doing today.”
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