the War in Iraq, 40th anniversary of the 1967 March on
the Pentagon an important landmark in the anti-Vietnam
War Movement. I went on one of the two buses from
Atlanta organized by the Atlanta affiliate of the
International Answer Committee (IAC).
It was cold. A knife-edged wind threatened to whip away
signs as we streamed across the Arlington Memorial Bridge,
thousands of us, heading for the Pentagon parking lot where
some of us huddled against parked vans or the concrete wall
that snaked up the hill, seeking to buffer that ceaseless wind.
Jonquils were blooming in Lady Bird Johnson's garden when
we passed, skirting the cheerful yellow patches, hardly a
blossom trampled. Poor Lady Bird, prattling on and on about
making America beautiful while her husband presided over
napalmed flesh and bomb craters, decidedly unbeautiful
images of mayhem and torture in Vietnam.Until our protests
and marches and raised voices saying No! made LBJ decide
to drop out, made him long to go back to Texas where Lady
Bird could plant flowers and talk about beauty.
And so four years ago we started marching again, and again,
and again.
"In the Shadow of the War Machine, " Cindy Sheehan said
from the speaker's platform.
But the shadow is not confined to the parking lot beside the
Pentagon, the shadow is cast all over this land, over the
flag-draped coffins as they are unloaded from ships and
planes, over the hospitals where the mangled bodies and
fragmented minds are patched up and shoved on their way,
over the schools and libraries and roads that are deteriorating
because the funds they need for life have been funneled into
death, and over our children who will be paying for the rest
of their lives, and over all those sick and dying from lack of
health care.
Blood on the oil. Our government is run by those with bloody
hands.No more! Support our troops. Bring them all home.
