Posted on 03/20/2005 8:54:53 AM PST by Former Military Chick
A procession of cardboard coffins draped with American flags wound toward Rowan Park on the edge of downtown Fayetteville on Saturday afternoon.
People bearing the coffins followed thousands of protesters who rallied in Fayetteville, calling for an end to the war in Iraq. As they marched toward the park, another, smaller, group of protesters was standing on the sidelines, shouting at the anti-war activists.
But the counterdemonstrators - about 200 of them - were drowned out and outnumbered by war protesters who chanted, waved banners and beat drums. The group was led by a bagpiper and included everyone from belly dancers to a young girl carrying a sign that said, ''Support my dad, not the war.''
Peace activists expected a much larger crowd for the second anniversary of the war in Iraq, and Fayetteville police say they got it. Officers estimated 2,500 protesters attended the rally that went on for much of the afternoon. Chuck Fager, the director of Quaker House who helped organize the rally, put the total at 4,800. That would make Saturday's protest the biggest peace demonstration in Fayetteville's history. An anti-war rally at the same park during the Vietnam War drew a crowd estimated at 2,000 to 4,000 people.
Saturday's rally was sponsored by local peace activists working with a number of national groups, including the umbrella organization United for Peace & Justice.
The counterdemonstration was organized by the state chapter of Free Republic. Both demonstrations drew participants from far outside North Carolina.
The anti-war rally was more organized than the protest last year, with entertainment held behind the Cumberland County Health Department, the starting point for Saturday's march. Volunteers in red ''hospitality committee'' T-shirts handed out an information guide for the day's events.
Police ready
Dozens of Fayetteville police officers were ready. They had help from lawmen across the state and from South Carolina. The day passed peacefully, with the only confrontation between groups the shouts they exchanged.
Police reported one arrest. Rann Bar-On, a speaker at the rally and an Israeli activist who runs the International Solidarity Movement in Durham, was charged with resisting a police officer. Police said Bar-On jumped the fence at Rowan Park and was headed toward counterdemonstrators across the street when they stopped him. He was released after he was processed by a magistrate.
People on both sides of the yellow police tape said they rallied Saturday to show that they support troops. But the counterdemonstrators - holding signs with slogans such as "American Hatriots on Parade" - called the anti-war rally a slap in the face to soldiers, especially with Fort Bragg a few miles away.
''You think you're doing good, walking the streets,'' a man shouted to the war protesters. ''You should know that your organization is sponsoring troops who kill our troops.''
Many speakers
Speaker after speaker at Rowan Park said real support for troops means ending the war in Iraq. The lineup included military wives, parents and veterans - more than two hours of anti-war speechmaking. The crowd listened to a Democratic U.S. Rep. Lynn Woolsey of California, the brother of a Spanish journalist killed during a U.S. attack in Baghdad and a man whose brother died in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
Some on the Rowan Park stage were colorful, including a troupe of men in drag. And some of the speakers did not have a connection to the war in Iraq at all, including an organization that led a boycott against Taco Bell.
But most focused on the war.
Kara Hollingsworth, the wife of soldier serving in Iraq with the 18th Airborne Corps, received a standing ovation when she told the crowd, ''I cannot remain silent ... I can't slap a yellow sticker on my car and call it supporting my troops. It's time for us to bring our troops home.''
Joshua Despain and Hart Viges wore camouflage jackets with 82nd Airborne Division patches. Both men said they served in Iraq and have left the Army. Despain deserted for three months after he returned to Fort Bragg. He said a friend was killed in Iraq and he swore that if he ever made it home, he was going to leave the military.
Viges said he worked for 10 months before he received conscientious objector status. He joined the military after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, but a year in Iraq changed everything for him.
''I got back and it hit me,'' Viges said. He said he could no longer pull a trigger.
''I was a good soldier,'' he said. When he said he could no longer fight, he said, ''they knew I was sincere.''
As speakers took the stage on Saturday, groups set up booths and handed out leaflets. People decorated umbrellas for a project called Peace Parasols and gazed at the 90 coffins arranged on a hill. The coffins represented men from North Carolina who died in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A solemn moment
Jean Chapman carried one of the mock coffins to Rowan Park.
''The moment I picked one up, it became so real. To me, it's very solemn. This is what it's about - bodies, broken bodies, dead children, families devastated.
''When all the rhetoric is gone, it comes down to death and destruction.''
Many of the protesters were from out of town and came to Fayetteville on Saturday and left after the rally. Others, part of military-linked national peace groups such as Iraq Veterans against the War and Military Families Speak Out, were staying for conventions to be held in the city today.
Anne Roesler, a college professor from California who is a member of the Military Families group, is staying in her son's apartment. It has been empty since he left Fort Bragg for Iraq.
Roesler, who was wearing a pair of her son's desert camouflage pants at the rally, said her son and other soldiers support her for speaking out against the war.
And the efforts are paying off, she said.
''If you had asked me six months ago, I would said I wasn't sure," she said. "Now, there's a definite shift in the wind.''
Staff writer Allison Williams can be reached at williamsa@fayettevillenc.com or 323-4848, ext. 331.
A lot of revenue comes to the community from the military. To see the names on the list and frankly those who have a military background really is disturbing. But, hey feel free to write these un-American folks.
Of course they support our troops, just not the war. < /sarcasm>
Unfortunately- ignorance is often loud and gets people's attention.
It's hard to believe there are this many idiots amongst us.
Out here in L.A., it's a real shocker to seek block after block of rabid socialist/marxist idiologs, championing their causes on our streets.
Naaaa,
Most of these bums probably are not from around there. Look at the list of speakers!
Red6
If I were sent to fight and died, and any of my family members spoke at these rallies, I'd be their Jacob Marley until they joined me.
The Clowns were on parade past my apartment in Seattle yesterday, too.
At lease the wonderful weather we've been having broke and it rained on the morons.
No, they are not "calling for an end to the war", they will have no calls for the jihadists and baathists to stop their terrorism, they are calling for defeat of America, for defeat of democracy and freedom in Iraq, for the defeat of the Iraqi people at having a normal life.
I caught a news report on NPR (commie radio supported by my taxes) that most of these media hounds were imported from NYC and other cities in the east.
They are part of the well-funded extreme Left apparatus around the globe. Very few are sincere peaceniks.
What war are these people protesting? The only people I am aware of that we are at war with are terrorists. We are no longer at war against Iraq. We are at war WITH Iraq against terrorists. Why can they not see this most simple of facts?
Is that a pro-Syria sign in the middle of that last pic? Jeez! Bold.
There were a couple anti-Israel signs though.
I should have gone down to street level and taken some pics: some of the Patchoulites were pretty funny.
The last time they were all a titter and marching I missed an opportunity to take a pic of a Subaru with a bumper sticker that said "PAVEMENT IS FOREVER".
Man....I'd pay to have that pic.
I was surprised to see a lot of AFL-CIO posters in the Seattle march yesterday.
You've got that right!
Check out this photo of the line of buses assembled to take the moonbats home:
Photo by AQGeiger.
More photos here:
Official After-Action Thread: March 19 Fayetteville, NC Support Our Troops Rally
We should be so lucky in Michigan. Constant tax increases to pay for politically-connected contractors and their unions to rebuild and re-rebuild cheaply-built roads that crumble under winter's freeze/thaw cycle, and the heaviest trucks in the country.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.