Flying a flag of remembrance

Memorial Day. As a kid, war seemed long ago and far away. World War II and Korea were ancient history for me, born in the late 1950s. Then the tumult of Vietnam swept the country. The older brothers of my peers got drafted and sent to the jungles of Southeast Asia. The death and destruction there was distant, detached. And Vietnam, for me and so many young people of that era, was all about resistance. Resisting the draft, resisting the yoke our parents' generation put on us to fight a war that made no sense, resisting "the establishment."

Honoring our war dead at that time did not occur to many people my age. The men who donned a military uniform and went off to fight in Vietnam, the 58,000 of them who were killed there — they deserved pity, perhaps, for being exploited that way. But honor? My generation was too caught up in the frenzy of protest to even consider honoring those men and women who lost their lives in that awful war.

Vietnam so complicated things for young people of the 1970s. Our parents and grandparents fought wars that mattered. Our nation seemed much more clearly on the side of what was right back then. Vietnam, on the other hand, was pointless — fighting to preserve the rule of one horrible dictator versus another, protecting Southeast Asia from the spread of communism, and thereby protecting democracy throughout the world. The threat didn't seem real. The arguments shallow. And our government lied. Repeatedly. Tens of thousands died. For what? The distrust for government bred in my heart during those formative years of my life remains with me to this day.

So I was never one to observe Memorial Day. It seemed somehow a celebration of war. I couldn't separate honoring the soldiers who gave their lives from honoring the war that claimed them. And war, the war I knew (albeit, gratefully, from afar) was no cause for honor.

War is nothing to celebrate. War rarely accomplishes anything. War breeds more hatred, more violence, more war. More destruction and death.

There are loud echoes of Vietnam in Iraq: wars fought under false pretenses, government leaders lying, the true purpose of battle, and its efficacy, justifiably questioned.

But those of us opposed to the present war should not make the same mistakes we made during Vietnam. We must not get the matter of honoring the men and women who sacrificed their lives in this war tangled up in our opposition to it. They answered a call — whether patriotic or economic. They put on a uniform. They went into battle in service to their country, and died. Honoring that sacrifice is not the same as honoring the war that claimed them, or honoring the war's purpose, or its perpetrators.

When I fly the flag on Monday, it won't be an expression of support for the war in Iraq, or solidarity with the administration's purpose or plan for this ill-conceived battle. It will be to remember, acknowledge and respect the lives cut short — all lives — by the insanity of war — all wars. It will be an expression of grief, not glory. It will be flown in the hope that by remembering, truly remembering, the real costs of war, we will diminish the opportunity for war in the future.

E-mails to denise@timesreview.com.

Negative reactions

Here's a sampling of the negative reactions to my previous post, which was also published as an op-ed column in three of the Times/Review newspapers last week. Some of them are taken from letters to the editor, which will be printed in this week's papers. Others were from notes sent to me directly, some anonymously.

"To suggest this President, or any President would take this country to war for some kind of political or personal gain, to state as fact this President knowingly lied to enter into a war without any certainty is journalist criminality. Document your evidence so we the people can bring it to Congress so they can take action under our laws and constitution. Without such evidence - stop bloviating."

"How can anyone possibly quote (Hanoi) Jane Fonda as a reputable source of anything outside of Hollywood acting? Here is a person who collaborated with the enemy, who should've been charged with treason, perhaps aided in the deaths of American soldiers in Vietnam and I'm suppose to listen to what she has to say about this war?"

"I am truly disgusted by the lack of backbone displayed by all too many Americans as displayed in recent editorials & letters to the editor in the Suffolk Times. Seem like we have plenty of sunshine patriots who don't have the fortitude to withstand someone else picking up a rifle and fighting for them. Must be a rough life sitting on the sidelines sacrificing nothing while giving all that sound Monday morning quarterback advise to those who make tough decisions based on the real world we actually live in."

"Just like Mrs. Civiletti, I find it very difficult to read letters and columns each week that continually slam our president and keep silent. His decscion to go to war was not only based on WMD and a terrorist connection but also because the UN passed many resolutions that were ignored by Saddam and the UN didn't have the backbone to enforce them. Thank God president Bush did. Also the US congress almost unamiously voted for the war. Most of the people of Iraq are glad we are there. Most ot the soldiers who actually are doing the fighting think we are doing good there. As far as hundreds of thousands dead, how many did Saddam kill???"

"What shall we do in Iran?? In the 1930's the world ignored Hitler and millions lost their lives because they refused to deal with him. The president of Iran has stated his intention to wipe out Israel. Should we stand by and let him attain and use nuclear weapons and then try to deal with him or shall we just roll over and submit to Shariah law because his ultimate goal is that all the world be muslim."

"It’s been several years now and my memory is a bit fogged but I don't recall this administration citing evidence to Congress, the United Nations (UN), or to the American people linking Iraq with the attacks of September 11."

"I usually enjoy your column until I saw that you quoted Jane Fonda...I guess you forget howmany american prisoners were tortured because of her. She openly declared she was for North Vietnam. There is a big difference being anti war and being anti american. No one likes war and in one way or another we are all effected. You better check out these groups you are involved with whether they are anti war or anti american."

"Once again you showed either your ignorance or your dishonesty in you latest article in the North Shore Sun. "My daughters soon-to-be-draft-age teens." Last time I checked there was not a draft in this country and only males over the age of 18 are required to register with the Selective Service."

"I want dumb bombs and a smart president."

J27 march on Washington

One hundred people from the North Fork joined tens of thousands from across the country at a massive anti-war demonstration in Washington, D.C. Saturday. North Fork People of Conscience coordinated the trip to the nation's capital for the march organized by United for Peace and Justice.

J27 March on Washington

Click the image above to see pictures of the protest.

I signed myself and my two teenage daughters up for the trip because I just can't take it any more. The news every day of the bloodshed in Iraq, the chaos in Baghdad, hundreds of thousands of lives lost — to what end? There will be no good resolution of this mess, no "victory." (For how many years — and how many deaths — did the U.S. pursue "victory" in Vietnam?) The pointlessness of our continued occupation of Iraq seems perfectly clear to everyone but the Bush administration. Even Congress is catching on. Saturday's rally was intended to send the message to Congress that it must no longer fund Bush's war. As one speaker put it, you can't be opposed to the war and at the same time vote to fund it. Legislators are in a pickle. What happens if they refuse funding when the "surge" troops are already on the ground? Congressman Tim Bishop told me that by the time Congress votes on the funding, some of those 21,000 "surge" troops will already be over there. It's an ugly choice, but they have to make it.

We boarded two charter buses shortly after 5 a.m. on First Street in Riverhead. Gwen Schroeder and Pat Hovey of NFPOC checked everybody in on our bus, gathering cell phone numbers and providing information about where and when we'd meet up for the return trip home. It's a long ride to D.C. All the kids — I was heartened to see there was a good sized contingent of high school and college kids — slept most of the way down. We arrived at the Greenbelt Metro Station around 11 a.m. There were hundreds of charter buses in the lot and much excitement in the air. The train to the downtown Capital district was jammed.

So were the streets when we got there. And so was the National Mall, the staging area for the demonstration. The entire mall area for the length of three football fields (my rough "eyeball" estimate) was filled with people. Plus there were people scattered all around the periphery. The D.C. police, who have apparently discontinued their practice of giving official estimates of crowds, told the media "privately" that they thought fewer than 100,000 people attended. To borrow the vice president's favorite word, HOGWASH. It's unfortunate that there was no good place from which to take a good shot of the assembled masses. A couple of photographers climbed trees on the sidelines and took photos, but from where they were perched, they could shoot the crowd just in front of the stage. The masses of people jammed into the mall behind them weren't in their photos. The police or the federal government had a helicopter circling overhead the entire day. I bet they got some good crowd shots. And I bet we never get to see them.

I have a suggestion for protest organizers, if they are really interested in documenting attendance at these demonstrations. They should rent a bucket, or cherry-picker, the kind utilities use to access overhead lines. They can put a photographer/videographer up in the bucket just behind the stage and have an excellent vantage point for shooting the crowd — the whole crowd — as it assembles and marches. It's a relatively inexpensive and readily available piece of equipment to rent. And it would provide excellent documentation for refuting the typically ridiculously low official attendance estimates (private or otherwise.)

The sights and sounds at events like this are always pretty interesting. An "Uncle Sam" on stilts. People sporting "Buck Fush" t-shirts. Anarchists against the war. Republicans against the war. Veterans for Peace. Quakers. Socialists. People assembled in groups according to religious beliefs, political affiliations and sexual orientation. People hawking literature ranging advocating beliefs ranging from Christian pacifism to Communism. One guy who stood, simply, for "Free Hugs."

And signs, lots and lots of signs, with so many clever sayings and slogans. My favorite: "I want dumb bombs and a smart president."

My kids were wide-eyed, never having seen anything like this before.

We pushed as far forward toward the stage as we could get. We got to hear speeches by the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Jane Fonda. She said this was her first anti-war protest in 34 years. She has been reluctant to speak out against the war in Iraq, she said, because she was such a lightning rod for controversy during the Vietnam war (I had to explain to my daughters about "Hanoi Jane"). But, she told the crowd, "Silence is no longer an option." Fonda brought her daughter and two grandchildren on stage, noting that her daughter was just a baby at the last anti-war protest she attended.

My daughters had never been to Washington before, and I was determined that they should see both the Lincoln Memorial and the Vietnam War memorial while we were there. Both of those monuments provide rich historical context for what's going on right now in America. So we didn't stay with the march for its entire route. Instead, as marchers slowly made their way toward the Capitol, we bolted and hoofed toward the Lincoln Memorial. We stopped briefly at the Washington Monument and the World War Two Memorial, walked past a drained reflecting pool, and (not without some complaint from my teenagers) climbed the stairs of our temple of American democracy, dedicated to the memory of one of our nation's greatest leaders, Abraham Lincoln. I am always moved to tears inside that space, reflecting on the immortal words of President Lincoln dedicating the battlefield at Gettysburg. Yesterday, the tears flowed more than they ever had before, with the backdrop of the protest, Iraq, the diminishment of our great nation on the world stage thanks to the failed foreign policy of the Bush administration. My kids thought I was nuts. Maybe I am. They read the words of the Gettysburg Address with me. It's familiar to them. I've read it to them and with them many times before. But they didn't share my emotion. They were more interested in how the words were carved in granite. We went to the small museum in the memorial and looked at a set of tools used by an Italian immigrant (the inscriptions were hand-carved by Italian immigrants — I allowed myself a moment of ethnic pride): a wooden mallet, four metal chisels and a pair of calipers. "No machines?" my daughter asked. Nope, all done by hand, painstakingly, perfectly. "Wow."

Yes, the Lincoln Memorial is a definite "wow" on many levels. And so is the Vietnam war memorial, with the nearly endless sea of names inscribed in marble, commemorating the 58,000+ American war dead. It is moving and a chilling reminder of how history really can repeat itself. There are so many parallels to Iraq.

We lingered at the wall, looking at the names inscribed in it, the laminated sheets depicting photos and brief bios of the soldiers "killed 40 years ago this weekend," the flowers and other memorials, including POW/MIA bracelets, placed at the foot of the wall by family, friends and comrades who have not forgotten the dead — men and women who really did die in vain, defending a failed foreign policy, fighting a war fought under false pretenses, sacrificing their lives in a war that could not be won.

What price silence?

Tomorrow morning before dawn, three busloads of people from the North Fork will depart Riverhead for Washington, D.C. to attend a march for peace. I will be one of them.

The trip from the North Fork is being organized by North Fork People of Conscience. The group has been surprised by the response. Originally planning one bus, they hired a second when the first filled up in just a day. Now they've got three going.

People from every state in the union will be attending the rally and march, whose purpose is to send a message to Congress that American involvement in the war in Iraq must end.

It's been a very long time since I participated in any kind of a demonstration. The last time was, I think, at the U.N., in the early 1980s. I feel foolish to admit that I can't quite remember what it was about. El Salvador, I think. The debacle in the Middle East has inspired me. What a terrible mess. With no easy solutions. Perhaps no solutions at all. It's really very depressing. Hundreds of thousands of lives lost, a country in ruins, America disgraced. Our troops being used as pawns, not only in military warfare in an Iraqi civil war, but in political warfare at home. But, boy, does this sound familiar, as I'm old enough to remember Vietnam. Such a similar scenario. Except this one is actually far more dangerous, because of the powder keg that is the Middle East, and the potential for mass destruction.

Another 20,000 troops? Is that the answer? Not likely. As one of al-Qaeda's top commanders said this week, echoing the arrogant bravado of our own leader a few years back, "bring 'em on." He said we could send the whole army. It wouldn't matter. I think we should heed his warning. There are millions of people there who hate each other, but hate America even more. There is no "winning" this war. Bush, like Nixon decades ago, is casting "victory" as a matter of "honor," characterizing "supporting our troops" as supporting his war, painting people opposition to his war as unpatriotic.

Will this march accomplish anything? Who knows? But I feel compelled to attend, to stand up and join the chorus of Americans in protesting this administration's failed foreign policy and disastrous military initiatives in the Middle East. I can't, in good conscience, remain silent.