"My Nephew Died for This?"
Like so many people on this brilliant day, she's wearing sunglasses. She stands behind the IVAW contingent, part of the startlingly large group of military families against the war that are leading off this demonstration. She's Missy Comley Beattie -- she spells it out carefully for me -- a member of Gold Star Families for Peace. "My nephew was killed on August 6, 2005 in al-Amariyah. He was a Marine."
She comes from red-state Kentucky, but now lives in New York. She's wearing a tiny gold peace sign around her neck and a Code Pink T-shirt. "I write like three articles a day. It's an obsession. I was told recently that I'm an embarrassment to my [Kentucky] community for my stance on the war. I won't tell you who said that. But I have my brother's support. It was his son who died. My mother's a former chair of the local Republican Party. Now, she's a screaming progressive. Actually, my mother tells me that things are beginning to change in Kentucky. She sees a lot more anti-Bush letters-to-the-editor in the papers than she used to.
"I think that people in the red states are increasingly opposed to Bush. But to be honest, I suspect it's the rising costs at the pump, not the human costs that are doing it. It's also that so many people just don't pay attention and the death rates are always submerged beneath the Ken- and Barbie-like TV anchors as they talk about the crime of the week. And keep in mind that Bush doesn't allow people to see the bodies come home.
"When my nephew was little we were close, but now I live here. I talked to him before he joined the Marines and urged him not to do so. Then I urged him to join something like the Coast Guard, but he was attracted to the bravado of the Marine Corps. He'd say to my father, 'Why settle for second best when you can be best?' I even tried to convince him to go AWOL.
"Cindy [Sheehan] and I were arrested on March 6, seven months to the day after my nephew died, and the reason I sat down with the others was this: My nephew actually went to Iraq because he thought he was fighting for our freedom. I never believed that, but I sat down because the police wouldn't even let us walk on the sidewalk to give our petition to the U.S. Mission to the UN. I thought: My nephew died for this? So I sat down, spent twenty-two hours in jail, and now here I am."
Released (and Still Raging) Granny
She's 78, has four grandchildren, and was once a preschool teacher. She's wearing a straw hat covered with flowers and dripping with buttons ("Granny Peace Brigade," "He lied, they died," "Weapons of Mass Deception," "Keep America Safe and Free"). She has on a "Make Levees, Not War" T-shirt and she's one of the 18 members of the Granny Peace Brigade, who protested at a military recruitment center in New York's Times Square, were arrested, brought to trial for "disorderly conduct," and just this week found not guilty by a judge. A hand-made sign she's carrying says, "Now we're all safe. The grannies were acquitted!"
The eighteen are awaiting their moment as part of the lead contingent in this antiwar march. She's standing as I approach her and agrees to talk, but says, "Let me sit down first," and lowers herself gently into the wheelchair I hadn't noticed right behind her. "I'm a member of the raging grannies," she begins and then has the urge to explain the wheelchair. "I had a hip replacement. That's why I'm in a chair. I can walk a little ways, but not two miles!"
Her name, she tells me, is Corinne Willinger, and she wants the Iraq War over yesterday. "How do we do it? We get out. I don't see that we're doing any good there. We haven't prevented a civil war, we've fomented it!
"I think that the Bush administration is one big mistake and I hope the people will correct the error as soon as possible. Whatever this administration touches, they turn it into s-h-i-t. The Yiddish expression is drech. That includes the aftermath of Katrina, the push to go into Iran, the treatment of the Palestinians, the fact that the rich in this country are getting richer and the poor poorer."
She pauses a moment. "There's lots more, but I can't think of any of it right now." And she laughs in a warm, friendly way.
As for her recent trial, she says, "For me, it was nerve-wracking. Others took it better. I felt we were doing the right thing and I thought it important to get as much publicity as possible, but -- I'll be honest -- I got very nervous. We had heard the judge was fair, but a stickler for the law and you never know what a verdict is going to be."
I ask about her hopes for the future and she responds, simply enough, "I hope that we will not have to see any other wars like the ones we've conducted even before Vietnam -- and all in countries very different from us. Why do we have to travel to foreign countries to get involved in business that's not ours in the first place? There has to be a way for the American people to live without war. We're now so involved in this war in Iraq and the possibility of going into Iran that we can't solve our own problems."
Books Not Bombs
The Grannies are just behind us, singing "God Help America," their version of God Bless America, as we set off with nineteen year-old Aaron Cole, in a green shirt over blue jeans, carrying a sign that reads "Books Not Bombs" and another, "Join the Campus Antiwar Network," that he tells me is his friend's. ("I'm just holding it for her.") He's here, he says, "on behalf of the hip-hop caucus RYSE," and when I look bemused, he adds, "Basically, it's my friends over here," and he indicates two young men with him. "They started the organization at the University of Maryland. I go to City College, but I'm helping out on their caucus.
Like so many people on this brilliant day, she's wearing sunglasses. She stands behind the IVAW contingent, part of the startlingly large group of military families against the war that are leading off this demonstration. She's Missy Comley Beattie -- she spells it out carefully for me -- a member of Gold Star Families for Peace. "My nephew was killed on August 6, 2005 in al-Amariyah. He was a Marine."
She comes from red-state Kentucky, but now lives in New York. She's wearing a tiny gold peace sign around her neck and a Code Pink T-shirt. "I write like three articles a day. It's an obsession. I was told recently that I'm an embarrassment to my [Kentucky] community for my stance on the war. I won't tell you who said that. But I have my brother's support. It was his son who died. My mother's a former chair of the local Republican Party. Now, she's a screaming progressive. Actually, my mother tells me that things are beginning to change in Kentucky. She sees a lot more anti-Bush letters-to-the-editor in the papers than she used to.
"I think that people in the red states are increasingly opposed to Bush. But to be honest, I suspect it's the rising costs at the pump, not the human costs that are doing it. It's also that so many people just don't pay attention and the death rates are always submerged beneath the Ken- and Barbie-like TV anchors as they talk about the crime of the week. And keep in mind that Bush doesn't allow people to see the bodies come home.
"Cindy [Sheehan] and I were arrested on March 6, seven months to the day after my nephew died, and the reason I sat down with the others was this: My nephew actually went to Iraq because he thought he was fighting for our freedom. I never believed that, but I sat down because the police wouldn't even let us walk on the sidewalk to give our petition to the U.S. Mission to the UN. I thought: My nephew died for this? So I sat down, spent twenty-two hours in jail, and now here I am."
Released (and Still Raging) Granny
She's 78, has four grandchildren, and was once a preschool teacher. She's wearing a straw hat covered with flowers and dripping with buttons ("Granny Peace Brigade," "He lied, they died," "Weapons of Mass Deception," "Keep America Safe and Free"). She has on a "Make Levees, Not War" T-shirt and she's one of the 18 members of the Granny Peace Brigade, who protested at a military recruitment center in New York's Times Square, were arrested, brought to trial for "disorderly conduct," and just this week found not guilty by a judge. A hand-made sign she's carrying says, "Now we're all safe. The grannies were acquitted!"
The eighteen are awaiting their moment as part of the lead contingent in this antiwar march. She's standing as I approach her and agrees to talk, but says, "Let me sit down first," and lowers herself gently into the wheelchair I hadn't noticed right behind her. "I'm a member of the raging grannies," she begins and then has the urge to explain the wheelchair. "I had a hip replacement. That's why I'm in a chair. I can walk a little ways, but not two miles!"
Her name, she tells me, is Corinne Willinger, and she wants the Iraq War over yesterday. "How do we do it? We get out. I don't see that we're doing any good there. We haven't prevented a civil war, we've fomented it!
"I think that the Bush administration is one big mistake and I hope the people will correct the error as soon as possible. Whatever this administration touches, they turn it into s-h-i-t. The Yiddish expression is drech. That includes the aftermath of Katrina, the push to go into Iran, the treatment of the Palestinians, the fact that the rich in this country are getting richer and the poor poorer."
She pauses a moment. "There's lots more, but I can't think of any of it right now." And she laughs in a warm, friendly way.
As for her recent trial, she says, "For me, it was nerve-wracking. Others took it better. I felt we were doing the right thing and I thought it important to get as much publicity as possible, but -- I'll be honest -- I got very nervous. We had heard the judge was fair, but a stickler for the law and you never know what a verdict is going to be."
I ask about her hopes for the future and she responds, simply enough, "I hope that we will not have to see any other wars like the ones we've conducted even before Vietnam -- and all in countries very different from us. Why do we have to travel to foreign countries to get involved in business that's not ours in the first place? There has to be a way for the American people to live without war. We're now so involved in this war in Iraq and the possibility of going into Iran that we can't solve our own problems."
Books Not Bombs
The Grannies are just behind us, singing "God Help America," their version of God Bless America, as we set off with nineteen year-old Aaron Cole, in a green shirt over blue jeans, carrying a sign that reads "Books Not Bombs" and another, "Join the Campus Antiwar Network," that he tells me is his friend's. ("I'm just holding it for her.") He's here, he says, "on behalf of the hip-hop caucus RYSE," and when I look bemused, he adds, "Basically, it's my friends over here," and he indicates two young men with him. "They started the organization at the University of Maryland. I go to City College, but I'm helping out on their caucus.
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