The Lieutenant from Okinawa
Ed Bloch ("And don't reverse the first and last names!") at 82 is undoubtedly not the oldest veteran to be in this demonstration, but he may be the oldest one walking its length. He wears his soft, khaki campaign cap and his old Marine officer's jacket, cinched at his waist with a belt. It has his battle stars and his first lieutenant's bars from World War II. ("I was a rifle platoon leader in the battle for Okinawa.")
When I ask whether this could possibly be his wartime jacket, he replies, "They made the damn uniform of such great material in those days. It's 61 years old."
It fits him amazingly, though he assures me that a friend "moved the buttons for me."
The executive director of the Interfaith Alliance of Albany (New York), he is accompanied by younger friends, but he walks as if alone in this vast crowd. His step, strangely enough, is both halting and steady. He progresses at an even pace. He stands ramrod straight, a bearing that could only be called military and, as it turns out, he carries a burden.
"After the war against Japan ended," he tells me, "the First Marine Division was sent into China, right into the middle of their civil war, to work with the Japanese and the Chinese puppets and hold down the territory for the arrival of Chiang [Kai-shek]'s troops. While I was there, I committed atrocities. I committed atrocities with the Japanese on a small Chinese town."
He walks on, his pace never breaking, while I consider this.
Then he says, in a segue that makes great sense if you think about it: "The reason that [Senator] Ted Kennedy is more honest than most of them down there is Chappaquiddick. It moved him in the direction of remorse. It made him understand."
On Iraq, he's clear as day. "Everything I believe screams out that there is no substitute for peace in a nuclear age. For certain, this continued war is bringing up the fundamentalists all around the world to do the suicide attacks and everything else. Our attacks just confirm what their leaders have told them."
I ask him what he might tell George Bush and his top officials if he had the chance.
"My immediate instinct is to say, "Drop dead," but I don't think that sounds very good. The fact is we just have to get out right now. We have to remove those young people like the ones with whom I served from harm's way in an imperialist war for oil."
And he walks on alone in the crowd.
Bring My Dad Home
He is eleven years old -- with a friend and the friend's mother. He stops shyly for just a moment at my request. He is carrying a sign he's made that says, "Bring My Dad Home. Stop the War."
He admits that this is his first demonstration. ("It feels pretty cool.") His father, he tells me, in as few words as possible, is somewhere outside of Baghdad and in the Army Reserves. When asked about the war his father is fighting, he says: "I think we need to stop the war because there's no need for it. Oil's not worth blood."
I wonder how his dad feels about this. "I never really asked him," he replies and heads off with his friend.
Ed Bloch ("And don't reverse the first and last names!") at 82 is undoubtedly not the oldest veteran to be in this demonstration, but he may be the oldest one walking its length. He wears his soft, khaki campaign cap and his old Marine officer's jacket, cinched at his waist with a belt. It has his battle stars and his first lieutenant's bars from World War II. ("I was a rifle platoon leader in the battle for Okinawa.")
When I ask whether this could possibly be his wartime jacket, he replies, "They made the damn uniform of such great material in those days. It's 61 years old."
It fits him amazingly, though he assures me that a friend "moved the buttons for me."
"After the war against Japan ended," he tells me, "the First Marine Division was sent into China, right into the middle of their civil war, to work with the Japanese and the Chinese puppets and hold down the territory for the arrival of Chiang [Kai-shek]'s troops. While I was there, I committed atrocities. I committed atrocities with the Japanese on a small Chinese town."
He walks on, his pace never breaking, while I consider this.
Then he says, in a segue that makes great sense if you think about it: "The reason that [Senator] Ted Kennedy is more honest than most of them down there is Chappaquiddick. It moved him in the direction of remorse. It made him understand."
On Iraq, he's clear as day. "Everything I believe screams out that there is no substitute for peace in a nuclear age. For certain, this continued war is bringing up the fundamentalists all around the world to do the suicide attacks and everything else. Our attacks just confirm what their leaders have told them."
I ask him what he might tell George Bush and his top officials if he had the chance.
"My immediate instinct is to say, "Drop dead," but I don't think that sounds very good. The fact is we just have to get out right now. We have to remove those young people like the ones with whom I served from harm's way in an imperialist war for oil."
And he walks on alone in the crowd.
Bring My Dad Home
He is eleven years old -- with a friend and the friend's mother. He stops shyly for just a moment at my request. He is carrying a sign he's made that says, "Bring My Dad Home. Stop the War."
He admits that this is his first demonstration. ("It feels pretty cool.") His father, he tells me, in as few words as possible, is somewhere outside of Baghdad and in the Army Reserves. When asked about the war his father is fighting, he says: "I think we need to stop the war because there's no need for it. Oil's not worth blood."
I wonder how his dad feels about this. "I never really asked him," he replies and heads off with his friend.
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