COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: War Protests: General
Warriors in Crawford
APRIL FITZSIMMONS, LA Weekly
August 25, 2005
CRAWFORD,
TEXAS — “I just wanted to see what all the fuss was
about,” I told the hulking Secret Service man standing over me in
front of the entrance to George W. Bush’s vacation home. It was
my first day in Crawford, Texas, at Camp Casey and I had traveled there
with Patrick, an Arlington West peace group staple and a conscientious
objector from the ’60s.
On Tuesday, Day 3 of Cindy Sheehan’s stand in Crawford, Kathleen
from Arlington West, Woody from the Topanga Peace Alliance, and June
from Global Exchange packed 1,000 crosses in Los Angeles into the back
of a donated Suburban and sped to Texas. By Thursday the crosses, a
visual representation of the human cost of war, stood next to Camp
Casey as a show of solidarity and in support of Cindy’s question
— What is the noble cause that my son died for?
By the time we arrived on Saturday, the camp was in full swing and
counter-protesters were showing up by the truckload. Armed with
American flags and “Cut and run traitors” signs and many
“Casey died for me” banners. Gathered in Camp Casey were
veterans and activists from across the country. Peace prevailed through
early afternoon under the hot Texas sun and sweltering humidity until
about 3 p.m. The counter-demonstrators moved closer, shouting
“Freedom isn’t free.” The Texas cops stood 30 strong
and the folks at Camp Casey stood relatively silent.
I watched through Woody’s binoculars as a police helicopter
circled the camp. As the chopper drew closer and closer to the ground,
storm clouds gathered. The shouting increased now on both sides and a
Vietnam vet kept insisting, “You don’t know. You
haven’t been there. You just don’t know.” He stood
chest to chest with the “Freedom isn’t free” guy,
each man clinging to his beliefs.
At the height of the confrontation, the Vietnam vet looked to the sky
and his face contorted into horror. He saw the chopper and suddenly it
wasn’t Crawford, Texas. It was Vietnam. He collapsed in a heap
and wept uncontrollably. Five Vietnam vets rushed to his side and
carried him under a tent. They shielded him from view, putting their
bodies between the sobbing man and the media. I watched the press as
they politely waited for him to have his “moment” and for
the human wall to move so their lenses could peek into the anguish of
this grown man.
But this wasn’t a “moment.” This was part of
posttraumatic stress disorder. I simply couldn’t understand
because I was never in combat, having served in the U.S. Air Force
during the Cold War. And so I watched this group of men as they spoke
to him gently in the language of war and peace. They hugged him and
brought a warm washcloth to his forehead. They told him jokes. They
gave him ice and water. They never looked away, not once.
The man wept for almost an hour. One vet, Tim Origer, a former Marine,
leaned into his grieving buddy and wiped his brow. As Tim pulled away
to dip the cloth again into the bucket, his hand brushed away his pant
leg and I saw his prosthetic leg. A gray mechanical knee and a stiff
piece of metal where his right calf used to be. Tim lost his leg to an
artillery round on March 15, 1968, during the Tet offensive. He was 19.
The man on the other side of Tim was David Cline, president of Veterans
For Peace. This was the anti-war statue that you’ll never see in
Washington. Banded together with the knowledge that they had been duped
by their government, these men now needed to heal one other.
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