Anti-war protest changes scene on Independence Mall

By Francesca Lo Basso
Collegian Editor
November 15, 2006

On Veterans’ Day, the Philadelphia Regional Antiwar Network (PRAWN) and Gold Star Families for Peace covered Independence Mall with a sea of 2,844 tombstones – one for each American soldier killed in the Iraq War.

There were several speakers and performers throughout the course of the evening. One such speaker, Celeste Zappala, is the mother of Sherwood Baker, the first member of the Pennsylvania National Guard to be killed in combat since 1945. Zappala read a poem written by a soldier that said, “Whether our lives and our deaths were for something or nothing, we cannot know this. It is up to you to give them a meaning.”

She asked the spectators gathered to give her son’s death a meaning by bringing the troops home and living up to the ideals of this country.

A group of soldiers in their 20s from the organization Iraq Veterans Against the War also spoke. Patrick, one of the vets, stood on stage in his army fatigue jacket.

“War criminals don’t wear this uniform. War criminals wear suits and ties and sit in the Pentagon and the White House,” he said. His hand was trembling as he held the microphone and said, “We saw how [the soldiers] didn’t come back the same way they left and we will remember that for the rest of our lives.”

He told a story about what happened right before his tour was over. It was two days before he was to leave Iraq. He wanted to get a picture of some of the Iraqi children, so he and a friend went into the city. When the children saw the soldiers in uniform, one child held up a newspaper with a photograph of Abu Ghraib and did the Nazi salute to Patrick and the newspaper. Patrick said to the crowd, “That’s how our troops are viewed in Iraq. We need to get them out of there.”

Another Iraqi War Veteran, Steve, talked about the courage and strength he found in his fellow soldiers.

He said, “Many of them were better men than me, and I had to watch them die.”

Toby, another of these veterans, said, “This war dehumanized me. [The Bush administration] took my humanity away and I want it back.”

The last speaker was Cindy Sheehan, the infamous mother of Casey Sheehan, a soldier killed in Iraq, who led a vigil at Bush’s ranch in Texas for months. She said, “Not only does George Bush need to be impeached, but he needs to be tried for war crimes.”

There were four protestors across the street who were supporting the war, and Cindy shouted into the microphone at them, “We’re not doing this out of hatred. We’re doing this out of love.”

lobassof1@lasalle.edu