Peace
This is a picture of me and Cindy Sheehan. It was taken this past Tuesday at the event I went to in Kalamazoo. There were several speakers, and Cindy Sheehan spoke last. One of my favorite speakers was a young man who actually wasn’t originally scheduled to speak. Derek was 25 years old, had served in the military for 5 years I believe, and was a veteran of this current war. He talked about how after 9/11, he expected to be deployed to Afghanistan immediately. It was seven weeks before they got orders to go to the middle east. Derek said that they had been told earlier that Iraq was not a threat. But when they received their deployment orders, it said “Iraq” on the front. Why were they going to a country that didn’t pose a threat to the U.S.? Good question.
There was a folk singer named Joel Mabus who performed a few songs. It was a mix of serious and funny. Here is one of his serious ones called “Touch A Name On The Wall”. (Click here to see the lyrics.)
Cindy Sheehan was the final speaker. Before and after the event, Cindy was very approachable, and very kind. Even on stage, she is very soft-spoken. She’s not really an orator–she’s a mother who lost a son, and is speaking out against the government who sent him to war for a shady cause. I’m proud of her.
On a side note, there were many types of people at the event. Most of the people in the audience were over 40–many people who lived through the time of the WWII, the Korean Conflict, the Vietnam War, etc. There were veterans there. There were young people. There were parents. There were grandparents.
I am very glad I decided to go to this peace event. There were things said at this event with which I agreed and things with which I disagreed. It’s important anytime in life to think critically about the information and opinions that are presented. But I had a good time. And I got that great picture above.
