Turning another corner

As the group demonstrated at the west end of Michigan Avenue to mark the Iraq war's fifth anniversary, its sobriety was under siege from syrupy sunshine advancing from the Capitol lawn behind them. Many looked forward to domestic regime change before next spring.

For an hour, sympathetic honks and shouts shot past them like streamers, twirled by the Doppler effect as cars whooshed south on Capitol Avenue.

“I think public opinion has undergone a sea change in the last couple of years,” protester Ken Harrow, a professor at MSU, said. “The vast majority are honking and waving and giving us peace signs.”

“Schmucks,” yelled a driver turning from Michigan Avenue onto Capitol.

It was the day's only catcall.

A core group of about 50, with hundreds of on-and-off sympathizers, have sustained the vigil since September 2001. It started as a “Don't go to war” vigil in the wake of 9/11 (and still is, although the feared target is now Iran). For the past five years, however, the group has focused on the Iraq war. {mosimage}

Vigil organizer Ann Francis said the turnout has ranged from 10 to 100 people, some from organized peace groups, others participating on their own.

Francis said the group thought about standing down after George Bush was re-elected, but the idea met strong resistance. With no draft or call to sacrifice — unless you count federal marching orders to cash stimulus checks and go shopping — it's too easy to tune the war out.

“We need to be out here to remind people it's still happening,” East Lansing artist Kate Darnell said. “At this point, if we left, it would send a horrible message.” Darnell has been there almost every Friday for five and a half years.

Harrow put it more bluntly. “The war's still going. That's what keeps us going,” he said.
“I've written letters and so on, but to put your body here says it stronger,” protester Martha Larsen said. Larsen has been a regular at the vigil since moving to Lansing three years ago.

Before noon, Spike Tyson, a disabled Vietman vet in a red scooter, chatted with new arrivals.

Tyson's health kept him from coming during bad weather, but others kept up the vigil through the winter. Retiree Gary Lee arrived with a blown-up photo of the scene on Jan. 4, 2008. In the photo, the protesters pace under the huge state Christmas tree like picketing Nativity figures, almost invisible in a vicious swirl of snow.

“It's been a very hard winter this year,” Francis said. “We've been here faithfully for six and a half years. I can't even believe it.”

The clock struck noon.

“Charlie's up,” Tyson said.

Charlie Nash, a longtime area activist, was already planted on the opposite side of Michigan Avenue, apart from the group, out of the sun. His collar was turned against the wind and his legs were apart. His sign read “TOO MANY HAVE DIED.”

The honks began. The others moved into place.

“Yeah!” one driver yelled, turning left from Michigan Avenue onto Capitol Avenue.

Tyson took a dead-center bead down Michigan Avenue, parked his scooter and raised an upside-down American flag.

There were several more honks.

Someone put up a hand-made wooden sign reading “3988,” the American death toll as of Friday. The board was dotted with splintery screw holes from years of number changes.
Now the honks were nearly continuous.

When the traffic light turned red on Michigan Avenue, a voice called out from an idling van. A protester who gave her name as Mary Ellen stepped off the curb and cocked an ear. The driver told Mary Ellen her son was deployed in Iraq, was hurt in a car bombing, came home, and was now being re-deployed to Afghanistan.

The light turned green. A row of vehicles was waiting, but nobody honked this time.
“Stay out here, keep it up,” the van driver called out as she zoomed away.

While many of the protesters swapped casual greetings, Will Dwyer, a wiry vet of the first Gulf War, stood stiffly in sunglasses and leather jacket. Dwyer has been coming to the vigils since March 19, 2003, the day President Bush announced the war in Iraq had begun.

As a Navy hospital corpsman, Dwyer served in Operation Desert Storm for eight months, assisting wounded American troops and Iraqi civilians.

“I figured this war was would be as quick as that one was,” he said. “I knew we were in for the long haul when the insurgency started.”

Margaret Kingsbury, a nursing teacher at Lansing Community College, said her kids are too old to go to war and her grandkids are too young, but she's committed to showing up every week until it's over. She also hates it when people tell her she's too serious. “I'm a nurse,” she said. “I've tried most of my life to relieve suffering. We are causing it here.”

A tall man in a wide-brimmed hat, Taylor Scott of Williamston, said he was there for the first time.

“I've been meaning to come down here for a long time, and it's a nice day,” he said.

Scott's friend Jeff Bartrem, a vigil regular, started coming in March 2005, when the First American Friends Service Committee, a Quakers group, symbolically spread the boots of dead American soldiers on the Capitol lawn.

“I went back, got my kids out of school and brought them here to see that,” Bartrem said. At first, his kids begrudged the time away from their friends and computers.

“I told my 16-year-old son, 'Those are your boots. That's your mom crying on the Capitol steps in a couple of years.'

It hit home a little bit,” Bartrem said.

Despite the warm weather and buzz over possible policy changes after the November election, some protesters seemed girded for a longer war.

“Maybe McCain will win and we'll stay in Iraq 100 years, but I think public opinion will bring an end,” Harrow said. “It's just very slow.”

“No matter who wins, we'll be here six months to a year after inauguration, and possibly much longer,” Tyson said.

Passersby walked in the light, but the low March sun never quite made it to the curb where Kingsbury stood.

“I wish I knew how we could have more effect,” she said.

At 1 o'clock, they all wrapped up for the week and stacked up the signs.

“We'll have a great bonfire with these some day,” Lee said.