WASHINGTON, D.C.—
""What do we want? Troops out! When do we want ‘em? Now!""
Pro-peace chants rang through a Van Galder coach bus filled with members of UW-Madison's Campus Anti-War Network, as it drove out of a gray, windy Madison toward an even colder, blustery Washington, D.C., Friday.
The members marched on the Pentagon to protest the war—Saturday marked the four-year anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
The 51 protesting bus riders represented a variety of political ideologies, from Democrat to Green Party to Socialist. The political atmosphere on the bus heightened Friday afternoon as a capitalism vs. socialism debate broke out, and students expounded on their viewpoints by adding their ideological ""two cents.""
""No blood for oil—U.S. off Iraqi soil!""
Walking past the U.S. Department of State, across the street from the Lincoln Memorial, a woman unaffiliated with CAN carrying an ""Impeach Bush"" sign commented on the noisiness of the protest's beginning chants and ruckus ahead.
""Can you hear that?"" she asked a friend beside her, seemingly in awe. ""It's like getting closer to the ocean.""
After a 17-hour bus ride, UW-Madison's anti-war students arrived at the Lincoln Memorial bedraggled and tired, but passionate about their cause and excited for the pending march. Students unfurled banners, including one that shouted, ""Support War Resisters"" in gigantic block letters, picturing four officers who refused to deploy to Iraq: Ehren Watada, Kyle Snyder, Suzanne Swift and Augustin Aguayo.
As the noon march time approached, other Campus Antiwar Networks joined the UW-Madison group, helping to carry the banners and lead chants.
Anti-war students from Boston and Rochester and Potsdam, N.Y. swarmed the area, scoping out the other activist groups dotting the expanse of green stretching in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Political vendors sold ""Make Hip-Hop, Not War"" shirts and a plethora of leftist political buttons.
""This is what democracy looks like—that is what hypocrisy looks like!""
Former U.S. Marine Corps counter protesters from New York and Pennsylvania, clad in black leather jackets with patches emblazoned with red writing reading, ""In Memory of 58,044 Brothers Who Never Returned: Vietnam, '62-'75,"" began to lean over the fence at around 11:30 a.m., jeering and shouting.
""Get a fucking real life, put on a uniform and defend your country!"" a tall, heavy-set veteran with a gray beard yelled. ""Go to Iraq, all of you, go to Iraq and protest!""
""Hey, when we were in Vietnam, we were shooting the wrong people,"" another veteran shouted, denouncing what he called the ""hippies"" of today and yesterday.
""Any interaction with these people has to be done collectively,"" UW-Madison senior and CAN organizer Chris Dols stressed. ""Individual attacks will not work!""
Still, two or three CAN members approached the veterans, trying to justify the anti-war cause to the group of men.
The heated circle of insults broke up after a young man on the ""protest"" side of the fence wearing a red bandana around his face called the veterans Nazis.
""You're a fucking communist,"" a vet spat at him, attempting to grab the bandana off his face.
""Peace is patriotic!""
At noon, the CAN members approached the Lincoln Memorial and joined the Student/Youth contingent of the March on the Pentagon—by far the largest contingent marching, with several thousand protesters from high schools and colleges across the country.
Swaying to Bob Marley's ""Could You Be Loved?"" and holding neon signs reading ""Impeach Bush"" and ""U.S. Out of Iraq Now,"" the protesters swarmed across the Arlington Memorial Bridge to the Pentagon, passing counter protesters with poster boards reading, ""Win the War or Lose to Jihad"" and ""Safe Since 9/11.""
One protester marched with his yellow Laborador retriever, the dog dressed in a white T-shirt reading, ""Bombs Kill Puppies."" Another, a young girl in a pink hat and lavender jacket, blew bubbles while her family members chanted, ""Drop Bush, not bombs!""
Pouring into the Pentagon's parking lot where a stage was set up, clustering on the hill or chanting in front of police officers in riot gear on Memorial Bridge, the protesters assembled to assert their anti-war message.
Author and activist Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in Iraq at age 24, spoke, declaring that President George Bush's administration is perpetuating a ""war machine."" She emphasized the march as a means to end ""another illegal and immoral war.""
""Forty years ago, there was a march on the Pentagon in protest of Vietnam,"" Sheehan said. ""And here we are, 40 years later ... when is it going to stop?""
Despite near-freezing temperatures and wet, muddy conditions, 50,000 people marched. The protest was broadcast live on C-SPAN and Al-Jazeera and received heavy coverage from other international and domestic news sources.
""Racist, sexist, anti-gay, right-wing bigots, go away!""
As Sheehan and other veterans of the peace movement, activists and performers spoke out against the Bush Administration's ""insistent"" continued funding and support of the war onstage, a scuffle broke out below in the parking lot.
As two high school girls shouting pro-Bush and pro-war sentiments tried to break into CAN's contingent, members linked arms and pushed the two girls out.
""If you're pro-war, leave!"" the protesters shouted.
UW-Madison junior and CAN organizer Zach Heise said after the protest that he never expected such a large counter-protest movement.
""I felt kind of bad for them—it was such a small group of people, with no direction or focus,"" Heise said, stressing that counter protesters who slung insults and personal attacks achieved nothing in justifying the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
""They had no persuasive argument,"" he continued, recalling one Vietnam veteran counter protester's words for him: ""If you were one of my sons, I would have shot you a long time ago.""
A fourteen-hour bus ride later, UW-Madison's CAN members lugged their belongings off the bus to take a group picture after a weekend of marching in the mud, holding banners high in 30-degree weather with no gloves and flashing the peace sign to angry counter protesters. Similar protests occurred over the weekend in Madison, San Francisco, New York and other major cities.
Smiling for the camera on the steps of Memorial Union, the 51 anti-war students began one last chant.
""U.S. out of the Middle East—no justice, no peace!""
