As we drove to Crawford that night towards the end of the trip, Tim did share with me a few personal feelings. He has a wonderful girlfriend named Heather now, and they are building a life together. Both are 25 years old. It gets kind of hard though to build a life on $300.00 a month. He sold his car after getting out of the Air Force and bought a late model smaller economical car that he owns outright. He lives with a woman and her daughter in California for nothing right now. The woman believes in what he is doing and giving him an abode is her contribution, he is usually on the road these days and seldom there. Heather is going to college in California. Tim has been speaking out for Iraq Veterans Against the War now full time for a year. They are able to pay him $300.00 a month and the organization that he has cofounded covers his travel expenses…..but that’s it and it ain’t much for a 25 year old. He is so gifted though and such a fabulous speaker. He really puts an edge on what the veterans of this war are going to go through attempting to digest the succession of lies that goes hand and hand with this war. As we drove to Crawford I couldn’t emphasize enough how much the Anti Iraq War cause needed him. I can’t emphasize how much the returning vets with PTSD and anxiety disorders are going to need him and those who are going to endure life without limbs. It is early in this war and people haven’t digested all the lies as easily as Tim and I have, but adapting to life without limbs and life with mental problems is eventually going to blow up in these veterans faces one day. They need Tim and Tim needs MONEY right now!
The next morning at Peace House Tim jumped up and headed to Camp Casey very quickly. I stumbled around the house amazed at the people flowing in and out. I drank up the air around me and it sank into my soul. I stood in the living room and I think my eyes were probably as big as they used to be when I was four and it was Christmas. A wiry feisty guy was changing shirts and talking about the arrest. He sounded like a lawyer but he looked Vietnam Vetish too (I still don’t know what that is either but I know sometimes when I see it or hear it). The guy was a bundle of energy. I asked him if he was Cindy’s lawyer and he said that he was part of Cindy’s defense team and he was Buddy Spell.
I told my story about my husband and my Uncle and driving all night, sleeping in the Waffle House parking lot in Fayetteville, LA. I felt like I had just gently tapped my heart against the side of a bowl until it cracked and now the yoke was sliding out. Buddy’s investigator who is a Vietnam Vet came over and hugged me. Buddy sifted through his bag and found a Tshirt that he tossed to me. It was a good meeting for me because I was going to need Buddy Spell on Friday, I was going to need Buddy Spell more than I could have ever imagined. The Tshirt said on the front “Take No Prisoners” and it has a small skull and cross bones and the back says “Spell and Spell”. Anne Spell is his wife and she is an activist and also an attorney. She is a true redhead though and suffered a bit of heat stroke on Friday! Buddy was saying something about another Gold Star mom coming and the press was coming with her. The mom has just received her second doctorate so she had clout and two different press organizations were traveling to Crawford with her. He was saying this in general to anybody in Peace House who could hear him. The information felt overwhelming to me so I made my way to the kitchen. It was too huge knowing that all these people had been affected as I had. It was too huge knowing that the press was coming and that they might even report on how things are for some of us military families. Kitchens are familiar and very BASE to living so I made my way in that direction until I could get my noggin adjusted to Peace House.
A gentleman named Mark was in the kitchen with a line forming. He was making perfect omlettes French style and he had ham and cheese, onion, mushroom, green pepper, jalepenoes. He had two small omlete skillets going at once and a decent sized line. I had no appetite though. Whenever I’m on sensory overload I stop eating, some people eat more but my eating system shuts down. Mark brought his daughter Celeste to Camp Casey on Saturday so maybe he was from Austin or some place close, I never did find out for sure. He was one of the beautiful men though. Sorry, cracks me up that Anne Coulter thinks that liberals are ugly. Mark was the one who talked about 14er’s and climbing them in Colorado and meeting the wife of a Democrat who was a County Attorney for El Paso County (my grandmother’s county), I got very excited and asked if her last name was Iuppa (the last Democrat that I know of that was the County Attorney for El Paso and my grandmother was so happy it was sickening….but my husband had dated the daughter of one that I wasn’t familiar with for a short time before I met him…. grrrrrrr! I guess that Army boy has something for libruls!) he couldn’t remember though but he was a handsome gent and his daughter was gorgeous!
I waited around for Cat because she was going to be bringing more supplies up. I got her on the cell phone and she apologized enormously for oversleeping. I met a mom whose son was going to Iraq soon. She had joined Military Families Speak Out and had jumped in the car and driven from Missouri much the same way that I had. I can’t remember her name though…hysterical huh? I ran along with her but my mind wouldn’t store her name, it has something to do with trauma and her son going and how scared I am for her and him. Cat told me her name Saturday night too right to my face but my mind is having a hard time filing the information away afraid that the information will hurt really bad one day. I’m hoping that Cat will come along with her name though. I know that she and Cat exchanged info and I’m counting on Cat to share it with me as I come down from this ride……she was blonde and as fair skinned as I was and ran around for a time without sun screen also in a kind of daze and shock. Her face was on the front of her home town paper and she had come out of the closet, she was a bit scared about returning home.
I decided to go check out Camp Casey since Cat was running a little later than expected. They were asking us to take shuttles from Peace House to Camp Casey. There were quite a few cars out there and they figured that the fewer cars the better. We were doing everything possible to keep law enforcement happy and they were working right along side Buddy Spell. He had made contact with them and they set down the rules and he had them on speed dial thank God because eventually we needed that speed dial!
I caught a shuttle to Camp Casey and press was arriving. I went to camp Casey with Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi in the shuttle. On the way out the shuttle driver was miffed. Seems that a reporter from KLIF had been to the camp in his car that morning, he was a talk show radio host and was broadcasting live. He never got out of his car and he spoke to no one. The campers decided to listen in to his broadcast and were really taken back by his report. He was reporting live that the protesters were throwing water bottles and rocks at his car and that they were making death threats. Okay everybody, I’m hanging out with people who desire peace and I learned very well on Friday who makes threats during an Anti Iraq War protest and it isn’t us.
Matt Taibbi was kind of pissed off about what he was hearing so he attempted to call KLIF but cell phone reception in Crawford isn’t all that good for big city folks. We switched to Alltel since Alltel gets a really good signal in the South and we can receive cell phone calls at our house and nobody else could provide us with that. I am a Boomaner and I’m sick to fucking death along with the rest of you about how the rightwing media twists everything so I handed him my phone and said call away, it’s Alltel and gets reception here. He phoned KLIF and told them that he was getting conflicting reports about what the protesters were doing during their reporter’s visit and he wanted to know if they were willing to stand behind what their reporter was saying and to please get back with him and he gave them his phone number. I LOVE MATT TAIBBI.
After he made the call he said something about the guy being too lazy to make contact. Just wanted to make stuff up. I couldn’t resist talking to him about the press and the problem with the press reporting things. He said that I needed to understand the nature of the people who get into the “business”, they like stuff served up to them on a silver platter. He said they were kind of lazy sleaze bags and then he added that this was coming from a member of the press.
