When we all piled out of the shuttle at Camp Casey the first thing that I saw was the banner that said Jesus Wept. I have heard so much Christian garbage spewed out justifying this war but here on this dirt backroad in broiling heat sat a few folks under umbrellas and some of those portable shade canopies and Jesus Wept. The crosses weren’t up yet, but they were unloaded and stacked in the ditch….I had originally thought that when I got there I would help put up crosses but upon arriving at Camp Casey I only had one thing that I was capable of and that was gawking. Every pain or ounce suffering I have exposed on here was validated on this little stretch of dirt road and all I could do was stare.
I made my way around lost. Tim was there and getting his canopy together and getting his signs up for Iraq Veterans Against the War and Buddy Spell and his wife were there along with his investigator. I saw Cindy across the way giving an interview, and those interviews continued throughout the day in seemingly an endless line.
I watched Matt Taibbi make his way to Code Pink, what guy wouldn’t? Later I pointed out Tim to him and they chatted. Before I had left Peace House I had even applied a few cosmetics that Thursday. A Code Pinker standing in line at the bathroom was talking to me in the kitchen. I told my story and she said, “Girl, you need to get a little makeup on because they are going to be interviewing you.” Then she asked me if my hair was naturally curly and I said yes and she sighed wistfully looking at it. It has all the potential in the world but the woman currently wearing it is in a sort of constant emotional turmoil these days and HAIR just doesn’t seem that important let alone makeup.
I stayed away from reporters though. They scared me literally to death. I didn’t want to have to kill anybody for lying about me. Cindy seems to have a grip though on all that. I watched her last night just flat out say that something she was supposed have said wasn’t what she said at all.
I hung out at Camp Casey for about two hours, and spent most of my time sitting with Buddy and company. I was very comfortable in their presence. Then I caught a shuttle back to Peace House and behold there was Cat’s Explorer.
I got out of the shuttle and up stalked one pissed off Cat with claws! One of the workers at Peace House had told her that they didn’t need her or her stuff. He was super bitchy right at that moment. He had brought a huge gray sort of bus thing and he shuttled sometimes and it was huge and it was wonderful but man I do not know what the hell was up with him and why he had to say that to Cat.
I got Cat to get in the car and I convinced her that if she drove her car out to Camp Casey and dispersed the goods they were all needed and I don’t know what the hell was wrong with “Bitch Boy”. She said that “they” had told her not to take her vehicle out there and I waved it to the wind and off we went. The first thing that left the back of her Explorer was the old lawn chairs that nobody wanted back…..they disappeared into thin air poof.
Before we left Peace House a woman approached me and asked if I knew how to get to Camp Casey and I told her to follow us. She said that she was a reporter for Time and she wanted to know who I was and how I got there. I told her and she said that I was the kind of person she was looking for and she asked more questions but she had left her car in the middle of the road in front of the Peace House and a police car pulled up behind it and she needed to move it immediately.
She followed us to Camp Casey and watched as Cat and I unloaded the water and ice tea to Cindy. Then she drove further up the deadend service road and parked and started doing her business. I saw her again that evening at Peace House and we sat on the porch together while she interviewed me further. I hoped that I could trust her, it felt like I could. I realized that I would be exposed now in my community but someone was going to have to be for this to start! What is someone going to do to me after hearing that my husband doesn’t sleep and my Uncle shot himself in the heart in front of the VA in Colorado Springs? Are they going to beat me up? If they do how will that go over?
Cat spent a lot of time that day with different people. I would occasionally look around and find her. They used her Explorer to listen to the President’s news conference while I tried to ditch Emilio from the Communist weekly newspaper Revolution. Damn, I found the paper online so I guess that Emilio probably wasn’t a plant unless the whole paper is a plant. Emilio has a huge synergistic gaze that he fixes on you while he explains how everything is interconnected and we need to overthrow Bush. He asks me for an interview……dude, are you crazy? I keep walking and he keeps following. He asks me if I will at least read his paper. I say that I will and he hands me one and says that that will be $1.00. How in the hell do I get rid of this guy? My purse is in Cat’s car so we walk down the road to it.
Julie stops me on the way there. She is from San Diego and just showed up at Camp Casey days earlier. She asks if anybody has a car that they can listen to the president’s news conference in. Cat is close by and I ask her and she comes along with us…….friggin Emilio in tow! I become interested in what Cat and Julie are doing and Emilio hangs out and hangs out and starts to get cranky. He asks if I’m going to pay for the paper or not. I didn’t stop to get cash for this trip. I pulled up to the gas station and whipped out the card and went inside and soda and coffee and water and whipped out the card. I had no cash on me. I pay for the paper with ten dimes because I am a butthead and I want Emilio to LEAVE ME ALONE. He leaves!!!!
The day wears on and it is so HOT. I think I drank about 5 bottles of water out there. Still not hungry though. Finally I have to pee though and I look down the road at the portapotty. Maybe I can hold it and use a real bathroom in town. There isn’t much to town though and when I get back to Peace House close to evening I just suck it up and use the portapotty there….UGH. I would never make it as a soldier! I had taken a shower at Cat’s the day before but I was getting pretty nasty now 24 hours later. Cat had gone home and I just wanted a shower and a soft bed.
Buddy’s wife Anne had been calling around in Waco looking for a motel room. She needed to get out of the heat for awhile. She had gotten pretty sick that day. I had a headache from hell from the heat and knew that I needed to give my body a break too or I was going to pay for it. She said that they had vacancies in Waco so I decided to drive to Waco and spend the night.
Waco isn’t far, about 20 minutes. I was sitting in front of a Quality Inn when my cell rings. It is Tim. He asks where I am. I told him I was in Waco and he asks me if I’m coming back to Peace House because he really needs me to, we need to take a little road trip. He leaves it at that and tells me not to rush. My phone rings again and it is Susan asking how I am. I tell her that I’m fine but headed to do something clandestine I supposed. I get back to Peace House around 9:00 pm and I am whipped. Tim is making fliers using his laptop and having problems getting the house printer to respond. The fliers are inviting soldiers from Fort Hood to come to Camp Casey. They give a brief description of what Cindy is doing and why and unknown to me until that moment…..make it known that Casey was a Fort Hood soldier when he was killed.
Tim fights with the printer and I go out to the car and sleep for awhile. Around 11:00 p.m. here he comes with about 300 fliers and off we go to Fort Hood, a post that neither of us has ever been to. We pull up to the gate at Hood at around 1:00 a.m. and it is everything that Tim can do to keep his eyes open. I gave up about 20 miles back. The gates are now manned by private security firms. We ask where the barracks are and the gate guard asks us specifically which forces that we were looking for because there were barracks all over the place. I tell him that we will find it, don’t worry and we drive on through. If a soldier had been at the gate he would have been a little more suspicious I think. The place is so fricken huge. Tim was driving around trying to find enlisted barracks because officers would likely get pissed immediately and call the command or the M.P.s and have us removed. Funny how we military folk understand all of that “Stuff”.
