I have to correct myself from my last brief. I thought that Camille had lost a child in Iraq, but she lost a brother in Vietnam and that is how she has come to belong to Gold Star Families for Peace. I suppose that is why she and I were able to take the counter protesters some water where as the other families would rather see them dry up into skeletal corpses.
Anyhow, that mother/son duo went back to their side but the son had to make sure that he had spoken with Emilio first. The mother had had enough of the military families though and she had scurried back under her rock. I JUST WANT TO TAKE ONE MOMENT THOUGH TO THANK EMILIO. THANK YOU EMILIO, COULD YOU HAVE FOUND SOMEBODY ELSE’S PROTEST TO HIGH JACK? DID IT HAVE TO BE THIS ONE YOU, YOU, YOU COMMUNIST?
I’m not sure how much time lapsed but shortly after mother/son we had an attack of the Barbies. That’s right folks, it was Barbies. It appeared to be a mother/daughter duo this time in a big white KingCab pickup truck. They were both very blond and very tan and had suspiciously large breasts, perfectly coiffed hair in the blondest of the blond shade…..but wow did they seem pissed. They were going to drive their truck right through the camp. I’m still not sure why. As far as I know liberals and antiwar types haven’t wanted to make hair bleach or tanning beds or boob jobs illegal. I’m not here to destroy their quality of life or anything! Now that I think about it maybe it was life without that truck that terrified them and without lots of oil it is going to be hard to drive lots of truck! They are handy to have around when you need to drive over a bunch of people who annoy you.
This is where it became obvious that things were going to get violent if somebody didn’t take measures. Dr. Porscha (probably spelled that wrong), Daniel Torres’ Aunt and Father, and I stood in front of the truck. It wasn’t a conscious choice, it is more a desperate choice because these people cannot defeat us. We cannot and will not allow it. I realized moments after the whole incident died down that we military families can be really fucking scary right now when these people challenge us physically. I think they know that too now, I don’t think they really had an idea of what they were up against. To them it was ideas but for us it has been life and death and I think that on those few occassions when they had to deal with us one on one we scared the FUCKING HELL out of them at Crawford. They thought they were showing up to debate IDEAS. So see, the loved ones lost were never really people to them until maybe they showed up there and tried to be assholes to us and actually looked into our eyes.
So there we were in front of the truck and they were trying to drive forward and I vaguely remember hearing Buddy yelling at us and he had another young woman helping him help us and I could hear her yelling at us to get out of the way too, but I couldn’t immediately respond. I had to choose consciously to listen to them instead of doing what I wanted to do. So they got the women out of there, but not Daniel Torres’ father. He stood before that truck FAST holding his son’s photo in front of him and tears running down his face. I will never forget that image as long as I live…..NEVER.
Technically, Daniel’s father was the one in the wrong. He was blocking a roadway and we had been asked to not block the roadways and the counter protesters called in complaints on us if they felt we were blocking roadways. I guess the Sheriff though was just as struck in the heart as the rest of us were seeing Daniel’s dad there. He had the Barbies roll down their window and I don’t know what he said to them but they were mad as hell.
They cranked their wheels to the left and pulled into the triangle and turned around. Buddy was on the phone calling law enforcement and letting them know that we needed more people out there before this thing got out of hand. More help arrived before that stupid bus did thank God. They lined up cars and secret service between us, the counter protesters that were beside us were asked to move…..whew!
Then came the bus and I didn’t know that it was due to show up. I called Cat and boy was I riled up after the Barbies. Cat asked me if it was Mike Gallagher but I didn’t know, all I knew was that a bus had pulled up and a bunch of yahooing people with little flags were getting off of it.
I had visions of the Florida election protests floating in my head. Seems though that once they have stolen an election Republican type protesters lose their endurance for protesting. The group began chanting “We Don’t Care!” and a woman next to me shouted back “We Already Know That!” I could see a tall man with a sports jacket on stepping out of the ditch and trying to get the groups attention. I phoned Cat back and described him and she said, “That’s him.” Finally he was able to get his group under control and they said a little prayer and then sang “God Bless America”. The Sheehan crowd had already sang “God Bless America” to them while they had been doing their little ‘Don’t Care’ chant…..well most of the Sheehan crowd did sans me.
I saw the bus crowd begin to pool near the crosses and I could make out that they were placing their flags among the crosses but I stayed away. Of course the Gold Star Families were down there, those crosses really mean something to them and they were making sure that nothing happened to them. I was afraid I was going to punch someone’s lights out though so I stayed far away. The next day Valerie Fletcher had shared with me that one of the gentleman on the bus had placed his flag in the crosses and then had turned around and sobbingly embraced a Gold Star Family member. She said that they must have their true believers but we still can’t figure out how one becomes such a true believer.
Then they got in the bus and left and all of the counter protesters who had been their earlier left and I felt completely baffled. How could they leave? This is a life and death debate here and they want this war to continue and they don’t mind that soldiers are getting killed and by the way, my favorite program comes on at nine so I gotta run. Help, I feel like I’m slipping into the twilight zone!