I went to the peace vigil in Shepherdstown tonight. Five years of the occupation already. Some have been at it since before the Iraq invasion and occupation.
The event was moved to O’Hurley’s General Store due to the rain.
I saw many familiar faces from other peace events and political campaigns and I saw new faces as well. There were about 80 people in all in the large room where music and dances are sometimes held.
It was a good mix of young students from Shepherd College and gray-haired veterans of the Vietnam War and of Vietnam War protests.
It had been cooler during the day, but had warmed after the rain stopped and a fire in the stone fireplace had died down to smoking embers. On a wet day, the wood-smoke made the room seem cozier.
A good friend who I had traveled to Fairmont with to canvass in the last days of the 2004 Kerry-Edwards race was at the entrance collecting money for Central Asia Institute. We hugged and I made a donation and got a couple of sugar cookies and a cup of tea.
There were a pair of guitarists singing. Then I saw Anne Barth, our WV-02 candidate for Congress, standing in the back of the room. She greeted me warmly. She really is a very nice woman. I was surprised to see her there not because she’s not a strong advocate for peace, but because I hadn’t seen any announcement of her attendance. She was there not to politic but to show solidarity with the others who want to support the troops and bring them home from Iraq.
She hadn’t planned on speaking, but one of the singers asked between songs if she would say a few words. Barth kept it brief. She introduced herself and said she remembered the day when Senator Byrd spoke out against the war and how the fax machines buzzed with people agreeing with him and others opposed to him. (Read his speech here.) She said she still gets chills thinking of his speech when he was one of the few voices with the courage in Congress to speak out in opposition before the war.
“Senator Byrd was right,” Barth said and people applauded. “I want to end this war and bring our troops home.”
Barth said she wanted to go to Washington and join him in his efforts to bring the troops home.
“The troops have served honorably. It is time they were brought home,” she said.
When she finished to loud applause, two more singers, a young, college age woman and a grayhaired man did a lovely duet of John Lennon’s Imagine.
It was a good event, solemn yet friendly with people united in purpose.
Afterwards another canvassing partner, JBdem4usa, took me out and bought me a beer, Mountaineer Stout, just like he said he would.