Veterans were a sober yet powerful presence on the National Mall last Saturday as thousands came to D.C. to protest the troop surge in Iraq.
People from across the country came to protest the troop surge.
“We’re not going to wait for 3,500 more people to be killed,” Ann Wright, a retired Army Colonel and former diplomat, said.
Wright was one of many who spoke, including the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Sean Penn and Dennis Kucinich.
David Cline, a Vietnam War veteran from Jersey City, N.J., and president of Veterans for Peace, sat quietly amidst the clamor of different chants on the edge of the Reflecting Pool. Cline, who was drafted in 1967, highlighted the sense of alienation experienced by soldiers returning from Vietnam and Iraq.
“We were foreign then, just like we are now,” he said. “Bring the troops home now, and treat them right when they get back.”
Doug Drews, a construction worker and Vietnam veteran who traveled to D.C. from Minneapolis, agreed that the U.S. needs to withdraw immediately. Drews travels around the country protesting.
“This is what I do,” he said.
Although Cline is not a pacifist —he spoke proudly of his grandfather and father who served in World Wars I and II—he acutely remembers the horror of his own time in the service.
Over the course of his 12-month tour in Vietnam he was wounded three times, for which he received three Purple Hearts.
Despite his awards, Cline’s recollections of his service are painful.
“Any idea that we were fighting for something positive … that we were there to fight for freedom … as soon as we got there, they said, ‘forget that,’” he said, clearly upset by the memory of his introductory indoctrination in Cu Chi, Vietnam.
“What we were fighting for was trying to stay alive.”
Some conservatives still stand by the decision to invade Iraq.
“We have disposed of a dangerous despot ,” Elizabeth Niles (COL ‘09), internship coordinator for the Georgetown University College Republicans, wrote in an email to The Voice.
