It was a bitterly cold Saint Patrick’s Day, and my mother and I had already lost feeling in our hands. We found the path at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial that led to the anti-war march from the monuments to the Pentagon. There seemed to be more counter-protesters than protesters, and the counter-protesters all seemed to be wearing veteran jackets and American flags, holding angry signs.
This march was meant to be the fortieth anniversary of the major march on the Pentagon during Vietnam, a time when my mother marched regularly. We looked around at a crowd almost exclusively made up of angry veterans, confused. This was not what she had been expecting.
“Maybe we’re in the wrong place?” she asked.
Just then, a fellow protester holding a giant peace sign stumbled into us from the shove of an angry veteran. A line of men in leather jackets and U. (https://www.creditcadabra.com) S. Marine hats stood in the pathway, arms crossed and smiling disturbingly. They told anyone trying to enter that it was a restricted area. My mother began to argue with the pack’s leader. She asked about permits. He cut her off, repeating over and over, “We are the permits, and we say you can’t enter.” When the man with the peace sign tried to cut in again they pushed him so that he stumbled over, nearly falling to the ground. The men laughed in a way that reminded me of the schoolyard bully who used to pelt rocks at kids on the soccer field. We took the long way around.
My mom, livid at our blocked path, muttered under breath about free speech and hypocrites.
“That man has probably never seen combat,” she insisted. “He cannot be a Vietnam vet; a Vietnam vet would be against the war.” We looked up to see a block of Vietnam vets carrying a sign that read, “If you want to support our troops, let them win.” We looked down and bit our tongues. My mother blushed.
“Well, at least I can’t understand how you could be a Vietnam vet and support the war.”
When we made it to the bridge, the crowds we had expected were nowhere to be seen. While the organizers had predicted tens of thousands people, the unofficial police estimates were only around 10,000 to 20,000, spread throughout the long, blustery day, and almost just as many counter-protesters. Most of the protesters were my mother’s age, and many were downright elderly, signs doubling as canes.
A counter-protester ran down the path screaming at each protester he passed, “Throw your fucking sign off this fucking bridge you communist.” One of the elderly women shook her head and turned to me, matter-of-factly stating, “If that was my boy, I would wash his mouth out with soap.”
By the time we made it to the Pentagon, I was completely deflated. According to a recent CNN poll, 46 percent of Americans say the U.S. cannot win in Iraq, yet the group resembled the crowd at a high school football game.
A marine was yelling at a protester, “You have never been in the war so you have no right to speak.” As a taxpayer, I have every right to protest when I don’t like where the majority of my money is going. I told him this, and he called me un-American.
While I’d have loved to change those veterans’ minds about the war, it would have been nice if they had simply listened to what the protesters were saying. And while I would likely not change my opposition to the war, it would have been nice if one of the veterans had stopped yelling and explained to me why he had traveled so far to show his support for the war.
Freedom of speech means nothing when we’re all talking at the same time. So my mother walked around the protests, silent. We separated and I spoke to a family whose son was currently in Iraq. I found my mother later in a conversation with a man from the group Veterans for Peace.
We left the protests glad we had voiced our opinions, and hoping the government would listen to us. We left newly aware of the fact that many more people support the war than we’d thought, although with no insight as to why. We left frustrated at the complete lack of dialogue. There was a kind veteran who smiled to me as I passed, despite his big American flag T shirt and my sign that read, “Peace is Patriotic.” I looked away, but later wished I had stopped and spoken to him.
