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Address by Doug Rawlings, Maine Veterans for Peace
Brunswick March to Protest Blue Angels' Appearance - NASB Air Show Before a supportive crowd of about 350 people
September 10, 2005
Good morning. Thanks to all of the folks who have organized today's rally including, first and foremost, Bruce, Mary Beth, Bob, John, and Jack. And I'd like to thank the Brunswick police department for their hard work and cooperation Veterans for Peace has been around for twenty years - we now have 123 chapters with at least one chapter in every state, and our voices can be heard from Alaska to southern California, from Crawford, Texas to Florida, Michigan, and Maine, and I might point out with great pride - veterans for peace began here in the great state of Maine two decades ago. Now for these twenty years we have heard a constant refrain from "the other side": you shouldn't be here; your presence is inappropriate; inappropriate at Memorial Day parades, inappropriate at Veterans Day parades, and inappropriate at this Blue Angels air show, this family entertainment spectacle. Our answer to this criticism has been and continues to be one word: bullshit. The words of the Greek dramatist, Aeschylus, spoken 2,500 years ago still ring true today: "in war, truth is the first casualty." So we feel that as veterans it is our obligation, our responsibility, to step forward again and again to speak truth to the lies. We are threatening to the warmongers in this country because we speak from the ground truth of war: many of us have been to war, all of us have served in the military, and we can see through their smoke screens. We have become the watch dogs of the military, the hound dogs, and we're as tough as junkyard dogs: we will not let go until this country is freed from the military's stranglehold on the true American way of life. Our message will not waiver: Stop the war in Iraq! Bring the troops home now! And listen up George bush and all of your cronies: we are not asking for our country back. We are demanding it back. We will not rest until we have taken it back from the likes of you and your chickenhawk buddies. We will not rest until you are held accountable for your war crimes! We are here today to speak to the truth of aerial warfare that we are witnessing right now above the community of Brunswick. This is not entertainment to many people around the world. Unfortunately, too many know quite well what the sound of jets streaking overhead really means. So we say to you who have organized this glorification of war we are not like the crowds that have stood in Moscow's Red Square in awe of military hardware. We are not like the crowds at the Nuremberg rallies who worshipped the Nazi war machine. No! We know what psychological warfare is when we see it. We will not stand in thrall to your infantile displays of military might; we will not allow you to brainwash our children into accepting militarism as an acceptable facet of the American way of life. We stand here at the gates of your military base and declare: Stop the war in Iraq! Bring the troops home now! We are here today In solidarity with the many Americans who reject war as a means of foreign policy. And that solidarity includes the men and women in uniform right now who know deep in their hearts and souls that this war in Iraq is immoral, unjust, and downright ignorant. We know that the military code of justice does not allow those of you in uniform to protest the war that has so profoundly affected your lives. But know that we in the peace movement embrace you as fellow human beings and tell you that we will be here when you are freed from your military service. We urge you to join with our brothers and sisters who have formed Iraq Veterans Against the War. They have taken up their cause in the same spirit as we have over these past twenty years - using their experience in the military to wage war against war, to stand for peace, to win back our country. I urge you to join them when you can and support them now as they devote their lives to ending the war in Iraq and bringing back their brothers and sisters in arms right now. You can't join us in voice but you can in spirit, so we say this again for you: Stop the war in Iraq! Bring the troops home now! Finally, on a personal note, I am here today as a Vietnam veteran who has to tell you, my fellow peace activists, you who have taken the time out of your lives to protest against this war, to protest the mindless militarism that these Blue Angel exhibitions represent, in protest against the insidious indoctrination of our children to accept war as a natural part of life in America, that thirty six years ago when I was on a firebase in the central highlands of Vietnam, as a reluctant member of an occupying army, as a despairing foot soldier in pharaoh's army, I took great solace not from my so-called leaders, not from Nixon and his henchmen, but from folks like you who were fighting against the war, who were fighting to bring my buddies and me home, who were standing in the streets to stop the slaughter of the Vietnamese people. And I tell you right now that we who stand today in protest against this mindless, immoral, and unjust war in Iraq are the ones who truly recognize the anguish of every American soldier serving in Iraq. It is you who stand in witness of the pain and agony unleashed upon the Iraqi people in America's name. It is you who serve as the true patriots of this country when you join me in declaring: Stop the war in Iraq! Bring the troops home now! Bless you all. May we one day live in an America that we can be proud of, an America that brings peace into the world, an America that we can hand over to our children and grandchildren with pride, an America that has forsaken war. Keep the struggle for peace alive We who are dedicated to a peaceful world will one day prevail. :: back to top
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