Bring the Troops Home Now Rally and March in Syracuse, NY

[unhappycamper]

Bring the Troops Home Now Rally and March in Syracuse, NY
Written by Thomas Brinson

Photos by Doug Ryder



I was most privileged yesterday on a perfectly gorgeous fall day to participate in the Bring the Troops Home Now Rally and March in Syracuse, NY, sponsored by IVAW, the Syracuse Peace Council, SEIU 1199, and the Student Peace Action Network. 2,000+ peace activists gathered in Everson Plaza in downtown Syracuse for a rousing rally that included stellar speeches by VFP President Elliot Adams and IVAW New York Regional Coordinator, Michael Blake.

About 25 IVAW members, including a large contingent from the Fort Drum IVAW Chapter, followed by upwards of 75 members of VFP from WW II through Gulf War I, lead the march through downtown Syracuse to Walnut Park near the Syracuse University campus where a second rally with kick-ass music and a festive mood ensued.

What was especially heartening for me was the large cohort of college age, younger participants both in the march and at the rallies, something that has noticeably been missing from other rallies and marches I've attended the last couple of years since I've been back in the US of Empire after spending two years as an ex-patriot peacemaker in Sri Lanka. Standing off to the side, however, watching a group of young dancers -- long-haired, blue-jeaned, bare-footed, on the elder edge of my grandchildren's generation -- grooving to Grateful Dead guitar riffs and a cover of a Sublime love song, along with the lifting encouragement was also the bitter-sweet realization that I have spent much of the past 40 years, since I returned from Vietnam, attending similar rallies and marches for peace.



When finally we end this one other illegal, inhumane, immoral and insane war, then we need to get really serious about manifesting a second American revolution to radically change the power that Eisenhower's "military industrial congressional complex" has over American government, to truly create a government "of, by and for" the people, not only for the members of the upper, privileged classes of our society.

Peace Out & In,

thomas brinson, Facilitator
Long Island Veterans For Peace, Chapter 138




http://veteransforpeace.org/Rally_sycracruse_ny.vp.html