11/06/07:Veterans For Peace Will 'mourn The Dead'-Clarence Kailin Chapter of Veterans For Peace
Veterans For Peace Will 'mourn The Dead'
The Capital Times :: METRO :: C1
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
By SAMARA KALK DERBY The Capital Times
Members of the Madison chapter of Veterans for Peace will present a Veterans Day event Sunday in which they will erect about 4,300 tombstones along Olbrich Park to signify the number of American deaths in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The tombstones will go up between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. Olbrich Park is at 3527 Atwood Ave. A ceremony to "Mourn the Dead, Heal the Wounded and Stop the War" will be held at 2 p.m. across from Olbrich Botanical Gardens, near the tennis courts and parking lot.
In case of bad weather, the ceremony will be held at the East Side Club, 3735 Monona Drive, just east of Olbrich Park.
A Veterans for Peace group staged a similar action in Gainesville, Fla., last Memorial Day, in which they put up tombstones along a mile of road.
"It was a very dramatic thing to help people comprehend how many gravestones there are for 4,000 people," said local Veterans for Peace activist Buzz Davis.
"The whole purpose of Veterans Day is to honor people who have served in the military. For many of us in Veterans for Peace, the best way we can honor them is to work harder for peace than we do for war," said Davis, who served as an Army infantry officer from 1967 to 1970 in South Korea.
Davis' aim is to commemorate Veterans Day in a way that is oriented toward peace and "not jet fighters flying over your head at low altitudes making a lot of noise."
The installation is also a memorial for the "650,000 or 1 million" Iraqis and Afghan people who have been killed, most of them civilians, he said. (Iraq Body Count has documented up to 83,034 Iraqi civilian deaths caused by violence during the war.)
"It is difficult for us to get people in our country to understand that there are other ways to do things besides go to war," Davis said.
There will be a book on hand listing the names of those from Wisconsin who have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and people will be encouraged to write their thoughts in a guest book.
Speakers at the ceremony will be:
* The Rev. David Couper of St. Peter's Episcopal Church in North Lake. A member of Veterans for Peace, Couper is a former Marine and former Madison police chief.
* Ray Maida of Madison, a Vietnam veteran and father of Army Sgt. Mark A. Maida, 22, who died in Iraq on May 27, 2005.
* Patrick Wilcox, an Iraq veteran, and member of Iraq Veterans Against the War and Veterans for Peace.
* Will Williams, Vietnam veteran and Veterans for Peace member.
* Abbie Pickett, who served in Iraq in 2003 with the Wisconsin National Guard, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War.
People will be invited, as individuals or families, to come forward to read the names of Wisconsin soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Email Samara
The Capital Times :: METRO :: C1
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
By SAMARA KALK DERBY The Capital Times
Members of the Madison chapter of Veterans for Peace will present a Veterans Day event Sunday in which they will erect about 4,300 tombstones along Olbrich Park to signify the number of American deaths in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The tombstones will go up between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. Olbrich Park is at 3527 Atwood Ave. A ceremony to "Mourn the Dead, Heal the Wounded and Stop the War" will be held at 2 p.m. across from Olbrich Botanical Gardens, near the tennis courts and parking lot.
In case of bad weather, the ceremony will be held at the East Side Club, 3735 Monona Drive, just east of Olbrich Park.
A Veterans for Peace group staged a similar action in Gainesville, Fla., last Memorial Day, in which they put up tombstones along a mile of road.
"It was a very dramatic thing to help people comprehend how many gravestones there are for 4,000 people," said local Veterans for Peace activist Buzz Davis.
"The whole purpose of Veterans Day is to honor people who have served in the military. For many of us in Veterans for Peace, the best way we can honor them is to work harder for peace than we do for war," said Davis, who served as an Army infantry officer from 1967 to 1970 in South Korea.
Davis' aim is to commemorate Veterans Day in a way that is oriented toward peace and "not jet fighters flying over your head at low altitudes making a lot of noise."
The installation is also a memorial for the "650,000 or 1 million" Iraqis and Afghan people who have been killed, most of them civilians, he said. (Iraq Body Count has documented up to 83,034 Iraqi civilian deaths caused by violence during the war.)
"It is difficult for us to get people in our country to understand that there are other ways to do things besides go to war," Davis said.
There will be a book on hand listing the names of those from Wisconsin who have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and people will be encouraged to write their thoughts in a guest book.
Speakers at the ceremony will be:
* The Rev. David Couper of St. Peter's Episcopal Church in North Lake. A member of Veterans for Peace, Couper is a former Marine and former Madison police chief.
* Ray Maida of Madison, a Vietnam veteran and father of Army Sgt. Mark A. Maida, 22, who died in Iraq on May 27, 2005.
* Patrick Wilcox, an Iraq veteran, and member of Iraq Veterans Against the War and Veterans for Peace.
* Will Williams, Vietnam veteran and Veterans for Peace member.
* Abbie Pickett, who served in Iraq in 2003 with the Wisconsin National Guard, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War.
People will be invited, as individuals or families, to come forward to read the names of Wisconsin soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Email Samara
Madison Veterans For Peace Website
Email Buzz Davis, a member of VFP
Submitted by wnpj on Fri, 11/09/2007 - 2:06pm.