Trip to Crawford

by Nina Falk
Takoma Park, MD

Some of you have asked me to tell my story of the few days I spent in Crawford, Texas, to support Cindy Sheehan, early this week.

It was a life-changing experience that warrants sharing, particularly since I keenly felt the presence of my friends, neighbors, and family.

Even before boarding the plane to Texas, I was moved to tears, by the poignancy of the words of a security guard at BWI. As I was waiting on line to go through the security checkpoint, I was feeling so excited to be going to Crawford and wanted to tell someone, anyone! So I told the woman who checked my I.D. and boarding pass, and almost immediately she launched into an outpouring of stories from her months serving at the international arrivals area of the airport. Many, many times she witnessed families greeting soldiers returning from Iraq, joyously returning whole (of body), or tragically, with missing limbs, sometimes multiple missing limbs and other deep wounds. She kept on saying, "and these are babies!! babies!! so young!!!". She would have talked for hours about the cruelty, insanity, and pain of this war.

I flew to Austin and drove the two hours to Crawford. Someone had told me that Crawford is about 45 minutes from Waco, so I was a little surprised and almost trembling to find it was only a few miles to the west....on route 185 just north of the city. I drove on, as I thought...this is the same road the president takes going to his ranch, and the same road Cindy took just a few weeks ago when she had her epiphany... when she knew she must stop everything else and demand truthful answers from the president, and resolutely wait until answers are given. Even though she has had to leave because of her mother's illness, I have no doubt that she will return, either to Crawford or Washington, and continue.

Just before you cross the railroad tracks, on route 185 in Crawford, you come to the Crawford Peace House, a ramshackle bungalow established by local peace activists since George W. has been in office. The house number is 9142, but I didn't really need the address---there was alot of activity around the house---other people arriving, people boarding the shuttle to Camp Casey, (about 5 miles away) going in and out of the house, where some were manning phones, computers, using the one bathroom, or cooking lunch for the hordes. I was invited to go inside but once I parked my rental car, I wanted to go straight to Camp Casey and offer my greetings from Takoma Park to Cindy. The scene was rather chaotic, with some arriving, some departing, and some looking like they had been working non-stop for days and days, which they probably had.

The shuttle (which was anyone's van who happened to volunteer) brought us to the site where Cindy and her supporters were camped out. I was struck by the hot sun, (very few trees), the wide range of peoples' ages (from four months old to 90 years) and the peaceful quiet scene. About 3-4 pro-war anti-Cindy protesters stood on one side of the road, and about 100 Cindy supporters sat, stood, walked, on the other side. There was no animosity. One of the anti-Cindy people had a guitar and sang a song, the same song, for about 10 hours.

I walked up and down the road meeting people, who were from all over the U.S. Two women from Austin (which has a considerable presence at Camp Casey) had drawn a map of the U.S. and people would write down where they were from. I proudly wrote "Takoma Park" on the map. Over the few days that I was there, many cities were added, and it was wonderful to see it fill up.

Shortly after I arrived, someone gave Cindy a haircut. This was duly covered by the press---quite a sight to see a lady sitting on a lawn chair among many tents and signs, with a swarm of TV cameras, close in, recording the haircut. It was a good time for me to let her know that "practically my whole town wishes you well and wishes they could be here with you." She asked "what town is that?" And I proudly belted out "Takoma Park!"

The press, NBC, CNN, Air America, and others, were there and Cindy gave interview after interview. We stood behind her with signs...I held one that read "Support the Troops, Demand the Truth". Having met her, spoken with her, heard her interviews, I can say that she is supremely suited to the role she has taken for herself...she is strong, articulate, soft-spoken, compassionate (she was very ready and comfortable speaking with two people who opposed her and asked to meet with her...until they became agitated), patient, intelligent, and very importantly, she stays on point. It was a great honor to meet this courageous woman.

The local sheriff, incidentally, is a real sweetheart---a calm, kind, common-sense, helpful presence.

Walking up and down the road at Camp Casey, in addition to the many wonderful and interesting people who had dropped everything to come and support Cindy, there were tables full of supplies sent by supporters from all over the country. The food table, really three tables, overflowed with piles of fruit, jars of peanut butter, trail mix, water, on and on; the first- aid table had many bottles of sunscreen, bug spray, several unique gadgets called "Misty Mate" which some toddlers loved playing with----with a hand pump it provided a fine spray of cool water; on and on.

As you have no doubt read, volunteers built and placed about 1/4 mile of white wooden crosses along the road to create an "Arlington West" memorial to slain soldiers, with a name on each cross.

Late in the afternoon, Monday, we held a short prayer service. A woman who had just come from a peace meeting in Nashville read Psalm 26 and we recited the second psalm together...and a young black minister prayed for peace, and declared the land to be sacred and dedicated to peace, not only for us, but for those who oppose us as well. We sang together and hugged each other.
It was late in the afternoon...I was hot, tired, and hungry, and I took the shuttle back to the Peace House. There, many picnic tables had been set up in the side yard, and huge vats of spaghetti, with 3 choices of sauce (the largest, all veggie, two smaller ones with meat) and a huge salad..plus maybe a dozen homemade fruit pies (heaven). We all ate a delicious meal together....80-100 people, in the dark. The next day someone brought lights which were going to be strung up all over the tables. I found a motel that night, even though someone offered to share tent space with me.

The next day I went straight to the Peace House and decided to help out there for a while before heading to Camp Casey. A young woman had been up working til 3 a.m. and then up again at 6...she was working at the "Welcome Table" when I arrived, so I happily replaced her. She was truly exhausted; I heard later that someone had had a seizure, and suspect it was her--I didn't remember her name, but I hope she is all right.

At the welcome table I had those arriving sign in and make a name tag for themselves. One man approached the table looking very strange....I didn't know if he was going to attack me or what...he got fairly close, opened his fist, and laid two $20 bills on the table, and walked away. Later I found out he had lost a close relative in Iraq. I think he was close to tears, and could not speak.

On Monday night a man from Waco came and drove his truck over the white crosses on the road at Camp Casey....however, one of the crosses got stuck in one of the wheels, and he was caught red-handed and arrested.

Not long after I had taken my post at the table, a very large Fedex truck pulled up. The delivery man asked me to sign for some packages...which I did--these were the usual size envelopes, addressed to the Peace House. He asked me where I wanted him to "put them". I looked at the small packets I had just signed for, and said "I'll just take them inside, thanks." Then he said, "Lady, you don't understand.....where do you want me to put them?" and he opened his truck, which was huge, and revealed it stacked to the BRIM with boxes of flowers. A number of people in Orlando, Florida, had sent 35 dozen boxes of long-stemmed red roses to Cindy, to thank her for her vigil, and to offer comfort after the desecration of the crosses. We were stunned!!! At first we asked him to deliver them to the camp, but he couldn't, so we had him stack them in the shade, and we re-loaded them onto the next shuttle. I was dying to go along, and even though there was barely enough room, with the flowers, and four people, they squeezed me in.

I replaced myself at the welcome table with a woman who had just arrived. Then the four of us drove off, hugging each other, singing, laughing, and calling all our friends, to tell them what some wonderful people in Florida had done. One of the four in the van was Bill, a veteran himself, who as a single parent raised his only child, a son who enlisted, was sent to Iraq, and died the same day as Casey Sheehan.

When we got to Camp Casey, Cindy was in the middle of a long radio interview. At first we thought we would quietly wait til she was finished, but then decided to, as she was speaking, place roses on her lap, dozen after dozen. After a while she started weeping, she was so moved by the bountiful bouquets. Cindy gave a very beautiful interview then, never strident or shrill, very calm and so sane, simple and to the point. I remember her saying "No mother gave birth, nursed her child, looked into his sweet eyes, raised him, school him, to die in Iraq."

Of the volunteers, one of the most memorable and radiant is Emily Sharpe, who has been writing the blog about the vigil. She also interviewed the farmers who came from three different states to support Cindy. (this interview can be heard online). Emily just graduated from Cornell. She told me "finally I get it, I get what the last 40 years are about....what all the women I met in Ithaca, who lived through Vietnam, have been talking about!"

Another tireless volunteer, a woman whose name I don't remember, was working happily non-stop until one morning she learned that a soldier whom she had adopted as a pen-pal (never met, but e-mailed with for many months) had died on Saturday. She just broke down sobbing; we all grieved together with her.

It was discovered that the Crawford Post Office had been returning mail, marking it "undeliverable" that had been addressed to the Crawford Peace House. Volunteers went there and said "you don't want to acquire the reputation Waco has, do you?" The full address with zip code is now posted on the Crawford Peace House web site, so money, which is needed, will now be delivered, but this was a real shock.

In a town this size (under 900 residents) and with this much international attention, the location of the Peace House is no secret. Late Tuesday afternoon, a young man, a former soldier who had served in Iraq , Hart Viges, was asked to do a radio interview for Air America. I had been impressed with the sweet calm of this man, and sat next to him to listen. On my other side was a woman my age. On Hart's other side was the reporter from Air America. Hart spoke, on live radio, of how he had enlisted after September 11 to defend his country, to do what seemed at the time to be the right and brave thing; he was strong and very sharp and became part of the 82nd Airborne; he described how, with other soldiers, he was given orders to take a small Iraqi town; they were told----"Green-light the orange taxicabs, green-light the orange and white taxicabs.", meaning, destroy them.

Suddenly, Hart could not just kill and kill, not knowing who he was killing or why....every person has parents, perhaps a spouse and children....how could he aim at these taxis not even knowing who was in them? What good what it do? Luckily for Hart, it was early in the war, he had an excellent record, and his application for Conscientious Objector status was accepted. After the interview, he asked the reporter, shaken,..."was I all right? was it ok?" and I just held his hand and kissed it...it was so exhausting and heart-breaking for him to remember this traumatic time, which is still going on as he spoke, as I write. The reporter said "you were wonderful...you are wonderful. Thank you."

On my right, the woman, Jinny, had been listening intently, while watching the beautiful clouds move across the wide open blue Texas sky. An hour later, in the shuttle, she invited me to spend the night in her home in Austin, before I flew home. I did so, and we could have stayed up all night talking, about what brought us to this moment, in our personal lives, and in the national life, and how grateful we feel to sense a new energy in the country. As witnessed by the thousands of vigils Wednesday night all across the country, we are all ordinary people, driven by conscience and anguish, moved by Cindy's moral authority; these are not a few fringe groups as the president would like to believe, this is the heart of America.

I keep thinking of the colors...green light; orange cabs; red blood; and blue for hope.