PEORIA -- Paul Appell of Peoria writes:
The following is an account of my recent visit to DC. There may be a policy of ignoring all popular opposition to our wars, but there are some of us who are oath bound and morally bound to not be silent.
In 1932 Pennsylvania Ave in front of the White House contained many WW1 vets protesting that their promised bonus for serving in WW1 had not been paid. President Hoover ordered General MacArthur to clear the street of veterans. The vets were pushed across the Potomac to their encampment in Anacostia. Ignoring Hoover’s messages to stop, MacArthur along with Major Eisenhower and Major Patton attacked the encampment. Four of the vets and their family members were killed. Medal of Honor recipient Smedley Butler supported and encouraged the vet protestors.
On Dec. 16, 131 protestors, the majority of whom were war veterans and members of Veterans For Peace, were physically removed from the fence in front of the White House on Pennsylvania Ave., handcuffed and transported to Anacostia Station jail. I had an Agent Orange ribbon pinned to my field jacket to protest the government’s failure to fully live up to their promise to care for my Agent Orange injured fellow Viet Nam vets. We protesting vets were supported by Medal of Honor recipient Charlie Litkey, who participated in a solidarity civil resistance in San Francisco the same day.
This historical connection did not go unnoticed as we stood in our jail cell in Anacostia. Award winning blues artist and Viet Nam vet Watermelon Slim was one of my cellmates. Unfortunately, we had to surrender all of our personal items before being placed in jail, so Slim did not have his harmonica.
As I told Congressman Schock who was sitting directly in front of me on the flight from DC to Chicago Friday night, we were treated with upmost professionalism by the police. One of my favorite photos of the resistance is a photo of Iraq vet Zach Choate, who opted to go in his dress greens with a chest full of medals from his deployments to Iraq, hugging officer Cosmo. Officer Cosmo is the bomb-sniffing Golden Retriever who was brought in to make sure we had not hidden any bombs in our signs and stage.
Jill and I had received the official White House Christmas card a few days before I went to DC. It is a snow covered view of the White House signed by all the first family including Bo’s paw print. For the two hours I was leaning against the White House fence, every so often I would turn around and stare at the White House. The lawn, the trees and the White House were covered in snow as shown in the Christmas card. The White House I saw while standing in the snow was a little different. There were snipers on the roof with rifles pointed in our direction. On the lawn were armed black outfitted individuals with such high tech weapons, that even the young Iraq vets could not identify them. Veterans For Peace’s Christmas message to the White House was spelled out in large letters on the banner that I held with one of my fellow members. It said, “Peace on earth? Mr. Obama: End these wars. Not tomorrow. Not next year. Now!”
The civil resistance gave me a chance to spend time (jail time) with my friend and former New York Times war correspondent Chris Hedges. Chris wore the same heavy jacket that he wore while covering the Bosnia War, minus the $5000 worth of body armor he wore there. Though Chris had been captured by the Iraqi Republican Guard near Basra during the Gulf War and held captive, this was his first time to be arrested by US police as it was for me. Joining us at Anacostia station were many of my favorite outspoken war veterans. These included Ray McGovern, who as an intelligence official gave the daily intelligence briefings to Presidents in the White House as well as Dan Ellsberg, who had released the Pentagon papers about forty years ago.
It is important to note that we were committing what University of Illinois law professor Francis Boyle calls civil resistance as opposed to civil disobedience. Civil resistance is the breaking of a lower law to uphold a higher one. I personally was upholding the oath that I took forty one years ago at Ft. Benning to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. If that means jail time, so be it. -30-
In an email, Appell stated that he was arrested, and to avoid several trips back to Washington, D.C. he paid a $100 fine. He included this link of photos and speeches from the event.
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