Ames Progressive

Preparing the stage for the 2008 Ames Peace Rally. (Photo: Neal Hendrick/The Progressive)

The Ames anti-war community held its annual peace rally against the war in Iraq on Monday — the same day as the release of this month’s issue — to mark its 5th despicable anniversary.

As with the two other peace rallies here I’ve attended, things kicked off at the East Hy-Vee parking lot with a sizable assortment of kids, high schoolers, college students, local activists, townies, hippies, libertarians — the works. And a soup-and-bread meal.

This year’s event seemed a lot larger than in years gone by. Huxley activist Sue Dinsdale, according to the Iowa State Daily, estimated about 400 in attendance, but by the time everyone walked to the Great Hall of Iowa State University’s Memorial Union I’m guessing there might have been even more.

Fourth district congressional candidate William J. Meyers spoke first. Next up was Des Moines lawyer and ex-Guantanamo Bay defense attorney Angela Campbell, who told her story of representing four Gitmo detainees with especial focus on the story of Muhebullah.

Gold Star Families for Peace member Terri Jones, whose son committed suicide after returning stateside from a tour in Iraq, spoke last. It was a pretty harrowing tale. Here’s the Daily’s coverage of it, courtesy of Allison Bailey:

The final speaker was Terri Jones, whose son, Spc. Jason Cooper, served in Iraq for a year, beginning in March 2004. Cooper committed suicide four months after his return home.

“The mental toll robbed my son of who he was,” Jones said.

Jones said her goal was to make post-traumatic stress disorder a household term. She has been interviewed by numerous media sources, and worked with CBS to find statistics regarding soldiers and depression, a problem Jones says the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs continues to deny.

In 2005, more than 6,000 soldiers committed suicide in the United States, a statistic that Jones attributes to a “gaping hole” in soldier care.

(Speaking of PTSD, this story in Rolling Stone, about the man behind the “Marlboro Marine” Pulitzer Prize-nominated photograph, provides an intimate look at the hellish unnoticed consequences of war. Highly recommended.)

Lots of organizations sponsored and tabled this year’s event, including the Progressive. The Progressive Coalition of Central Iowa, headed by my former pastor, showed up. So did STAR*PAC, which has endorsed Ed Fallon in Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District. Iowa City reggae band Public Property played after the speeches.

Fourth district candidates Meyers, Kurt Meyer, and Kevin Miskell attended the event. Meyer visited the Ames Progressive office the next day — I’ll have that interview up online before long.

The Des Moines Catholic Workers showed up, too. I met with Kirk Brown, who was one of the guys escorted out of the Karl Rove event in Iowa City the other week for attempting a citizen’s arrest of the man.

I signed up to be on their e-mail list and Frank Cordaro shot me a message the next day with a link to this video of the rally, shot by Roger Routh. Sue Dinsdale’s the woman speaking at the beginning, and the guy on the bullhorn is Progressive co-editor Greg Bonett, who’s later shown giving the “This War Must End” speech with co-editor Nate Logsdon. The musician near the end is Isaac Norman, whose band Long Shadow Men is recording a live album at the Ames Progressive office (118 Hayward Avenue Suite 3) this coming Tuesday starting at 7 p.m. (open to the public).