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US EVERY THURSDAY, 4-6pm, CITY PARK
... then again, maybe not ... (as of February, 2009 - see below)
Corner
of First and Military Streets, Benicia,
California
BREAKING NEWS: From: Patricia D. Kneisler Hullo, all you Peace-Lovin’ Folks out there: This is a difficult essay that I have to write today. The Benicia Vigil for Peace has been such a large part of my life for nearly 6 years now. My last Vigil was January 15th … the 305th consecutive one since we started in March of 2003. Just a few days later, work came down hard on me, causing me to miss the next three. Deep down, I knew what was going to happen if I missed a vigil. On January 22nd, Matt held down the fort all by himself. On January 29th and February 5th, our corner at 1st and Military was vacant. Our streak was over. What really blew my mind was hearing that one or two people are STILL standing on the other side of the street with all of their flags! I can’t fathom why. But they have been there for the last three weeks. It used to be there were people available to take over for me if I had to miss. But those folks are gone now. It seems to me that we’ve come to the end of the line … but not in a way I would have wanted. We did accomplish much to my mind. Good lord, we raised consciousnesses every week we stood there, reminding people that Iraq was in chaos and our soldiers were still dying. But I really didn’t want to see it end with a whimper, buried in a pauper’s grave. Especially when Iraq is still a mess and our soldiers are still there. I’d like to invite you all to bookmark a website called Iraq Today: http://warnewstoday.blogspot.com/ Whenever you catch yourself thinking that things are fine and dandy in that country, just click over to this site and you will be speedily disabused of that notion. Just today, a roadside bomb in northern Baghdad killed 2 people and wounded 11, a bomb in Mansour District of Baghdad injured 4 civilians, a bomb in eastern Baghdad killed one and injured 14, an IED in central Baghdad injured 2, there was an IED attack on a police patrol in Mosul, men in military uniform attacked a village near Mosul killing one policeman and kidnapping another, and an election monitor was assassinated near Ba’quba in a “hail of gunfire”. All this in a country roughly the size of California. It is now estimated that over 1 million Iraqis died as the result of our occupation … and 4.5 million were displaced. 1 to 2 million Iraqi women became widows and 5 million Iraqi children became orphans. All this in a country with a total population of only 27 million. More than 70% of the children in Baghdad cannot attend school. Many provinces report that less than 40% of their populations have access to clean drinking water. Here’s what my gut is telling me about our vigil: that if we let it die a slow, silent death, we will lose our last big chance to remind the world, or at least our part of it, that all is not well in Iraq. Obama may have good intentions … but our troops are still risking death daily over there for something they should never have been involved in. Why not let the vigil go out with one hell of a finale, one last pull-out-all-the-stops session, complete with TV and newspaper coverage? (I’ve been in touch with former Benicia Herald editor Les Mahler who has volunteered to handle the media and take pictures.) As it happens, the Sixth Anniversary of the Invasion of Iraq, March 19th, occurs on a Thursday this year. How about that? Serendipity? If not, it sure is a date tailor made for one last rousing send-off to what was one of the longest running vigils in the Bay Area. If nothing else, don’t we owe it to ourselves after all these years to see to it that the funeral is a fitting one for such a noble enterprise?! How about it? Are you folks up for it? Peace. Pat The Benicia Vigil for Peace:
The End. Sixth Anniversary of the Invasion of Iraq, and a rousing send-off to one of the longest running vigils in the San Francisco Bay Area. EVERYONE WELCOME! |
Photo Gallery September Barbecue! September 18, 2008 Fifth Anniversary Vigil - March 20, 2008 YET
MORE Photos (Nov. 07) from our friend MORE
Photos (Aug. 07) from our friend Benicia Bastille Day, July 14, 2007 Photos from our friend David Y., in Fallujah Colleen
Cole's pictures
from the 4th Anniversary Cliff Nelson's pictures
from the 4th Anniversary John
Williams' pictures from our 4th
Anniversary Vigil, Nan
Lorenzen's pictures from our 4th
Anniversary Vigil, Our 200th Vigil - January 11, 2007
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this page last updated on Wednesday, February 11, 2009 1:03 PM PST