Veterans for Peace Hold Annual Protest March/Rally at Veterans Day Parade
BOSTON/Faneuil Hall - Over 75 members of Boston area chapters of Veterans for Peace and supporters marched behind the Veterans Day Parade through downtown Boston Thursday. The veterans have tried for years to convince the parade organizer - the American Legion - to allow them to march with signs critical of recent US military interventions while chanting anti-war cadences. Without success. Supreme Court precedent allows private groups that get permits for public events to decide who participates and enforce rules for participation; so the Veterans for Peace and allied organizations once again marched behind the American Legion's parade rather than not march at all.
Following the conclusion of the parade at City Hall Plaza, the activists proceeded around City Hall to Samuel Adams Park at Faneuil Hall where they held a rally for over an hour.
Several veterans spoke against US wars for resources and regional control - past and present.
Iraq War combat veteran and Boston University student Ross Caputi spoke as a participant in one of the most recent conflicts, "We need to rethink the way we choose to celebrate Veterans Day. We need to question the morality of the wars that veterans have fought in, without attacking the morality of the veterans themselves. We need to understand the propaganda that leads us to believe that these wars are in our national interest, and that the sacrifices that veterans make are for us. We need to ask ourselves honestly 'Who did they serve? In what way did they serve them? And most importantly, why?.' We need to do this, if not for the sake of honesty, but to make sure that your kids aren’t someday led into a bloodbath like I was.
"So let me address these points using myself as an example. Am I a hero for having fought in Iraq? No, having seen combat alone isn’t enough to be considered a hero. Something good has to come of your actions to be considered a hero, but nothing good came of what we did in Iraq. Iraq is in complete ruin. Over one million Iraqis are dead because of the war that we fought there. Did I serve my country? And when I say my country I mean all of you. The answer is no. Whose life has improved because of this war? Iraq never posed a threat to the US. I didn’t protect any of you. I protected oil and construction companies while I was in Iraq. I drove convoys for them from worksite to worksite, and I stood security for them so that they could fulfill their no-bid government contracts, paid for with your tax dollars. Did my friends in my platoon die for something noble or good? Did they sacrifice their lives for us? The answer is no. They died making rich people richer, and it didn’t have to be that way."
Other speakers included Mark Allman, Paul Atwood, and Ed Ellis. Music was provided by the Leftist Marching Band, poetry by David Fillingham, and a mime performance by Marty Levin. The rally concluded without incident.
