By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
MARCELLUS – Almost 50 people circled here Saturday evening for peace four years after invading Iraq and for warmth in 33-degree sunshine.
The assemblage included pacifists, pastors, professors, politicians past and present, parents of soldiers, veterans and even a poet from the surrounding area, including Three Rivers, Jones and Constantine to northern Indiana.
Melody Surgeon Rider, pastor of Marcellus United Methodist Church, said, "Some of you here are total pacifists. Some of us are not. Personally, sometimes I think there has to be a fight. But this isn't the right one."
She told the story of a Japanese girl, 2 years old when an atomic bomb leveled Hiroshima.
The girl lived four miles from the blast's epicenter.
As she grew, she played soccer "and everyone thought everything was okay – especially her mother. When she was 12 years old, she was competing for her school in a race and she collapsed," Rider said. "They took her to the doctor and found out she had a terrible case of leukemia caused by the radiation to which she had been exposed.
"Like most 12-year-old girls, she still loved life and had good friends, so she could not understand why her life would end," Rider said.
While in the hospital, a girlfriend reminded her of a Japanese tradition of making 1,000 origami "peace cranes" to get well.
She reached 644 before passing away. Her mother and friend were so moved they finished the other 366.
All 1,000 accompanied her in the coffin at burial.
"We are all here from our different places in life," Rider said. "Some of us are veterans. Some of us are strong pacifists. We're all just everyday people living here in this county who want war to end."
Her mother wrote a letter for a book about the H-bomb: "As the mother of a child who passed away at only 12 1/2, I would like to appeal to mothers, not only in Japan, but all over the world. I don't want such a horrible thing to happen again. So many children are looking for peace."
"This woman had everyone to blame," Rider said, "but out of the crucible of the loss of her own child, she came to ask for peace in the world."
She withdrew a banner from an international fair in Three Rivers covering a wooden bowl. Across it was written "peace" in many languages.
Normally, "It hangs on the wall in my home," Rider said. "We all can speak different things and come from different places, but we all call for peace."
The bowl went around the circle and everyone withdrew a peace crane folded by a Sunday school class.
Each white paper bird was feathered black with names of lives lost to war.
"Let us think about peace," Rider said. "Let us think about a little girl who died in the 1950s. Let us think about those who have died now. Let us think about those who come back from the war who have so much to deal with – and all of the people who loved those soldiers and all of the people who love the wonderful country of Iraq, which is beautiful."
Juanita Hagan, a retired Chicago public schools teacher, "returned to my roots" by moving back to Marcellus, where she grew up. She served in the Peace Corps from 1964 to 1966.
Hagan shared a poem inspired by Sara Paretsky's May 2005 visit to the Dowagiac Dogwood Fine Arts Festival.
"In part of her speech she expressed her deep concern about the profound silence of media, writers and pundits on the state of our country," Hagan said, reading "Where is the Canary?"
Where is the canary who warns of danger?
Where is the child who points out the emperor has no clothes?
Where is our Paul Revere to cry out, The enemy is near!
All we have is cacophony of jingoistic slogans
Repeated, repeated, repeated like a drug.
Clouding minds, ears, eyes, hearts.
Where is the canary?
Where is the child who speaks the truth?
Where is our Paul Revere to cry out, The enemy is here!
Hagan's canary and Paul Revere who pointed out the emperor's nakedness, columnist Molly Ivins, died from breast cancer Jan. 31.
"She never lost her courage to speak truth to power," Hagan said.
As economist Paul Krugman pointed out in his New York Times tribute, "Molly never lost sight of two eternal truths: Rulers lie. And the times when people are most afraid to challenge authority are also the times when it's most important to do just that."
Krugman asked, "Was Molly smarter than all the experts? No. She was just braver."
"The administration's exploitation of 9/11 created an environment in which it took a lot of courage to see and say the obvious," Hagan said, selecting some of Ivins' words from her two final columns for the Fort Worth, Texas, Star-Telegram.
"I don't know why George W. Bush is just standing there like a frozen rabbit," Ivins wrote, "but it's time we found out. The fact is, we have to do something about it. This country is being torn apart by an evil and unnecessary war – and it has to be stopped now. This war is being prosecuted in our name, with our money, with our blood, against our will. Polls consistently show that less than 30 percent of the people want to maintain current troop levels. It is obscene and wrong for the President to go against the people. It's doubly wrong to have to increase U.S. troop levels" with 3,000 Americans dead.
Ivins' last column Jan. 14 ended: "We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. Every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war."
"There will be no peace until this administration is pressured into paying attention to the people. It's up to us – you and me – to pluck up our courage and speak out. We come together today to remember and to honor lives lost," Hagan said.
Ramona Moormann of The Marcellus News distributed "Take Back America" and "Support Our Troops – De-fund the War" handbills instructing citizens how to contact their members of Congress this week to support the Lee amendment, which restricts spending to fund only a safe and orderly withdrawal of U.S. troops and military contractors from Iraq by the end of 2007, to support efforts to amend the bill to prohibit an attack on Iran without specific congressional approval and to urge a no vote on supplemental funding unless it includes both those amendments.
Cass County's congressman, U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-St. Joseph, can be contacted by phone in Berrien County at (269) 982-1986; by fax at (202) 225-4986; by phone at (202) 225-3761; or by e-mail at his Web site.
Nina Lanctot of Bristol, Ind., pastor of the Florence Church of the Brethren, Mennonite, in Constantine, remembered the troops by telling about the war in their words from letters "because I can't comprehend it" when the war toll is depicted in terms of fatalities or money spent.
Burke Webb, former county Democratic Party chairman and attorney, read from an Army Reservist's letter home before the 2003 holidays asking for coffee for Christmas: "I cannot understand why our government really thinks we can change their behavior. They tear down what we build and steal it or take it to the pawn shop because they have no jobs." The 43-year-old left behind a wife and three children when his living quarters came under mortar attack.
A 20-year-old soldier wrote to her parents: "In the past week I have seen things I hope very much to forget, but somehow their memories will stay in my mind forever … I have also seen my first dead body a group of Iraquis wheeled through the street in a cart. A man had been shot in the abdomen after trying to steal something about an hour earlier. They gave him to us to deal with. We deal on a daily basis with murderers, pedophiles, thieves and every kind of crime you can think of. It's a very dangerous job. I never imagined they would have us do this kind of work. Yesterday, a terrorist threw three grenades. Luckily, no one was hurt from our company, but three civilians and two Iraqi policemen were killed. You know the Twin Towers and the huge mass of rubble? That's how virtually every building in this city looks. We have it so good in America. These people are ruthless. They have been hardened by years of seeing their loved ones killed. It's hard to be a woman here. The Iraqi police are polite, but they certainly don't think we belong here. I work with only one other female and I really miss my sister. I miss you all so much. Please pray for me. Please send me letters. I need the encouragement. I love you all."
Her rare spare time she volunteered at an orphanage.
She lost her life in April 2004 when her convoy drove into an ambush.
A National Public Radio (NPR) reporter who stayed in Baghdad during the bombing, wrote on March 28, 2003: "Another explosion has rocked the crowded street, killing dozens and wounding even more. This is the second deadly blast in a Baghdad market in less than a week. Men carry aloft coffin after rough-hewn coffin, their voices raised in prayer … The marketplace was packed with shoppers. It's now a mass of corrugated iron, broken glass and tangled frames of what were once vegetable stands. In the heart of the marketplace people come to a crater five feet in diameter and a couple of feet deep … 'Is this the way America brings democracy?' Shards of metal struck two teenage boys standing outside their house at the edge of the market, killing them instantly."
The peace vigil gathered to "Mayenziwe," a South African song.
Roxie Ewert of Marcellus said in her introduction, "I've been reflecting on how small the world has become. We've benefited from getting to know people all around the world, the opportunity to learn about different cultures. We easily get on a plane and travel. Technology brings people's faces and stories right into our homes whenever we turn on the television. There's this rich exchange of ideas, music, dance and literature between cultures. We get to know other people and they become human to us and we see that they have the same desires and wishes that we do. But our connected world also opens up the potential for destruction and harm born out of greed and fear. The destruction and harm in Iraq are taking a toll on our nation.
"Our intention today is just to spend a few moments remembering those who have lost their lives in the war – both Americans and their families and Iraquis who have died," Ewert said.
Before dispersing they lifted their voices together and sang, "Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me, let there be peace on earth, the peace that was meant to be. With God our creator, children all are we. Let us walk with each other in perfect harmony…"