[Peace-discuss] what I plan to read on AWARE on the Air today / 4th of July 2008, AWARE's entry in the parade / Meg Miner's story

[Jenifer Cartwright]

This was WONDERFUL, Karen -- I'm forwarding it far and wide. Kudos to Meg for writing it, and to you for saving, and sending and reading it!

--- On Tue, 6/19/12, Karen Medina <kmedina67 at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Karen Medina <kmedina67 at gmail.com>
Subject: [Peace-discuss] what I plan to read on AWARE on the Air today / 4th of July 2008, AWARE's entry in the parade / Meg Miner's story
To: "Peace-discuss List" <Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>, "Liggett, Jason" <jcliggett at city.urbana.il.us>
Date: Tuesday, June 19, 2012, 10:05 AM

Hi peace-discuss,

I am heading into Urbana in a few minutes so that I can help out with
AWARE on the Air. I was trying to figure out what I should talk about
this time. 4th of July is coming very quickly. So I decided to go with
an article written by our Gulf War Veteran friend, Meg Miner, about
her participation in the AWARE 4th of July parade entry in 2008.

http://www.vvaw.org/veteran/article/?id=940 -- includes photos of the Veterans

Marching on the 4th of July

By Meg Miner

Fourth of July is notoriously hot and humid here in the corn fields of
central Illinois. Seven years ago I wouldn't have dreamed of spending
that date at a parade much less in one. But sometime after 9/11/01, I
joined up with AWARE (Anti-War, Anti-Racism Effort: www.anti-war.net)
a group of activists in Champaign-Urbana. In 2003, AWARE started
entering the annual C-U pageantry for patriotism called Champaign
County Freedom Celebration.


Joe Miller, Dave Carr and Barry Romo on the Fourth of July in
Champaign-Urbana, Illinois
Each year, AWARE's entry in the parade lampoons the chosen theme in
some way. One year, the official theme celebrated the newly-passed No
Child Left Behind Act, so AWARE built a float with a WWI-sized tank
pointing at a one-room schoolhouse. (What these creative people can't
do with a cardboard box!) People walking beside the float that year
carried signs about tax dollars going to war funding instead of to
educating children.

So yeah, every year it's hot and humid and I'd really rather be doing
anything with a precious day off other than walking on asphalt.
Sometime people get it, though. They make the connection between the
subversive message and the ever-inane annual theme and from there, we
hope, they connect to the even more insane policies of our elected
officials. Those moments of clarity are truly special but they were
never more so than at this year's parade.

The AWARE float organizers took this year's official theme "Honoring
Our Military Heroes" and once again turned it slightly askew from the
intended tone. AWARE's float was called "Honoring Our Military Heroes
Who Speak Against War." They had six-foot tall posters made with war
dissenters' pictures and they added quotes with these heroes' own
comments about the war.

The AWARE planners invited IVAW and VVAW to join their parade entry,
asking that IVAW take the lead. Sometimes in past parades I've
signaled my veteran status and sometimes not, but without official
sponsorship I never felt I should wear my VVAW colors before. This
year I was thrilled to be walking beside my VVAW compatriots at the
back of the IVAW contingent. I wore my VVAW shirt and carried a sign
that said I was a Gulf War vet opposed to endless Gulf Wars.

Frankly, I thought we'd get some flak along the route. It usually
happens, although in recent years there seem to be more people who are
vocally supportive of our message than who object to it. Most often,
though, people sit in their chairs and say nothing, so I make a point
of heckling the passive watchers until they respond. Love us, hate us
– I don't care, but slack-jawed apathy will not go by me without
comment!

But like I said, this year was special. I barely got one smart-mouthed
rallying cry out before I realized the people were with us. I mean
really with us. And not just the people on the liberal side of town –
people all along the seven mile route got out of their chairs of their
own free will and applauded at the first sight of the IVAW banner. I
only heard three negative comments the whole way, and even they
weren't agitated enough to shout down the people around them. The
worst comment of the day for me was when a kid read my sign and turned
to his mom and said, "What's a Gulf war?" That threw me for a loop.
One of the Vietnam vets beside me said, "Now you know how we feel."
Time is truly a relative thing.

But my feeling of insignificance soon faded. Something special was
happening that day. To be a witness to the acceptance IVAW got in C-U
from people who are sometimes not so tolerant of messages that make
them uncomfortable, and to see some people mouth the words "Thank You"
... wow, what a day! IVAW brought something out of the people that
day, and I think it spilled over to the VVAW line and on back to the
civilians of AWARE and the posters with hard messages from the vets
who couldn't be there with us. It felt like recognition for all the
effort it takes to be an anti-war vet in a society that seems so
casually to ask us to destroy others. It felt like C-U was honoring
the warrior and the war-resister. It felt good.


Meg Miner is a librarian in Central Illinois and a member of VVAW.



Central Illinois IVAW on the Fourth of July in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois

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