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The Family that Protests Together . . .
As the clouds of war gathered in late 2002, more than 300 people marched silently through Ithaca’s Pyramid Mall to demonstrate their opposition to the impending attack against Iraq. From there, 13, four of them under 18, went on to Ithaca’s Army/Marine Recruiting Office, where they painted their faces red and lay down on floor in a die-in symbolizing the U.S. and Iraqi deaths that the war would bring. All were arrested. The nine protesters over 18 were charged with trespass—only a violation—and tried and found guilty the following May. (Eight of the nine refused to pay the $100 fine and spent four days in the Tompkins County Jail.) But the four teenagers—three of them cousins—were tried separately and charged with more serious misdemeanors. After some delay, the four—Anna Ritter, Marie De Mott Grady, Oona Grady DeFlaun and Ana Grady Flores—were finally tried and sentenced last December after several delays. Offered a choice between four consecutive weekends in jail or a $250 fine, they chose jail. (This past January, a judge stayed their sentence pending appeal.) Below are excerpts from their statements about the action.
In protest of the impending war on Iraq, I, as well as 12 other people, “died in” at the local army recruiter’s office. ... [O]ur small group broke off and we crossed the road to the other mall where the recruiter’s office is. We went into the lobby and took down army and marine posters and put up pictures and signs of our own. Two of our group, our “spokespeople” went back into the recruiter’s office and introduced us. The recruiter, a young man, was shaken and upset by our presence and wanted us to leave, but we made it clear that we were there, not to protest him personally, but to protest the work he was doing. We wanted to educate him and all the recruitees about the horrors of war, not to mention “Gulf War Syndrome,” most likely caused by depleted uranium and/or anthrax vaccines. As we were lying on the floor, with red paint smeared on our faces, we read a fact sheet about depleted uranium and Martin Luther King Jr.’s Christmas sermon from 1967, given just months before he was killed. In it he tells us that we don’t have to like everybody, that would be very difficult, but we do have to love even our worst enemies. “Love is understanding, creative, redemptive good will toward all people.”. . . After numerous warnings, we were arrested. We were taken to the state police office and processed, which took a couple of hours and eventually we were released with court dates. —Oona Clare Grady DeFlaun, 17 I am 16 years old and I am the youngest of four. I have three older brothers, two who registered for selective service and one who has not yet fallen into the trap of the military institution. I did this action for my brothers. I am currently a junior at Ithaca’s Alternative Community School and have many friends that are my age and older. I know that they could also be lured into the military, only because they are told that the military will pay for all their education and instead be forced to fight in a war that is full of lies and deception. I did this action for them. I took the liberty to speak for the voiceless people of Iraq, for all the innocent men, women, children and babies that have been killed by U.S. bombs since the Gulf War and will continue to be killed in this next war. I did this action for them. I lay there in the recruitment office for the men and women who are currently in the military, so they don’t have to be sent off to war to kill and be killed in this war. [As] my uncle Peter DeMott said, “We’re here to recruit you into the Peace Movement!” —Ana Grady Flores, 16 Although I risked arrest and was prepared for it, I did not do the action to get arrested, I did it because I feel that it is my duty as an able-bodied American citizen to say no to the atrocities that my government is going to commit. Therefore I feel that by taking direct action my voice will be better heard. If there is a war it will affect the young people the most, because we would be among those sent to kill our brothers and sisters on foreign soil. —Anna Ritter, 16 As I was feeding my baby sister her dinner, I was thinking about what I should say about why I was a part of the action on Saturday. What it all boils down to is this. I know that there are big sisters in Iraq right now who are helping to feed their baby sisters and I wonder what they are thinking. The U.S. government is hot to trot. They want to bomb Iraq as soon as possible. I hope that what I did will help to stop this war. I think of the big sisters here, whose little brothers are going to be sent to kill the babies of Iraq, and the sisters and brothers, and fathers and mothers too for that matter. And the Iraqi sisters and brothers who’ll be sent to fight the American sisters and brothers. . . . We went to the recruitment office on Saturday with pictures of children, some of whom are probably dead. We went and lay down on the floor as if we were dead. We went to bring that ugly, disgusting face of needless and premature death to the place where it all starts. You don’t see the kind of pictures we brought in the shiny brochures that they hand out there. So I went for all the Iraqi kids, especially the older sisters who must be worrying about what will happen if we bomb them even more than we already have. Will they get to watch their baby siblings grow up? Or will they all be dead in a couple of months? If I were in their position I would want somebody to try to stop the war, and so I have to do everything I can to stop it. For them, and for me. —Marie DeMott Grady, 17 |
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four teenagers in Ithaca, NY, the local mall is as much a site for demonstrating
as for shopping—and jail is where you go, not for using drugs or shoplifting,
but for trying to stop war. 