NAMES OF WAR DEAD CONTINUE TO GROW

 Yesterday, for eight full hours, members of Maine Veterans for Peace and Peace Action Maine read the names of dead American GI's and innocent Iraqi civilians at a downtown park in Portland.

When we first began reading these names inside Congressional offices 1 1/2 years ago, it took four hours to finish. Now 2,539 American soldiers have died in Iraq and 18,786 have suffered serious injury. It is estimated that more than 100,000 Iraqi people have died since the U.S. illegal war began in 2003.

Throughout this reading time our volunteers handed out over 800 leaflets explaining our action to the public. Many people would sit on nearby park benches and listen for a time as we read an American name and then an Iraqi name. A bell was rung after each name and an X was marked on the "Chaos cloth" that was widely spread out.

In spite of the fact that many were positively impacted by our action, you could see a significant number of people who tried to act as though this was nothing to be concerned about. Many, many people went about their Friday afternoon and early evening getting their ice creams, watching the fire twirlers and rope walkers just across the way from us. Entertainment is always a good salve for the aching soul of a nation at endless war.

But not everyone was so mindless.

One black man on a bicycle, with his son riding by his side, pulled their bikes up close to us and I listened as he explained to his son what we were doing. He talked harshly about the "horrible president" that we have in the U.S. today and compared the Iraq occupation with the Vietnam war.

One older woman sat on a bench intensely watching us for almost an hour. You could see the expressions on her face change when we called about the names of children, age 2 or 6 months old who had been killed in Iraq. Another woman approached me and bent down as she wept about the sadness of the war.

Other moving moments were when Dexter Kamilewicz read the names of American GI's who had been stationed with his son Ben in Ramadi, Iraq. As a member of the Vermont National Guard, Ben escaped death several times. As Dexter read the names of Ben's fellow soldiers, one could hear the heartbreak in his voice as familiar names reminded him of the agonizing year he spent closely following every report of casualties from units in Ramadi.

We will continue to read the names. And the time it takes to finish them will continue to grow as the list of the war dead increases. The war will not end until Congress votes to cut off the funds for the war. So far our congressman and senators (Democrat and Republican) continue to vote in favor of war funding.

How long can the American people avoid dealing with the war? Now costing us $8.5 billion per month, how much longer can we afford to drain the national treasury and cut already meager programs for education, health care,infrastructure repair,and the like?