Global Policy Forum

By Manny Fernandez

They read aloud the names of the dead, one by one. Standing on a box of a stage in the park across from the White House, a group of antiwar activists, veterans and military family members leaned into two microphones and called out the names of men and women they had never met. Some wiped tears from their eyes, and some simply stepped off the stage after they were done, hands in pockets and heads down. Vietnam veteran Bill Steyert read the name of Cedric Lennon, 32. Peace activist Jen Carr spoke the name of her friend Gregory E. MacDonald, 29. The names -- U.S. troops, coalition soldiers and Iraqis killed in the war and occupation of Iraq -- became a kind of antiwar chant, dragging on so long that organizers had to cut the readings short. There were 900 names total printed up on thick, white cards for the roughly 200 protesters gathered at Lafayette Square yesterday. The readings stopped after about 45 minutes, as protesters attempted without success to deliver the brown-painted, plywood coffin that held the cards to the White House. It was part of a demonstration that was more memorial service than street protest, one of many antiwar events in Washington and across the country this week set to mark the first anniversary of the war on Saturday. Steyert, 60, came to Washington from Queens, N.Y., wearing a pin with a picture of his 5-year-old granddaughter flashing the peace sign. "Each one is a guy like me," Steyert said of the names on the cards. "There wasn't any reason for this. That's what's so tragic about this."

Yesterday's event focused on mourning and honoring U.S. and Iraqi casualties, culminating a two-day procession from the Delaware Air Force base where U.S. war dead arrive to the Washington military hospital that treats wounded troops to the gates of the White House. Protesters criticized the Bush administration and the Pentagon for keeping the human toll of the war out of the public's view. Officials have barred media coverage of the bodies of troops arriving at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, and activists said that the president's decision not to attend funerals of soldiers killed in the war illustrates the administration's reluctance to acknowledge the rising number of dead and wounded. "These human consequences are being deliberately hidden by the Bush administration," said Gordon Clark, 42, national coordinator of the Iraq Pledge of Resistance, one of the groups sponsoring the procession. Clark said the idea for the demonstration took shape in November in response to the president's absence at funerals for fallen soldiers. "Well, if he will not go to a funeral, perhaps we can bring a funeral to him," said Clark, of Silver Spring. Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, said that the president's decision to not attend the funerals was made out of respect for the privacy of grieving family members. Duffy said that Bush has met privately with the families of fallen soldiers on numerous occasions, most recently at Fort Carson in Colorado, and has also visited recuperating soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. "The president mourns the loss of every life," Duffy said. Twenty-one U.S. military personnel from the District, Maryland and Virginia have been killed in Iraq and Kuwait. As of yesterday morning, a total of 564 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq, the Pentagon said. About 3,200 have been wounded, the majority injured in action. One of those wounded was Army Spec. Jason Gunn, 24. His mother, Pat Gunn, of Lansdowne, Pa., was among the speakers at a brief service outside Walter Reed, which has treated thousands of soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Jason was one of the lucky ones," Gunn told about 100 activists who assembled outside the black iron gates of the Georgia Avenue NW hospital yesterday morning. Gunn, one of several military family members who took part in the procession, said she believed that her son was injured fighting in an unjust war. "It's time to bring our soldiers home now," she said, as she held onto a framed photo of her son in a uniform. Protesters began their journey on Sunday, marching three miles from Camden, Del., to the main entrance of the base in Dover, where activists held a brief service before going to Baltimore, where many stayed overnight. Early yesterday morning, protesters drove to Washington, converged on the hospital and later marched six miles to the White House. At Lafayette Square, they stood on a stage in front of the coffin and rows of wreaths made of pieces of black garbage bags tied around Hula-Hoops. Activists had planned on risking arrest by attempting to deliver the coffin to the White House. But after a stalemate with uniformed Secret Service officers at an entrance near 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW that lasted about an hour, the group returned to Lafayette Square.