By ROBIN LORD
STAFF WRITER
ORLEANS - Whether on the streets with protest signs, or reflecting quietly in their offices and homes, Cape Codders yesterday joined the chorus of voices speaking out on sending more troops to Iraq.
  Air Force veteran Riley Pike of Chatham shows his feelings on the war in Iraq, yesterday in Orleans.(Photo by Robert Scott Button) |
'''Surge' is just the same old message of 'stay the course,''' added Phyllis Briscoe of Brewster.
''We're just sending more young men and women to their deaths,'' said Frank Cummings, also of Brewster.
Two veterans of the Iraq war joined the group and held signs for the parade of passing cars - many honking in support - along Main Street and Route 6A.
 Cape Codders react | |
''They're fighting over politics and control, and it isn't going to do anything'' to have more troops go in, said Pike, 27, who was holding a sign that said ''Another Vet for Peace.''
Jamie Medinger, an Army sergeant who finished a six-month tour in Iraq in July and is due to be discharged in February, said she came to the rally to voice her opposition to the war. ''I don't agree with it and I've seen a lot of bad things there,'' she said.
Medinger, 21, who is originally from Gadsden, Ala., came to Cape Cod to care for the son of an Army friend who was shipped back to Iraq. She claimed ''90 percent'' of the troops she came into contact with in the Army are now opposed to the war.
U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, D-Quincy, said yesterday from his office in Washington that the number of calls, e-mails and letters to his office have risen dramatically since the president's call Wednesday night for sending more troops to Baghdad. Delahunt said the communications have been ''overwhelmingly opposed'' to sending more troops to Iraq. He also noted a number of Republican lawmakers are joining Democrats in opposition to President Bush's plan for a troop surge.
''This is not Democrat versus Republican, this is reality versus a proposal in search of reality,'' he said.
Delahunt refused to speculate about whether Congress will move to stop the new troop buildup, which he said is already under way.
In nearly every town on the Cape, the direction of the war effort is stirring passions.
Falmouth actor Michael Toner said he has opposed the war since it started nearly four years ago. Toner said he believes Bush's new war plan is an ''escalation'' of the war, not a ''surge.''
''Iraq is a venture based on lies, everyone knows that and yet we're still willing to fight a war,'' he said.
But Thomas Holmberg of West Yarmouth, who fought in the Korean War, said Bush ''is doing the best he knows how for the country.''
Holmberg, who has three grandchildren serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the worst thing for the troops is if Americans back home do not support them. ''When it comes to morale and the troops, the most important thing is to make sure someone here is behind them,'' he said.
Barry Cummings of Brewster had sympathy for President Bush's earlier calls to train Iraqi security forces to stabilize the country. But his support is waning.
''We're walking down another Vietnam where the war is being run in Washington, not on the ground,'' he said.
Cummings said he started to lose faith when sectarian violence escalated last year. ''It's Vietnam all over again, (where) you don't know who to trust. It's eerily reminiscent.''
The Rev. Deborah Mero of the Unitarian-Universalist Meeting House of Chatham brings the war into every one of her services ''every chance'' she gets. At least one in four of her sermons has hit upon the war in some way, she said.
''Whenever we try to paint somebody else as 'the other,' as not human, we're opening ourselves to violence,'' she said.
Robin Lord can be reached at rlord@capecodonline.com.
(Published: Saturday January 13, 2007)
