From The
Archives -“Stop the War$ on Mother Earth”
2016 Maine Peace Walk-Build The International Peace Front
By Fritz Taylor
Recently in a
short archive caption about the Bath Iron Works in Maine where many of the top-of-the
line and billion-dollar expensive destroyers are built I mentioned, as a little
background for knowing about the place that I am a Vietnam Veteran. I also mentioned
in an earlier archive caption while I hate the NRA I favor my Second Amendment
right to bear arm. But whatever vestiges I have of my growing up in Fulton County,
Georgia I “got religion” on the questions of war and peace through the hellhole
of Vietnam experience. Not right away, certainly not right away since I come
from a long, a very long line of military people and not completely at first since
I initially mistook being anti-war with pacificism which I was, am uncomfortable
with. Now though I am comfortable with the twenty plus years I have spent screaming
(if necessary) against the endless wars, the bloated military budgets and the glorification
of the fog war creates in the public, and among soldiers and politicians.
Now I was
strictly Army, Fourth Division so you know I saw some hellish action in Vietnam,
particularly when we were sent to re-enforce up in the Central Highland and I
can tell you plenty about that branch of the service, the waste and the like. You
can always learn sometime new though in this struggle against war and endless
budgets. I certainly did the year I went up to Maine to walk the walk Peace Walk
then held annually about quiet Bath and its well-oiled shipbuilding capacity. Each year they organizers, more about them in
a minute, try to gather in a theme that speaks to the militarization of our
country, of the world, the particular role Maine plays in that process and of
course from our perspective some alternatives.
In 2016 that was
around creating the environment for a sustainable future, very much more in doubt
in the few years since that walk, which meant a serious frontal attack on the
role the military plays in not making the future world sustainable. Sustainable
may today mean livable, as in livable planet, from the dire news just in the headlines
about the huge Artic and Greenland melts, record high temperatures in placed
not know for some levels, more and more endangered species falling off the chart
since they could not adapt to the dramatically changed environment fast enough
and many more strange doing if you read a new book called Inhabitable Earth
along with the attention to the bad news days. Meanwhile in the White House and
places like Houston and the Dakotas they are drinking their champagnes out of
fossil fuel container and secretly making sure they have their places many
miles from the coasts and high above the projected water table lines.
I knew in Vietnam
about the various defoliate programs to search out the so-called enemy most
famously Agent Orange and about the incredible number of unexploded bombs that plague
that country forty years later but I was unaware how much material the Navy (and
maybe other branches as well) in their everyday functions spew into the world’s
oceans including the coast of Maine. I knew of the climate change effect maybe
ten years ago when I would go to Maine beaches and note that the new high tide
marks were eating severely into the wetlands in places like Ogunquit. I should have
mentioned before that leaflets are passed out with messages along that line of
thought, along the military waste along the line of march, the sites selected like
Bath Iron Works where things need to be changed and evening programs at the
various nightly stopping points dealing with the overall theme message.
I noted in the
last archival caption that I have been doing these walks for a few years even though
I had my fill of marches in the Army. Moreover, I had my doubts whether such a
walking program over a couple of weeks would do anything for the cause, still
have some questions. Enter the great equalizers. I started, kicking and screaming at first
about doing this trek once my friends and fellow members Sam Eaton and Ralph Morris
went up to Maine to help out in the annual Maine Peace Walk sponsored by the Maine
chapter of Veterans for Peace and other local activist peace groups. Ralph and
Sam pointed out that even a few VFP dove-encrusted flags on the march would ensure
that some message was getting through. Having seen that flag business work a
million times before I bought in -for part of the trek.
Of course if
you had read the previous caption you know that “helping out” entailed walking
half the freaking state of Maine at least on the oceanside, the side where U.S.
Route One slithers down the coast. Over a period of several days. I had started
up in Brunswick, up at Bowdoin College where I met walkers who had started up I
believe in Rangeley which I do not have a clue where that is except it is pretty
far north in Maine with plenty left before you reach the Canadian border. (As
it turned out Sam and Ralph who started their own treks there were clueless
when I asked where the place was except the military has a tracking station there
which links that nowhere Maine town with the American’s military’s globalization
of their forces in many fields. I said good work brothers for starting there,
yes, good work indeed.
Ralph Morris
and I are Vietnam veterans, Sam didn’t serve because he was the sole surviving
son of a mother who had four young daughters to raise after Sam’s drunken father
passed away of a heart attack in 1965. It took me a while, took me a while as
it did to “get religion” on the issues of war and peace, and to get over the false
division between anti-war activity and working with avowed pacifists to accept Sam
as a brother. Hell as a winter soldier although I already knew from Ralph that as
early as 1971 in Washington on May Day where they “met” after being arrested in
Robert F. Kennedy football stadium where they had with their respective groups
attempted to stop the war by stopping the government that Sam was some old righteous
Puritan angel avenger out of the John Brown mold. Took a while but knew deep in
my bones that this guy was for real, that when he said something you could
depend on him. Yeah, now in 2019 we are in desperate need of winter soldiers.
And if you don’t know, are not familiar with that term then think about that small
band of stalwarts was held firm at Valley Forge come fight against the British and
their hirelings. The defenders of the republican idea when that was very dicey
indeed. Like now.
“Stop the War$ on Mother Earth”
2016 Maine
Peace Walk
The 5th Maine Peace Walk will take place on October 11 –
26. The organizing team is made up of
individuals who are dedicated to creating a more peaceful, sustainable and just
world. We come together out of our deep
concern about the many different wars being waged on Mother Earth, ranging from
over-fishing, deforestation, and human-caused extinctions, to climate disruption and endless war.
Close to home we support the Penobscot Nation’s struggle
for Justice for the River, opposition to the East/West Corridor, and conversion
of war production to alternative energy at Maine shipyards. We know from past experience of walking
through rural and urban Maine that many people will be reached with our
messages. We hope this spiritual act of walking and sharing conversation and
food will help people in our state feel less isolated and despairing about the
future.
We welcome everyone to join our walk for an hour, a day, or
more and to help in any way they can to contribute. We invite environmental, peace, church, and
social justice organizations to sign on as a co-sponsor of the walk. We ask co-sponsors to make a donation of
their choosing and to help spread the word about the walk to their
members/community. Tax-deductible
donations can be made by check to Global Network, designated “For Peace Walk”
and sent to:
Global Network Against Weapons
& Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
For more information: Please
contact Bruce Gagnon at: globalnet@mindspring.com
(207) 443-9502
Current Co-Sponsors: Smedley
D. Butler Brigade Veterans for Peace (Boston area); Global
Network Against Weapons &
Nuclear Power in Space; Maine Veterans for Peace; Citizens
Opposing Active Sonar Threats
(COAST); Veterans for Peace (National); Peninsula Peace and
Justice; CODEPINK
Maine; PeaceWorks; Maine War Tax Resistance Resource Center;
Veterans For Peace, Jim Harney
Chapter 003; Peace & Justice Center of Eastern Maine;
Greater Brunswick Peace Works;
Alliance for the Common Good;
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