Peace Movement Grows in Military Town

Some residents in Twentynine Palms will hold a candlelight vigil next week to protest the war in Iraq. The desert town is home to the nation's biggest Marine Corps base and a protest there would have been unthinkable a few years ago. But as the war drags on, a grassroots peace movement is gradually adding new recruits. Inland Empire reporter Steven Cuevas visited the town as part of KPCC's coverage of the war's fifth anniversary.

Steven Cuevas: When you oppose a war in the middle of a military town, you're begging for trouble. Just ask Rae Noel.

Rae Noel: I did one time yell at this Republican, "Bush is killing our troops!" And it got into the local newspaper. And of course, then, my daughter knows me, and "Mother, did you do that?!" And I said, "Yes I did. Because Bush is killing our troops!"

Cuevas: The elderly Noel moved here from Santa Barbara six years ago. In the weeks leading up to the invasion of Iraq she organized her first peace vigil. A few dozen people turned up. But there was a backlash. Some called her a traitor. Her car was vandalized. Noel lost her job with the city – it made the news.

Reporter: ... His answer: the rally conflicts with the beliefs of the Chamber of Commerce.
Hollings: It would probably send the wrong message to the troops that we're back here trying to support.

Noel: It's frustrating for me, because I can't be out there on the street corner. This town is just different.

Joe Matoush: If somebody would tell me that I'm not supporting the troops, I'd figuratively grab them in the neck and say, don't say I've never supported the troops. I slept in the holes with them.

Cuevas: Lutheran pastor and former Marine chaplain Joe Matoush is the only clergyman in the Twentynine Palms area to openly express opposition to the war.

Matoush: Well our church's name is Prince of Peace Lutheran Church. (laughs) I wanted people to know that not everybody in Twentynine Palms was drooling blood.

Cuevas: Matoush organizes an annual candlelight vigil for troops killed in Iraq. More people turn out each year, while counter demonstrators have dwindled. But activism has cost him parishioners.

Matoush: And they feel that if we say "No More War" that we're going to demoralize our troops and they're going to feel like, you know, and as we see now, many of the military are questioning as well!

Cuevas: Twentynine Palms barely existed before the U.S. Marines settled in 50 years ago. It remains a gung-ho town.

Dan O'Brien: And it really bothers us when people do come into town and raise hell and try to make a stink of it.

Cuevas: Vietnam veteran Dan O'Brien leans against his pickup truck in the front yard of his home on 29 Palms Highway. The self described "conservative gadfly" is protective of the kids in uniform and their families.

O'Brien: In this town, it just isn't socially acceptable to drag them through an emotional turmoil over pro-war/anti-war, so we just basically kind of quietly talk within ourselves. We get so bound up in politics, we lose the fact that we are community.

[Musician Ted Quinn singing: "Why are all the wives looking so sad? She was just a child herself, with a child beneath her belt. Now she's stuck without the only friend she had.]

Cuevas: Musician Ted Quinn moved here from L.A. around 10 years ago. He opposes the war, though many of his friends are Marines. Some have been killed or wounded. He understands how antiwar sentiment can sting, but still speaks out – but with those friends in mind.

Ted Quinn: Well I hope it doesn't hurt their feelings, because it's definitely not intended to attack them personally or, you know, as soldiers or anything else. I mean, we want those guys to come home, and we want them to come home alive, so I don't think that they're offended by that.

[Quinn singing: "How does anyone ever win a war anyhow?"]

Steve Spear: Now, that is not that they don't support our troops. I believe they are numb. There's nothing people can do. I mean, how many time you gonna go out and welcome them home as heroes?!

Cuevas: Twentynine Palms councilman Steve Spear is a retired Marine officer. He has three children on active duty. A fourth was convinced not to enlist, severing a family tradition that goes back to the Spanish-American War.

Spear: There comes a time in everybody's life where your faced with some kind of moral decision. People are trying to define those people as being not supportive of the troops. That's moronic to apply that to me. I mean, my son will do what he's told to do. They're gonna fight for this country whether they believe in the cause or not. Nobody is spitting on our troops, calling them names when they come home. The people of America support our troops.

Cuevas: Councilman Spear may ask the city of Twentynine Palms to adopt a resolution opposing the war in Iraq. But first, he wants to see what the next president can do about bringing the troops home to stay.