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Marching on the 4th of July

By Meg Miner

Fourth of July is notoriously hot and humid here in the corn fields of central Illinois. Seven years ago I wouldn't have dreamed of spending that date at a parade much less in one. But sometime after 9/11/01, I joined up with AWARE (Anti-War, Anti-Racism Effort: www.anti-war.net) a group of activists in Champaign-Urbana. In 2003, AWARE started entering the annual C-U pageantry for patriotism called Champaign County Freedom Celebration.

Joe Miller, Dave Carr and Barry Romo on the Fourth of July in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois

Each year, AWARE's entry in the parade lampoons the chosen theme in some way. One year, the official theme celebrated the newly-passed No Child Left Behind Act, so AWARE built a float with a WWI-sized tank pointing at a one-room schoolhouse. (What these creative people can't do with a cardboard box!) People walking beside the float that year carried signs about tax dollars going to war funding instead of to educating children.

So yeah, every year it's hot and humid and I'd really rather be doing anything with a precious day off other than walking on asphalt. Sometime people get it, though. They make the connection between the subversive message and the ever-inane annual theme and from there, we hope, they connect to the even more insane policies of our elected officials. Those moments of clarity are truly special but they were never more so than at this year's parade.

The AWARE float organizers took this year's official theme "Honoring Our Military Heroes" and once again turned it slightly askew from the intended tone. AWARE's float was called "Honoring Our Military Heroes Who Speak Against War." They had six-foot tall posters made with war dissenters' pictures and they added quotes with these heroes' own comments about the war.

The AWARE planners invited IVAW and VVAW to join their parade entry, asking that IVAW take the lead. Sometimes in past parades I've signaled my veteran status and sometimes not, but without official sponsorship I never felt I should wear my VVAW colors before. This year I was thrilled to be walking beside my VVAW compatriots at the back of the IVAW contingent. I wore my VVAW shirt and carried a sign that said I was a Gulf War vet opposed to endless Gulf Wars.

Frankly, I thought we'd get some flak along the route. It usually happens, although in recent years there seem to be more people who are vocally supportive of our message than who object to it. Most often, though, people sit in their chairs and say nothing, so I make a point of heckling the passive watchers until they respond. Love us, hate us – I don't care, but slack-jawed apathy will not go by me without comment!

But like I said, this year was special. I barely got one smart-mouthed rallying cry out before I realized the people were with us. I mean really with us. And not just the people on the liberal side of town – people all along the seven mile route got out of their chairs of their own free will and applauded at the first sight of the IVAW banner. I only heard three negative comments the whole way, and even they weren't agitated enough to shout down the people around them. The worst comment of the day for me was when a kid read my sign and turned to his mom and said, "What's a Gulf war?" That threw me for a loop. One of the Vietnam vets beside me said, "Now you know how we feel." Time is truly a relative thing.

But my feeling of insignificance soon faded. Something special was happening that day. To be a witness to the acceptance IVAW got in C-U from people who are sometimes not so tolerant of messages that make them uncomfortable, and to see some people mouth the words "Thank You" ... wow, what a day! IVAW brought something out of the people that day, and I think it spilled over to the VVAW line and on back to the civilians of AWARE and the posters with hard messages from the vets who couldn't be there with us. It felt like recognition for all the effort it takes to be an anti-war vet in a society that seems so casually to ask us to destroy others. It felt like C-U was honoring the warrior and the war-resister. It felt good.

Central Illinois IVAW on the Fourth of July in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois

Central Illinois IVAW on the Fourth of July in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois