Censored?: Military Families Speak Out Vigil May 1, 2004
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One Year After Bush Declares An “End to Major Combat,†War Continues, Intensifies Military Families and Veterans Say “Bring Them Home Now!â€
Did anyone see any news about this? I have this press release from the Military Families Speak Out website. I have searched Google News as well as googled the whole web and I cannot find a single news organization that covered this event. I have found a few mentions of MFSO with major media, but they all have to do with response to the flap over Ted Koppel reading the names of the war dead (they were for it). I have found other mentions of this event on IMCs and other progressive websites, but no coverage of the event itself.
WASHINGTON, DC - May 1st is the one-year anniversary of George Bush’s speech declaring the end to major combat in Iraq in a carefully staged photo-op on an aircraft carrier in front of a banner declaring "Mission Accomplished". In fact, nearly as many service men and women have died in Iraq during the month of April, 2004 as died during all of “major combat†(the months of March and April, 2003). The violence continues in Iraq with no end in sight.
Military Families Speak Out and Veterans for Peace will be holding a
vigil and demonstration in Washington, D.C. on May 1st to call for an
end to the violence, an end to the U.S. military occupation of Iraq,
and to bring the troops home now. Families and Veterans will walk to
the Vietnam Memorial and leave pictures of loved ones who have died in
Iraq as the result of a war based on lies.
When: Saturday, May 1st at
10:00 a.m.
Where: Constitution Gardens
(Constitution Avenue between 20th and 21st Streets - near the Vietnam
War Memorial). The following Military Families will be available for
interview before, during and after the event:
Nancy Lessin and Charley Richardson,
Boston, MA; parents of a Marine in the 24th Marine Expeditionary
Unit who served in Iraq in spring, 2003. They are co-founders of
Military Families Speak Out, which began in November, 2002 with two
military families opposing a U.S. invasion of Iraq and now has 1,500
military families calling for an end to the US military occupation of
Iraq and the policies that allowed it to happen.
J. Stephen Cleghorn of Washington, D.C.
whose son in the Army recently returned from Iraq.
Laura Costas of Silver Spring, MD,
her brother in the Army Reserves just returned from Iraq in March,
2004. He is still under a “stop-loss†order that prevents him from
separating from the military.
Mildred McHugh of Pennington, NJ,
her son is in the Army and is currently stationed in the Sunni
Triangle.
Larry Syverson of Richmond, VA,
has three sons in the military, two who served in Iraq, one of whom was
due to come home in April, 2004 but has been extended in Iraq for at
least 4 months. www.mfso.org