I was one of the “few Iraq War hecklers” in Karen Crummy’s Denver and the West article “Udall accepts nomination for Senate” May 18 Denver Post. While not mentioned by name in the article, I would like the opportunity to respond.
Carrying a sign at a State Convention to petition members of our government on an issue which is at the root of the low position our Nation is in at the present is not in my mind heckling.
While my intentions as a delegate from the time I was elected were always to engage as many people as possible on the issue of Iraq, carrying signs had not been one of them.
But, after listening to elected official after official seeking nominations to again represent us in Washington giving only lip service, if that, to the real issues affecting our nation, the opportunity to carry a sign bringing attention to Iraq presented itself. I took it; and, I carried it with pride.
The response from everyone I came in contact with while carrying the sign, without exception, was positive. People gave us the thumbs up, shook our hands and said thank you for doing it.
Not once during my many conversations without the sign with people whom I had never previously met, did anyone disagree that Iraq was one of the most serious problems facing our nation. A problem which effectively closed the door to addressing any of the other problems we face today.
Many of us have said our pledge, sang our anthem, written letters, engaged our elected representatives in public forums, marched in protest in Washington, DC and at home, made phone calls, been part of hundreds of Town, County and in a few cases, including Colorado, State Resolutions petitioning our Congress and the White House to end the occupation of Iraq.
Many of us are included in the 80% of Americans who say our country is headed in the wrong direction and are included in the 68% who want us out of Iraq and are part of the 70% who are out of favor with this Administration.
Where is our Congress? Where are our representatives? Who in Washington is listening, hearing and taking action on our behalf? The sign was a petition, a plea. I am not in the minority. I was just one of the few who had the opportunity to carry a sign for the many that expresses a large part of the problem that the majority of our country is feeling.
We have been fiscally, morally and legally bankrupted by the war and occupation of Iraq by our nation. A country has been devastated, thousands of people killed and untold numbers maimed by this violence.
Our military members are suffering tremendous injury, physical and mental, and continue to be killed at the rate of over one a day.
Billions, if not trillions, of dollars are being wasted at a time when our country faces serious problems. Problems which if not addressed and solved soon will have potentially dire consequences for the survival of our nation and the world.
The main reason for the human species, all species, is to pass on to the next generation a better life. We are in direct violation of that basic obligation and responsibility.
We are placing an ever increasing debt on our children with the travesty our government is pursuing in Iraq in our name.
But, as more and more of us begin to analyze just what “and to the republic for which it stands” means when saying the Pledge of Allegiance; as more of us think about what our flag represents when we sing our National Anthem and hear ourselves together harmonize “O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave” more and more of us are questioning where it is our government is taking us?
These are questions more and more people are feeling and asking. There is a rock hard foundation, however, which gives us the basis to re-think and re-group and correct the things which have so seemingly gone awry – our Constitution – “We the People of the United States”; this is our government.
It was founded by us and for us. The Gettysburg Address bolsters and upholds the vision of our fore fathers – “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth;” and, our Declaration of Independence lends us tremendous advice and responsibility never to be taken lightly in the phrases which gave birth to our nation and sustains the opportunity for its continuance. It is a document which all of us should read from time to time.
What it all comes down to is government is us. What it does in our name is done by us. No matter who we have Hope in as our next leaders, it is we who will create the change.
We can only hope that our leaders will inspire us and motivate us to work together. But change will not come without us. We are the change. That is why I carried the sign which caused me to be called a “heckler.”
Harry “Skip” Edwards lives in Telluride and is a 63-year-old Vietnam Veteran and was a delegate to the Democratic State Convention in Colorado Springs. EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an online-only column and has not been edited.
