Go to the mobile version of this Web site.

Login | Contact Us | Site Map | Paid archives | Electronic edition | Subscription Questions | Extras

Home › News › Local News

Protesters call for end to conflict in Iraq

Speaker says candidates aren't doing enough

By Tillie Fong, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published March 20, 2008 at 12:30 a.m.

Text size  
Ben Garcia and Yolanda Aleman, both of Denver, take part in Wednesday night's protest near the state Capitol.

Photo by Linda McConnnell / Special to the Rocky

Ben Garcia and Yolanda Aleman, both of Denver, take part in Wednesday night's protest near the state Capitol.

More Local News

More stories »

Vrnda Noel doesn't believe the Iraq war has accomplished anything other than to bring misery to that country - killing or displacing so many Iraqis.

"We went to find (weapons of mass destruction), but we took them with us instead," said Noel, 50, of Denver, whose son Sgt. Eli Wright has served in Iraq.

Noel was the main speaker at a war protest Wednesday night near the west steps of the state Capitol. More than 100 people participated in the event to mark the fifth anniversary of the war's start. The protest was organized by Denver MoveOn, the American Friends Service Committee and the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center.

After the rally, many of the protesters lined the sidewalk along Broadway, holding signs to encourage passing drivers to honk in support.

Noel, wearing a black T-shirt that read "Military Families Speak Out," said the war not only has cost Iraqi lives, but also has destroyed American ones.

"Just as they are paying with their lives, so are we," she said.

Noel chastised the presidential candidates for not doing more to stop the war.

"Why do we have to wait until they become president before they can bring the troops home?" she said.

Patrick Trujillo, 60, of Denver, didn't belong to any group, but he said he came to the rally because he is "a man of peace."

"I believe war is wrong," he said.

Ian Hudgings, 35, of Denver, a member of Denver MoveOn's steering committee, said he was pleased with the turnout.

"I'm always hoping that it will make a difference," he said of the rally, "but there has not been much change coming out of Washington."

Comments

  • March 20, 2008

    3:33 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    revorants writes:

    I am Steve M. Olson and thirty nine years ago I was a soldier the United States Army stationed at Bien Hoa in Viet Nam. I have visited that long black slanting marble slab in Washington DC and cried at the number of names etched into that black stone
    Now, thirty nine years later, we again are in a war. Five years are wasted and four thousand of our children are dead. To feed our gluttony for oil? To be placed in harm's way by men who did not answer the call when they were asked for that sacrifice? How many barrels of oil is your son or daughter worth? How many more Mothers are going to cry themselves to sleep at night?. How many children will know their father or mother only from a picture of a smiling twenty year old proudly wearing the uniform of a United States Soldier?
    Those fifty eight thousand men and women whose names are on that black headstone would arise as one from the cold earth and they would say, "No more. No more war. Not me. Not my children. Not to feed our obscene gluttony for oil."
    How many barrels of oil is your son or daughter worth? We know the answer to this question, yet our children bravely continue to answer the call of their country. These brave patriots are being sacrificed for oil. This obscene war must end.

    " And in that time when men decide and feel safe to call the war insane, take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind."
    Major Michael Davis O'Donnell
    1 January 1970
    Dak To, Vietnam
    Listed as KIA February 7, 1978

    Steve M. Olson
    Denver, CO 80209
    303-282-5689

  • March 20, 2008

    7:21 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    forwhatitis writes:

    Steve- First of all, thanks for your service. War is never pretty and always controversial.

    Unfortunately, this is not a war for oil. We get very little, if any oil from Iraq. So, we will continue to pay high prices for both gas and the war. Also, please don't think that you have the right to speak for all "those fifty eight thousand men and women" who gave their lives in Nam.

  • March 20, 2008

    9:30 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    CosmicSurfer writes:

    Houstongolfnut, sir, MS NOEL picked HER OWN CITY for her speech and HER support for HER SON who almost DIED in Iraq as a Combat Medic surviving 1 year before he was thrown from a HUMVEE while saving the lives of other soldiers. Her son is a hero of the first order and she, sir, is a hero of the first order.
    She, sir, probably knows more of the pain and suffering of this war than most since she has dedicated her life to working with families of vets and vets, many of which cannot get assistance from their own government. Who have been thrown away like so much garbage.

    The "little anti-war protest" is not little and is not platitudes and BS spewed by Chicken hawks in the White House or old men who forgot what it was like to be freed by the movement that they speak so irreverantly about.

    Mr McCain would do well to remember he walked OUT of the Hanoi Hilton at the end of the US involvement in Viet Nam.
    That end was arguably brought about by people like MS NOEL who have the guts to stand up to ignorant old men who forget that war is not a game one plays on a table with tin soldiers or on computer games but with live people who bleed and die and many others who spend a lifetime wishing that they had. There are a few who make it out and survive in spite of the torment but none ever forget
    I have myself lost friends and family both physically and mentally to old men's wars and I, like Vrnda, will never ever let this horror go on with out standing up and screaming that they have NO right to send our children into hell for lies and deceit and greed