User:David Schaich/Pentagon march report
From SP Boston
I headed down to Washington DC over my spring break to take part in the 17 March 2007 March on the Pentagon that marked four years of war and occupation in Iraq. I spent a few days visiting relatives in New York City on my way down, and was nearly stranded in Manhattan when a sudden blizzard buried the city (and much of the rest of the East coast) the night before the march.
But I was able to get there, as were tens of thousands of others, making it one of the larger marches I've attended. There were also, of course, thousands more who were blocked from coming by the storm. My bus was late because of the storm, and I arrived just as the march was getting set to begin. I spent most of the march looking around for other SP members -- a couple dozen were there, many from Tennessee -- but I wasn't able to find them until the rally afterwards.
Partway through the march I gave up searching and was content to march with Students for a Democratic Society and join in some of their chants. I also had a chance to say hello to Tom Good, who I hadn't seen since the March for Women's lives in 2004. Then I got the fuck out of the way as some SDSers formed an impromptu shield line and advanced against the police as we approached the Pentagon. It was right about that point I ran into Anne Boatner who led me to the rest of the SP contingent at the rally below the Pentagon walls.
I spent another day in New York after the march, and joined in a local antiwar march. It didn't have the energy of the affair in Washington and the SP crowd was small, but I was able to meet NYC local secretary Tommy Miles, who I had only communicated with electronically until then.
I stopped by the SP National Office briefly afterwards, but had to run to the bus station to get back to Boston before the T shut down. I shouldn't have hurried -- apparently hundreds of people came from Boston for St. Patrick's day, and the line in the bus station looped around the terminal. Greyhound had called in all of their reserve drivers and were sending off buses as fast as they could be loaded; it only took me about 30-40 minutes to get on one of them (express at that) and set off.
There are some pictures of both marches here, and the ones I'm in are below.
