IRAQ IS BACK!!!

IRAQ IS BACK. How can it be? Didn't we leave that country years ago after we had saved it for democracy and built the biggest embassy in the world in Bagdad? After all those 4500 men klled and all those horrific injuries and billions of dollars spent? How could it be? Obvio. usly it didn't work out. Maybe the problem was that all the protests and marches that my husband and I did at the start ere not strong enough. I am sorry we didn't do a better job- I can recount them al and I se we e ittle bit feeble but we were in our seventies and we didn't have quite the energy the job required. Lets see, the first protest was in Davis, California where we living in an retirement home. Davis was a very progressive town and their anti-war activity took the form of a silent protest on Saturday mornings, lining the main street of Davis carrying appropriate signs "NO BLOOD FOR OIL" and the like.Cars would drive down the street and honk and wave. I thought all of the waves were encouragement, but my husband said a few were bad hand gestures which did not mean to be encouraging at all. At any rate, I was scolded and almost had to leave the protest, because the leader said I was talking and making noise. Did I tell you the protest was organized and run by the Quakers, and they take that idea of silence seriously. Neverthe less we went on to other protests that spring. We spent time in Santa Barbara and that city had its own protest- a march up State Street every Saturday, from the farmers' market to the Art Museum. The signs were more sophisticated but it was a lively crowd. My husband fell farther and farther behind in the march, because it was a long way and we couldn't keep up. But the worst is yet to come. We went to a big march one Saturday that was to take place in San Francisco and it was big. We went on chartered busses and as we left Davis it looked like rain, but no one was deterred by this. We should have been, because when the bus drew up to the starting oint in the city it began to storm, with lightning and thunder and sheets of driving rain. My husband and I didn't have any raingear or umbrellas, and we got out into a maelstrum of wind and buckets of water. The group was supposed to march to Mission Delores and it was obvious to us that we couldn't make it. Normally my husband would duck intoa little bar or restaurant and have a dry martini, but that was not available and we were buffeted up against what seemed to be a Chinese movie theater. So we went in and watched a Chinese movie (I didn't understand a word) and wiled away two hours until the bus came back. The rest of the party had made it to Mission Dolores, all excited and virtuous. The storm had let up when they were halfway there. I am sorry to say that we acted as though we had made the trip, and no one questioned it. What a sorry and cowardly showing. I still feel guilty. Perhaps the whole terrible invasion of Iraq would not have happened if we had not been such wimps.