Last night on my way home from work I got off the subway a few stops early (at McPherson Square) and walked across the street to Lafayette Park to participate in the candlelight vigil in honor of the 1000+ members of our military who have sacrificed their lives while fulfilling their oaths to defend the United States of America from all enemies. It was a moving experience, and I thought I would share my perspective on the event here.
I arrived about thirty minutes before the scheduled start of the event (8:00 pm) so I walked around the park a few minutes. The view of the White House across Pennsylvania Avenue was somewhat obstructed by construction fencing, but the park and the weather were stunningly beautiful.
I walked past a tent festooned with anti-nuclear war posters manned by a bearded gentleman who appeared to be my age. The signs indicated that this was part of a non-stop protest which had been continuously ongoing since 1981. I was trying to think of a conversation starter when I noticed a few people arriving with candles at the park entrance, so I went to join them.
When I walked up to this group I met two local college students who, like me, did not have candles, so we left together to visit the nearest CVS pharmacy to obtain some. Along the way I had a lovely conversation with these young ladies who were about as politically astute as it is possible to be without having heard of DailyKos. I am happy to say that I took care of that slight defect in their education.
We returned to the vigil (after having to visit two stores - the first was out of candles) about 8:15 to find a crowd of about 75 people. I took about half of the candles we had purchased (maybe 8 out of 16) and started handing them out to people who did not have one. For the next half hour the crowd grew slowly as people quietly said hello, read each other's signs, and re-lit each other's candles when the light breeze extinguished them.
During this time I mostly listened to other people's conversations as I handed out candles or little paper plates to catch the melted wax. If there was a theme to the conversations, it would be how sad it is that so many have died in Iraq, and how could our Preznit be so incompetent.
Around 8:45 the organizers asked us to move slightly from our clump to spread out along H street, so that the traffic could see us better. I took advantage of this to walk from one end of the vigil to the other in order to count the turnout. I then repeated this exercise and counted 141 people with candles the first time and 143 the second. Given the rate of people drifting in and out, I can state with confidence that the number of people participating at some time during the evening was certainly more than 150 and probably less than 200.
There were several people taking pictures and a couple of professional looking video tapers present. I noticed someone from the local ABC TV station and consciously stood so that I thought I would be in the background of her shot.
The crowd slowly started to leave about 9:00 pm, and by about 9:15 there were just a couple of people left, including the college students I had met earlier. Since the next commuter train would not leave Union Station until 10:35, I walked with them to DuPont Circle where they caught a bus back to their apartment, and then I resumed my subway/commuter train trip home.
When I arrived home about 11:30 I discovered that since the football game was still on Channel 7, I had not missed the local evening news. So I stayed up and sure enough, there I was, in the background on the report on the vigil. Two of people interviewed in the report were parents (like me) of a soldier who had safely returned from Iraq, but who felt the need to be there to honor those who did not return. I also noticed that the reporter said that hundreds of people were at the vigil, which I thought was a fair estimate (since two hundred are "hundreds").
Those are the basic facts about the vigil, from my perspective. I wish I had the writing skill to capture more of the essence of the experience. I will just say that when I heard about this event yesterday something inside me said I HAD to be there. And when I was there I felt something that is hard to describe -- a feeling that I was part of something that is growing stronger -- something which will sweep this misadministration into the dustbin of history where they belong.