Rita Brock on Camp Casey

I can’t believe that this statement doesn’t exist online somewhere, where I could link to it, but since it came as a mass email I feel perfectly fine reproducing it here. It’s Rita Brock’s recent report of her time at Camp Casey (the impromptu site of protest outside of Bush’s ranch in Texas). Reading it I was brought back immediately and vividly to the Seneca Women’s Peace Encampment, which was really the heart and catalyst of my own activism, lo these many years ago. I wish I could go down to Texas, but my life is such right now that I can’t. So I’m going to try and figure out how what might be creative ways to support the movement from up here in the north. One first step? Read Rita’s statement:

"Camp Casey II shimmered in the intense Texas heat on Monday afternoon; small camping tents, flanked by port-o-sans, stood in front of the main tent like a squatter's camp next to the huge white peaks of the tent jutting incongruously out of a prairie field. I found Glenn Smith in the tent village sitting in the Peace Chapel, its large white cross and star of David visible from a distance. I put a purple cloth, candles, a Bible, pieces of poetry and music, and a bouquet of flowers on the table under the tent and symbols of the world's faiths on the poles. As the sun set, the candles glowed warmly in the moonlit dark of a starry night sky, welcoming people to a short vespers service I held after some reminiscences and songs by Joan Baez and speeches by several veterans and conscientious objectors. A former State Dept official, Ann, who resigned over the war, kept everyone organized and recruited a security patrol for the night. All the work is done by camp volunteers.

The next morning, we held morning devotions for the 30 or at the original Camp Casey, which is still along the seven-foot wide ditch on the road to the Bush ranch. Some people go to the new one, thinking this one is closed. But it is not. It retains the gritty, determined quality I remembered from a week ago, when it was the only camp. Many of the people were the same I had met then. The original Arlington West, desecrated by Larry Northern, had been restored. I especially remembered one of the leaders, Tamara, whose husband, at Ft. Hood, has been called to go to Iraq in November.

We held morning devotions in the middle of the road, standing in a circle. At 8 am, the sun was already hot and it was 90 degrees. After we sang a song, I read selections from Psalm 25, "a prayer in danger," one of the lectionary readings for Sept. 25, the third Sunday of Faith Voices' national preaching program, Gather Heart, and the Sunday of the Washington DC protest against the war.

As we shared our hopes for peace, we paused to make way for two trucks pulling trailers full of cattle. We closed with a poem by Mary Oliver and a song led by a camp guitarist, Carmelo. At the end of the service, Tamara wept in my arms for awhile. A retired farmer from Missouri told me about his extreme conservative views and his time as a Marine. A trip to Guatemala in 1989 had turned his soul toward peace, but he carried enormous guilt for his past life. He wanted to know what to tell his Lutheran church friends when they said the war was God's will.

I met a woman at Camp Casey from San Diego who has posted her reflections with photos.