Rita Brock on Camp Casey, again

Once again I’ve received a powerful email from Rita Brock about her Camp Casey experience, and once again I haven’t found it on the web. So here it is, in its entirety:

"The sledgehammer of triple-digit, humid heat did not deter the 3,000+ who showed up the Camp Casey II for a rally Saturday afternoon. Even at 9am, the line of parked cars extended about a quarter mile up the road. A man who arrived at ten, drenched in sweat and smiling, said he had "to park in the next county!'

The first of many full buses pulled up from Austin at 11. Each bus was greeted by a smiling, cheering crowd shouting, "Welcome! Hooray! Welcome!" Mothers with babies, fathers with their children, gray-haired veterans, elderly women and men, a constant flow of peace-loving Texans poured off buses until early afternoon. As people arrived, others, some with planes to catch or jobs to report to, left. During the main part of the rally, beginning around 1pm, the huge tent was packed. It held 3,000 standing. Counting the tables near the food line, there were probably 2,500 at one time, but people flowed in and out of the tent all afternoon. At 2pm, I joined a long line of cars leaving from my parking spot in the ditch, I could see the line of parked cars disappearing up the hill a half mile away. The usual 10 minutes to Crawford center took 30. I went to Waco to pick up Rabbi Gamoran arriving from Seattle. The line of arriving cars didn't shorten until around 4pm, when I returned, grateful for a couple of hours in an air-conditioned car.

I was there until 10pm, occasionally venturing out into the stabbing sun to spend a half hour in the weak shade of the Peace Chapel tent. On one foray, I found Mona, who had attended our Break the Silence Bus Tour in June in Columbus, OH. At that time, she had felt alone and isolated in her opposition to the war and frantically worried about her son, who was going to Iraq in September. The local paper had interviewed her for their story of the Bus Tour. They did a story about her when they found out she was headed to Camp Casey. The story generated financial support for her from her friends and neighbors. At Camp Casey 15 days, she had joined Military Families Speak Out. While she was still worried about her son, she no longer felt alone.

Later, Rabbi Gamoran joined me in the Chapel, and 14 year old, red-haired Sammichelle from Temple, TX, joined us. Her family was Jewish, and she commented on the irony of an absence of temples in her home town. She reported that, a week ago, their air conditioning and hot water heater failed simultaneously, so her parents had decided to spend the week camping at Camp Casey, much to her delight. She told us of her conversations with "infiltrators," whom she had detected by their unfriendly, sour looks and inability to converse about the war beyond a few syllables.

At 7:30 pm dark clouds on the horizon arrived with spectacular lightning and fierce winds. The Chapel blew down, though we salvaged the altar and most of what was on it. The huge main tent swayed and shook, but stayed up.

The storm gave us a merciful break in the heat. As I walked from my car Sunday morning, I passed one of the sheriff officers standing in his Kevlar vest along the roadside, smiling at the people arriving. "Thanks," I said, "for ordering us a cooler day!" "You're welcome," he responded cheerfully, "but we did it mostly for us." None of the law enforcement officers assigned to Camp Casey received any overtime pay, even during nights and weekends, though they protected it 24/7. In return, the residents of Camp Casey followed their instructions carefully.

It was only 90 degrees when Sunday's interfaith service began. The organizers of the Saturday rally thought perhaps 200 would be there, so volunteers put about 250 chairs in concentric circles in the center of the huge tent. A table with flowers and candles were at the center.

As I was conferring with participants about the order of the service and their various responsibilities, Glenn Smith told me that 4,500 roses were arriving for the service. Working Assets had organized mothers to pay $3 each to provide them. They put the huge buckets, stuffed with roses in every color imaginable, on the tables behind the circle, so that one whole area was bathed in the fragrance of roses. The cameras had the flowers as a backdrop to the whole service. Several buckets stood around the center altar table.

Before we began, the chairs were full and more were added. By the time we started, a large group was standing around the perimeter 500 had gathered, including babies, the occasional dog, and some press.

We began with the Muslim call to prayer. Then, Jeff Key, an Iraq veteran, rang a bell to remember the fallen -- a ringing the National Council of Churches urged as a nationwide project for churches on Sunday. A poem by Archibald MacLeish, called "The Young Dead Soldiers" was followed by a solo, "Remember Me."

A religious leader from each of seven faith traditions invited those of that tradition to gather around the altar while the leader spoke of their commitment to peace: Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, Muslim, African American Christian, and Unitarian Universalist. Then, those who had no religious tradition were invited to the altar, welcomed, and thanked for their solidarity and support for people of faith in our common struggle for peace.

A trio, the Burns sisters from Binghamton, NY, sang the prayer of St. Francis as we entered a time of meditative prayer. We were invited to name the fallen, those in harm's way, and those who give us hope for peace. As so many, many names were spoken aloud, from everywhere around the circle, I felt that a great cloud of witnesses had joined us under the tent, and I was deeply moved.

Rabbi Dennis Shulman from New York led us in the reciting of the 23rd Psalm and Kaddish, the Jewish prayer of mourning for the dead. As we stood in a close circle of 500, many openly weeping, we held each other at the finish of Kaddish, and sang "Wade In the Water." After the benediction by Rev. Al Sharpton, everyone was invited to follow Cindy and Jane, Gold Star Mothers, to take a rose and place it on one of the white crosses of Arlington West. When I announced that mothers had provided the roses, a great cheer rose up.

Rev. Sharpton reminded us that 42 years ago to the day, August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had delivered his "I Have a Dream Speech,"and we must carry on the dream. He blessed us to go out and work for peace. We sang as we took up roses and walked out to the crosses. Jeff Key stood in the midst of the mourners and crosses and played Dr. King's favorite hymn, "Precious Lord," on his trumpet, his tall lean frame silhouetted against the cloudy prairie sky. Soon, the field of crosses looked like a rose field.

An hour later, a group of us, including Jeff, held a service at the original Camp Casey. We took more buckets overflowing with roses. The crowd of 100 or so stood in a group on the asphalt road, in front of the tent where Cindy originally camped in the midst of white crosses. I had stood in the same place twice before to lead a service at Camp Casey, on August 15 and 23, and many of the faces were now familiar to me. I knew their stories, their commitments to each other, and the grief and fear they carried. I felt a deep gratitude for their presence in the world.

As we began the service, we stood in front of the cross of Sherwood Baker, the son of Celeste Zappala, who had spoken with Cindy at the Riverside Service April 4. When I mentioned the anniversary of King's speech, a gasp of wonder arose. Some commented about the importance of our gathering on the same day -- we could feel the power of our responsibility to carry on the legacy. As at the service at Camp Casey 2, many, many names were spoken in prayer. And many, many roses were put on crosses. Jeff played taps at the end.

When I drove by two hours later on my way to the airport, people were still putting roses on crosses, standing in groups by the edge of the road, talking and comforting each other. It is an image I will never forget.

Among those religious leaders who provided leadership for the Sunday services: Dr. Rita Brock, Protestant, liturgist, Oakland, CA; Rabbi Hillel Gamoran, Jewish representative, Seattle, WA; Rev. Heather Starr, Unitarian Universalist representative, Portland, OR; Fr. Joseph Mulligan, Roman Catholic representative, San Antonio, TX; Rev. Emilee Whitehurst, Presbyterian, Protestant representative and prayer leader, Austin, TX; Rabbi Dennis Shulman, Jewish, leader of Kaddish, New York, NY; and, Rev. Al Sharpton, Protestant, parting commission and benediction, New York, NY."</blockquote>