A mother's Love

Her voice rang out cool and smooth against the sunshine that speckled Dunn Meadow:\nPeace is flowing like a river,\nFlowing out of you and me.\nNo one can take away our pain,\nNor bring our soldiers back to life again.\nMia Lorraine's song flowed over the small crowd sitting in the shade of one of the meadow's trees, as heads nodded softly in agreement.\n"People ask how many soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq," said Lorraine, of Sebastopol, Calif., a member of Military Families Speak Out. "I say all of them."\nIt was a mother's love that started Camp Casey when Cindy Sheehan camped out in front of President George W. Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, after her 24-year-old son Casey was killed in Iraq in April, prompting a peaceful protest phenomenon. It was a mother's love that made Lorraine, the mother of an Army captain who served a year in Iraq, join the Bring Them Home Tour which started at Camp Casey and is working its way to Washington, D.C., for an anti-war rally Sept. 24. And it was a mother's love that brought the tour to Bloomington.\n"The fact that it was a mother who started the protest movement is no surprise to me," said Gina Weir, organizer of Tuesday's lunchtime rally, and mother of 3-year-old Sam Powell Weir. "After you bring a life into this world, it's not just about my child. It's about a safe and peaceful place for all children to live."\nThough Weir said she considered the rally a success, it wasn't without incident. Originally scheduled to be located in People's Park, the rally was forced to move to Dunn Meadow after Weir discovered a concert was already scheduled to occur in the park at noon. Using a megaphone, Weir encouraged the 40 assembled protesters to march to Dunn Meadow.\n"Dunn Meadow's this way," said a man with a bushy white beard and denim overalls as the scheduled band, Fiddle'N Feet, began to play. "Dunn Meadow's over here. It's two blocks away."\nOnce reassembled in the shade, members of Military Families Speak Out, Iraq Veterans Against the War and Veterans for Peace shared their personal war experiences and the experiences of their loved ones as they asked the president to bring the troops home.\n"Is there anyone here who doesn't support our troops?" said Kallisa Stanley of Killeen, Texas, and a member of Military Families Speak Out to the crowd. No one raised a hand. "No. Supporting our troops is bringing them home."\nAs Hart Viges, an Iraq war veteran who was honorably discharged after receiving conscious objector status, talked about his experience overseas, the sound of a nearby lawn mower drowned out his voice. Two women ran across the street to ask the gardener to turn it off.\n"I can move on to somewhere else," said IU gardener Steve Bush. "I don't want to impede anybody. This is the United States of America and you have the right to protest anything you want. Of course, that's why the troops are over there."\nAfter the speeches were completed, Bloomington resident Mary Brennan Miller picked up her "No War" sign and folding chair and put it away in a carrying bag.\n"Everyone (in Iraq) is my family member," Miller said. "I take my little chair and my little sign and I go (to rallies). It's something."\nGina Weir tied up lose ends as the crowd drifted away and the speakers sat down to eat.\n"What Cindy did wasn't intended to start a movement," Weir said. "It's like what Rosa Parks did -- it ignited what needed to happen"