Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Vets For Peace Arrested at NYC War Memorial


This account appeared on Facebook and describes an event that several members of VFP Chapter 21 attended along with Vets For Peace members from across the nation.  About 25 veterans and supporters were arrested when they refused to leave the memorial site under police orders to obey a new city directive closing the park at 10 p.m. Jay Wenke served in the US Army in World War II and lives in Woodstock, NY, where he is a member of the Town Board. 

By Jay Wenke

Yesterday, 10/7, was the 12th anniversary of the Afghan war. I was part of about sixty veterans who assembled at the Vietnam memorial on Water St. in Manhattan. We met there to protest this war, to honor the dead vets, and to defy [Mayor] Bloomberg's order to close that Memorial site at 10 PM. Normally, it's open 24/7; the Memorial in DC is also open 24/7. In spite of the cold rain, we were proceeding with our observance; reading the names of the dead, accompanied with a soft sounding gong, and putting white carnations in vases to place at the base of the Memorial.

Shortly after 10, the police started to arrest us, knowing we were veterans of many wars, who had been in harms way for this country. They were polite but firm, the plastic handcuffs bite deeply into one's wrists. Many of them told us that they were sympathetic to what we were doing and that they respected what we had done in the service.

Nevertheless, they were following orders, and we, men and women, were placed in locked cells without shoes, belts and water, for many hours. The police are not responsible for our Police State; those who gave the orders to close down a very peaceful observance of war and a memorial service for those who are killed in those wars are the obscene culprits. Bloomberg, and all the other anti-democratic 'pillars of society' around this land are examples of what is terrifyingly wrong in our country. They use the law as a bludgeon.

We say we are a land of laws, not individuals, but what kind of law is it, what kind of nation is it where some get the benefits and the vast majority of us are hit with unjust law, or supposedly just law used unjustly? It is definitely not a democracy, that's a myth. We are not finished, we will continue to give this Police State the opportunity to display its violence until enough people rise up and say "Enough"!

Jay Wenke at Quantico Marine Base demonstration  (photo/Ward Reilly)

No comments: