8:00 am! Damn, I'm late! The vigil starts at 8:00, so I would have to press the pedal to the metal some, roaring up Hampton Blvd toward Naval Station Norfolk, which is at the northern end of Hampton, but this was not my immediate destination, although it would be the ultimate one on this last day of this challenging five-day peace event from June 22-26 called "On the Road to No War: A Walk for Disarmament from Camp Peary to Naval Station Norfolk."
Previously this week a hard core band of peace and justice activists, both local and national, had 1) held a vigil at Camp Peary in York County, walked to the Gate 3 entrance of Yorktown Naval Weapons Station for a vigil and then on to a vigil at the entrance of Fort Eustis in Newport News Monday); 2) held a Tuesday, 8 am vigil at Langley Air Force Base West Gate in Hampton, followed by a long walk across town and on into Newport News for at Northrop Grumman Newport News Shipbuilding Headquarters; 3) held a Wednesday, June 24, 8 am vigil at Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Raytheon office buildings at 8000 Harbor View Rd. in the city of Suffolk, then walked to US Joint Forces Joint Experimentation and Joint Futures Lab for a vigil, then walked all the way into downtown Portsmouth to a vigil at Gate 16 of Norfolk Naval Shipyard; 4) held a Thursday vigil at the East gate of Fort Story in Virginia Beach, drove to a staging point, then walked the Main Gate of Dam Neck Annex for a vigil. So they had already walked over 40 miles before beginning today's long walk. Yes, there were some blisters and calluses!
I pulled into a big, largely empty parking lot for a mall complex across from the Naval Amphibious Base (NAB) at Shore and Little Creek. I could see some vigil signs and a flag rising above cars and through telephone poles and trees across the street as I parked and stepped out into the bright sun. Immediately north of me I saw several recognizable figures holding signs, Ann and Sara, Sara with her two kids:
The signs speak for themselves. Imagine what half a trillion dollars, a rough stab at the cost of devastating Iraq thus far, would do to help the destitute in America and elsewhere.
After talking briefly to the Sara and Ann, I crossed to the naval base side of the street where the bulk of the peace advocates were standing with their signs and posters, and Tom Palumbo with his Veterans for Peace flag fluttering in the slight breeze.
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