When Sargeant Marshall Thompson returned to Utah from Iraq in 2006, he was angry and disillusioned and felt that he needed to do something, anything, to let people know that the war is wrong. What he came up with was rather remarkable. He decided to walk the length of one of the reddest states in the country, Utah. This may seem vaguely familiar and you may have heard his interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! Here is a link to Amy's interview:
http://www.democracynow.org/...
All sorts of people joined Marshall for the walk and as amazing as it seemed to him, he hardly walked alone. Sometimes there was only one or two other people, sometimes there were over 100. When my 9 year old daughter and I joined him, there were about 10 other people.
The plan was to walk one day for every 100 soldiers that had died up to that point in the war. That was to be 26 days, but as they walked it turned to 27 days. It seems so long ago now, when there were 2700 casualties.....
One of the other remarkable things that this soft-spoken, soldier-turned-peace-activist did, was make a documentary of his amazing journey through the reddest state in the nation. His wife Kristen helped film, edit, and produce the documentary, A Soldier's Peace.
http://www.soldierspeace.com/
Tuesday night, my husband and I had the honor of attending the screening of Marshall and Kristen's film, "A Soldier's Peace", at the Salt Lake City Library.
It was a truly amazing evening, and we all experienced a variety of strong emotions as we watched the story of his journey unfold. A Soldier's Peace is a powerful film, in part because of the inner strength of both Marshall and Kristen, in part because the war continues, and in part because he had the 'audacity of hope' and thought he could change minds in Utah. This film reminds us that we have an obligation to the troops to do everything we can to stop the madness.
So I would encourage all of you to see Marshall Thompson's film, A Soldier's Peace, if you can. It is currently on the film festival circuit and you can view a trailer and see when it will be at a theater near you by going to Marshalls website:
http://www.soldierspeace.com/
Here he is being interviewed again on Democracy Now! about the film:
http://www.democracynow.org/...
In addition to documenting the walk itself, Marshall interviews Martin Sheen, Cindy Sheehan, Daniel Ellsberg, Ron Kovic, and other members of the Peace movement. We were very lucky because Marshall and Kristen attended the screening and did a pretty long Q & A session after the screening. They are a lovely young couple, and they have no doubt sacrificed much over the last several years - not only while being active in the peace movement since Marshall returned from Iraq, but also while Marshall was deployed. I'm glad we spent the evening viewing his film!
"One man with courage is a majority."
-Thomas Jefferson
(one of the signs my husband made for the walk)
Peace.