Jenny MarderWhat began three weeks ago as...
Jenny Marder
What began three weeks ago as an international candlelight vigil has
become a weekly ritual and antiwar protest in Huntington Beach.
Demonstrators gathered peacefully by the soft glow of candlelight
at the Huntington Beach Pier on Sunday to express their desire to
bring the troops home safe by putting an end to what they feel is an
unjust war.
“I really feel like supporting our troops is getting them out of
harm’s way,” protester Carol Zwaans said as she wrote “Support our
troops, bring them home now” on a sign in black magic marker.
Her previous sign was simple. It read “No war.”
Other signs read “Love the soldiers, hate the war” and “Support
our troops, pray for peace.”
“Some people say that we’re not supporting the troops, but I want
the troops to come home alive and unscarred,” said Huntington Beach
resident Fred Galluccio, a physician with a family practice. “I’m
here to say that we want peace, that we want the war not to be
happening.” Galluccio attended the vigil with his wife, Monika, and
their two daughters.
Three days before war was declared, about 100 protesters assembled
at the foot of the pier. This Sunday marked the third week in a row
that a group of men, women and children held a vigil Downtown to
express not only their opposition to the war, but their support for
the men and women fighting.
“I am against this war, and I feel it is my duty to come out and
speak,” Fred Galluccio said, with both an American flag and a peace
flag in hand. “We have to speak up when we think something is not
right.”
One of Fred Calluccio’s daughters, 7-year-old Christina, designed
her own sign, which read, “Stop bombing in Iraq.” Under the word
“stop,” a scratched-out mistake was covered up with a drawing of a
cow.
“Next time, I’m gonna to draw a gun and then X it out, so it says
‘no killing,’” the little girl said. Her 5-year-old sister, Sophia,
also designed a sign of her own. It read “Stop the war” in wobbly
letters.
Passersby honked and flashed peace signs. But not everyone
supported the protesters.
“I hate war and I hate having to see families lose their loved
ones, but I think that Saddam is a wicked, evil man,” said Julie
Beutler, 22, of Huntington Beach as she passed by the protest with
her husband, John.
Bill Klausen, an assault boat coxswain in the Navy from 1980 to
1986, was also opposed to the protest.
“They don’t know why they are against the war,” Klausen said.
“I’ll bet 80% of these people are Democrats. It’s a political thing.”
He added that he was disappointed at what he considered a lack of
patriotism.
“Do you think any of these people have kids over there?” he asked,
shaking his head.
Huntington Beach resident Marc Bossu was fuming as he stood by
looking on.
“I actually have hatred against these protesters,” he said. “I
say, nuke those bastards.”
Passionate sentiments directed against antiwar demonstrators in
Orange County are making it more dangerous to speak out against the
war, Monika Galluccio fears.
“With emotions boiling high, it’s getting more dangerous to speak
out,” she said. “One thing that comes to me when we go out and
protest is that I feel scared.”
But the Galluccios said they will not be deterred by fear.
“People can find many excuses not to go to a peace vigil,” Monika
Galluccio said. “But if we have to face the consequences, we have to
face them.”
The Galluccios feel that the U.S. government should not be forging
ahead alone in this war, without the support of the United Nations.
“This will be seen as an imperialistic war,” she said.
They are also worried that heavy military spending will result in
cutbacks on domestic programs.
“We are spending over a billion dollars a day on this massacre and
cutting back on health care and programs for our own poor,” Fred
Galluccio said. “We are killing our own people, as well, by doing
this.”
Also on Sunday, across town, tensions mounted and passion swelled
at another weekly antiwar demonstration at the corner of Springdale
Street and Edinger Avenue.
Crowds have doubled at the corner protest, which meets every
Sunday from 12:30 to 2 p.m., Antiwar protesters are increasingly
confronted by pro-war demonstrators.
Last week, about 25 people faced off against the antiwar
protesters in a rally to support the troops.
Flags and yellow ribbons were posted on the fence, and people
driving by were waving their flags and honking their horns, said
Huntington Beach resident Robert Foutz, who said he has been flying
an American flag in his front yard since the war was declared.
“I support our troops and I do support the effort to remove Saddam
Hussein,” Foutz said, adding “both sides have a right to speak.”
Another antiwar rally, featuring three speakers and about 200
people with signs, occurred at Golden West College last Wednesday.
The campus rally was described by organizer Scott Mollett as
sedate, with only minor dissent.
“The majority of the people were with us,” Mollett said. “A few
military personnel came up and said they were against the war. But if
there was a draft, I think all these guys who were gung-ho for the
war would be singing a different song.”
The candlelight vigil will continue to meet at the base of the
pier in Downtown Huntington Beach every Sunday from 7 to 8 p.m.
As the evening at the pier came to a close last weekend, the crowd
joined hands to say a prayer for the soldiers, concluding the vigil
with a song, “Peace Is Flowing Like a River.”
“It has to flow out of us,” Monika Galluccio said. “It has to flow
into society also, so that we become a more just and more peaceful
society.”
* JENNY MARDER covers City Hall. She can be reached at (714)
965-7173 or by e-mail at jenny.marder@latimes.com.
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