GI deaths raise anti-war sentiment

The Cleveland metropolitan area remains in shock after 20 Ohio Marines, 14 from this area, recently died in Iraq. Public outpourings of grief have taken a variety of forms, from anonymous flowers to Sunday sermons. Funerals and memorials have brought out tens of thousands who never knew the men who died.

Aug. 6 counter-recruitment protester.

Public anger about the Marines’ deaths, however, is by and large not directed at the Iraqi people. Rather, it’s aimed at President George W. Bush.

Local TV news polls show 68 percent opposed to Bush’s handling of the Iraq war.

The father of Augie Schroder, one of the Marines killed, openly blasted the Bush administration and the Democrats who voted for the war. Schroder’s mother said, “I didn’t raise my son to be cannon fodder.”

U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones has called for an end to the war.

It was against this backdrop that 80 youths and their supporters engaged in a counter-recruiting action Aug. 6 outside a military recruiting station. Many had joined the demonstration after getting a leaflet at their high school. Others joined in off the street.

Honks of support were non-stop, not only from motorists but from bus drivers and truck drivers on the job. The recruiting office was open—but no one signed up during the protest.

The demonstration was organized by Stop Recruitment in Cleveland, a project of the Northeast Ohio Antiwar Coalition.