 "Photo: Katie Aronson")
For the 16th straight year, activists gathered in front of Fort Benning, Ga. to protest the School of the Americas/Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.
Though the vigil started in the early 1990s with only a few people, in recent years the attendance has ballooned to include students from every Jesuit university and numerous Jesuit high schools.
This trip was my fifth down to the military base, and the first with Loyola. I also have gone from Detroit with my high school. Our numbers grew consistently every year, but we never had a group larger than 11. Going down with more than 50 of my fellow students, each passionately committed to closing the SOA, was quite a different experience.
The four-day journey began Thursday night with a prayer service and a final send-off by the Rev. Michael J. Garanzini, S.J. Energized and alert, we all piled into the packed bus, with a long, relatively sleepless 16-hour bus ride ahead. Eight hours later, the sun found us traveling across the Appalachian mountains, still hours from our destination. Undaunted, we filled ourselves with cheap truck-stop coffee and continued on our way.
It's easy to see the appeal of the South when you visit it in late fall. The leaves are still many shades of red and, in many cases, still entirely green. Stumbling off the bus in Columbus, Ga., the city closest to the fort, everyone shed their winter coats and fleeces for short sleeves as the balmy Georgia breeze swirled around us. As beautiful as the weather always is, that isn't the reason for our annual pilgrimage. We hardly had time to check into our rooms and grab a quick dinner at a local Mexican restaurant before it was time to begin the Ignatian Family Teach-In across the street from our hotel.
Started 10 years ago, the Ignatian Family Teach-In was originally a rally comprised mostly of Jesuit universities, housed in a tent overlooking the Chattahoochee River. In the past two years, the movement's exponential growth and various local ordinances have forced the rally inside the Columbus Iron Works Convention & Trade Center. Though indoors, the center is quite majestic - an old, converted ironworks with soaring, vaulted ceilings and the winches still dangling from above. The massive structure is unable to hold all of the students, teachers and Jesuits who attend the Teach-In.
After a short rest, (It's hard to appreciate sleeping in a bed until you've tried to sleep on the floor of a bus.) the speeches resumed. People from all walks of life and all different causes took the podium. Retired Auxiliary Bishop Tom Gumbleton of the Archdiocese of Detroit spoke on the necessity of a just, Christian life. Students from across the country, including Loyola senior Mary McEvoy, called upon everyone to "dare to hope." Though the causes are many and varied, one theme is the same: solidarity through justice for all people. Whether building solidarity through the dissolution of death squads or environmental conservation, the protesters hope to work toward building a better planet for all people.
Following the speeches were "breakout sessions" for more specific teachings on individual issues. Instead of attending these sessions, however, I ventured over to the "God Bless Fort Benning" rally downtown. Typically held out of town, this year the counter-rally took place in the heart of the city, which was bustling and alive with off-duty soldiers and local townspeople, who are usually nowhere to be found while the protesters are in Columbus.
Apart from the distinctive ideologies separating the two demonstrations, the clear contrast in the rallies' natures emerged. Various activities and events were scattered down Broadway for the Fort Benning rally, including weightlifting challenges and a professional wrestling match. The spirit of competition contrasted sharply with the tenets of unity, solidarity and cooperation, which the Teach-In advocated. Underscoring the difference, the rattles of our buses were all but drowned out beneath the chrome-plated roar of the rally's motorcycles.
A celebration at the gates of the fort spun on into the evening, when the protesters gathered again in the convention center for the great Mass. The highest rafters were filled with song as young and old alike called down the Spirit in celebration of the martyrs' lives and to give courage for the following day.
As fun, moving and spiritual as the first two days of the protest were, the mock funeral procession on Sunday was a defining moment of the rally
"The fact that I was surrounded by 20,000 other people who believed in what I believe in - learning peace instead of war - was invigorating," freshman Halle Miroglotta said.
Activists crowded the street leading up to Fort Benning, commemorating the lives and deaths of the martyrs. Speakers once again took the stage, calling for justice and recalling the murders they witnessed. Led by the Rev. Roy Bourgeois, M.M., who founded SOA Watch - the protest's host organization, and followed by the puppetistas, the procession began. Following behind them, children, college students and the "Raging Grannies," totaling roughly 20,000 people, raised their crosses and cried "presente" as the names of the martyrs were read.
Starting with the martyred Jesuits, the list continued, including people as varied as 95-year-old women to 6-day-old children. Anarchists and grandmothers alike cried aloud, driving their crosses marked with the names of the martyrs through the fence before the fort, demanding justice. A loudspeaker from the fort blared occasionally, denouncing the protesters, but neither that nor the helicopter above could drown out their voices.
Sophomore Megan Gibbons, who was given the opportunity to read some names for the second year in a row, reflected, "The whole procession creates this beautiful music of mourning ... When you're chanting the names ... every 'presente' becomes a prayer of solidarity."
Within minutes, the fence keeping the protesters out of the fort sagged beneath the weight of thousands of white crosses, marked with the names of those killed by the school's graduates.
After reading the names of a small fraction of martyrs murdered by graduates of the SOA, the chanting broke into singing, and the marching fell into dancing. With a parting thanks from Bourgeois, we climbed back into our bus, ready for the marathon ride once again, this time with early Monday classes awaiting us. Still, the protest lives on. And If the SOA/WHINSEC is not closed this year, the protesters will be back next November.
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