[Mb-civic] War supporters to follow anti-war rallies - Boston Globe

[William Swiggard]

War supporters to follow anti-war rallies

By The Associated Press  |  September 25, 2005

WASHINGTON --Military families and other defenders of the war in Iraq 
were claiming their turn to demonstrate, responding to a huge war 
protest with a rally of their own on the National Mall.

Organizers hoped to draw several thousand people to their noontime event 
near the National Air and Space Museum. They acknowledged the rally 
would be much smaller than Saturday's anti-war protest in Washington but 
said their message would not be overshadowed.

"People have been fired up over the past month, especially military 
family members, and they want to be heard," said Kristinn Taylor, a 
leader of FreeRepublic.com, one of the sponsors of Sunday's event.

The pro-military rally was billed by organizers as a time to honor the 
troops fighting "the war on terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere 
around the world."

On Saturday, crowds opposed to the war in Iraq surged past the White 
House in the largest anti-war protest in the nation's capital since the 
U.S. invasion. The rally stretched through the day and night, a marathon 
of music, speechmaking and dissent on the National Mall.

Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey, noting that organizers had hoped to draw 
100,000 people, said, "I think they probably hit that."

In the crowd were young activists, nuns whose anti-war activism dates to 
Vietnam, parents mourning their children in uniform lost in Iraq, and 
uncountable families motivated for the first time to protest.

 From the stage, speakers attacked President Bush's policies head on, 
but he was not at the White House to hear it -- he was in Colorado and 
Texas, monitoring hurricane recovery.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/09/25/iraq_supporters_to_rebut_anti_war_rallies/