"It's just such a tragedy," said Vernon Ware, head of Howard Divinity Students for Peace and Justice. "We have a divinity school student who was called back into the Reserves. We have strong support for our troops. They're people we know."
In addition to banners, props were used to convey some protesters' messages. John Lake of Brooklyn, N.Y., brought enough flags to cover 75 cardboard "coffins." Another seven flag-draped coffins were carried by a small group of high school students and their relatives from Goldens Bridge, N.Y.
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"I've been following the war since it started when I was in the eighth grade," said Bettina Warshaw, a high school junior who carried one symbolic coffin. "Now I'm old enough to come protest."
In one of the few confrontations, tempers flared near a tent erected by supporters of Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq who camped outside Bush's Texas ranch this summer. Six parents came by to cut their children's photos from a poster showing the faces of the first 1,000 Americans to die in the Iraq conflict.
"My son wouldn't want his face here," said Charlotte Smette of Makoti, N.D., trembling in her husband's arms with angry tears. Around his neck, Doug Smette wore a wooden cross and the dog tags of his son, Keith, who was killed in Iraq on Jan. 24, 2004.
A few feet away, protesters had laid out rows of empty boots embellished with small U.S. flags and white candles next to a tableau of small white crosses.
"This, to me, is disrespectful," said John Wroblewski of Jefferson Township, N.J., whose son, John, served in the Marines and was killed in a firefight in Iraq.
Many of the soldiers Adam Reuter served with in Iraq during a 10-month deployment would see it the same way. They remain supportive of the war and its goals, he said. But he never disguised his opposition.
"I didn't join up to go to Iraq," said Reuter, 20, of Atlanta, who enlisted one month after the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. "I joined to hopefully hold those responsible for the attacks of 9/11."
Now a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, Reuter said he thinks more in the military are questioning the war. At yesterday's march, he said, 60 veterans joined the protest group.
