Opposed in Beliefs, United in Memorial

Anniversary Gives Demonstrators A Rare Slice of Common Ground

The "America Supports You Freedom Walk" from the Washington Monument to the Pentagon drew several thousand people. (Photos By Kevin Clark -- The Washington Post)

On the eve of the fifth anniversary of a cataclysm that changed the way America thinks about domestic security, hundreds of people marched in Washington yesterday with opposing views on how best to prevent another terrorist attack on the United States.

Through peaceful interfaith dialogue, one group said.

"Nonviolent conflict resolution," said Hamida Hudda, 26, a student from India and one of several hundred people who took part in what was billed as "a Gandhi-style Unity Walk," from a Northwest Washington synagogue to the Mall.

Through the projection of U.S. military might, another group said.

"We need to fight the terrorists in Iraq so we won't have to fight them in the United States," said Jacques Sabus, 58, a retired Army sergeant major who joined several thousand people on the "America Supports You Freedom Walk" from the Mall to the Pentagon.

There was some common ground, though: Each group in its own way had set out to honor those who died in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

"We remember the Americans who were living their lives the way we want to live our lives, who were murdered," Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said to the Freedom Walk crowd from a large stage near the Washington Monument last night. Pace, in running shoes and a collared jersey, led the march.

"You and some 130-plus other gatherings like this across all 50 states today are telling our fellow Americans and the world that we do stand together," Pace said.

The crowd, in white "Freedom Walk" T-shirts, roared its approval, with many in the audience waving flags and pumping fists. "We do stand for freedom, and we will walk for freedom," Pace said. "And we will fight for freedom."

Like others at the pre-walk rally, Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Debra Swanson, 48 and newly assigned to the Pentagon, voiced no ill will toward the peace demonstrators, who finished their walk elsewhere on the Mall. "They have a right to hold their beliefs just as I have a right to support the war," she said.

But Sabus, of Fauquier County, said too many people take freedom for granted. Wearing a camouflage ball cap with "Vietnam Veteran" on the front, he gestured angrily with a thumb toward a touch football game nearby.

"See those young people playing?" he asked. "They should be here, walking."

On the other side of downtown yesterday afternoon, the Unity Walk stopped for speeches outside the Islamic Center of Washington, on Massachusetts Avenue NW. The marchers, from a rainbow of religious and ethnic backgrounds, wore ball caps and yarmulkes, head scarves and clerical collars, and T-shirts with slogans decrying violence. "One Voice Together," many of the shirts read.

"The message is that peace is possible," Hudda said. "The message is that there is a nonviolent approach to the problems of the world. The message is: Choose hope."

Nearby stood Ron Schlesinger, 59, of Silver Spring, in a blue yarmulke. He said he does not ordinarily take part in demonstrations but was moved by the anniversary of the terrorist attacks to speak his mind about violence in the world.

"There's absolutely too much of it," he said. "There's too much conflict between Christians and Jews, Christians and Muslims, Muslims and Jews. It's time for all religious groups to put aside the petty differences and unite for peace."

On the steps of the mosque, Abdulla Khouj, the Islamic Center's director, stood with clerics of other religions and spoke into a microphone.

"Let us continue to walk, talk, discuss, dialogue," he said, "until we bring a clear understanding to the world: that human life is dignified by God and the human soul is sacred."