Frequently Asked Questions
We are compiling a list of questions and answers for
this page.
Please send
us any questions you might have.
Below are answers we have found
to these, sometimes more than one. Whether you agree with us or not, we hope they prove thought-provoking.
- Q. Why do you do this in front of Walter Reed?
- We hold the vigil there to remind those passing by about the real
cost of war - the missing limbs, the lost eyesight, the severe head wounds,
and the psychological damage that may take years to manifest. We want
everyone to know that these young men and women will need extensive medical
care now, as well as when they are discharged from the hospital. Some will
need extensive medical and psychological care for the rest of their lives,
and our vigil hopes to remind people of this continuing cost of war.
For
the Iraqis, the cost of the war is everwhere they look. For us here in the
United States, the visible
costs of the war are not so easily seen until you stand in front of
Walter Reed and see the people who have lived through those quick camera
shots so loved by the nightly news. We believe it is supremely immoral for
those who have categorically refused to risk anything of themselves to act
out their fantasies of aggression through the people in our military, the
contractors that support them, and the citizens of Iraq.
- Q: Do you feel this vigil is disrespectful to the troops inside the
hospital?
- No, in fact it is difficult for us to think of how to be more respectful than
working for the well-being of the soldiers, their dependents, and everyone
connected with the Iraq War. We would all benefit from both an end to the
fighting, and from an assurance that promised benefits will be paid when they get
home.
- Q: Aren't you making a political statement by doing this?
- A: In the modern world it's impossible to take any stand about anything
without it having a political dimension: health care, business taxation,
literacy programs, veteran's benefits, and warfare all have their bases in
politics, since politics is the process by which the government makes
decisions and gets things done. So yes, it could be said that the vigil has
a political side, but that's not what brought us there. We're there because
what's happening to the soldiers and their families is wrong.
- Q: Is this a protest against the Iraq War?
- This is a bone of contention among us that we pick at from time to time
- always coming to the same result, "no." All of us in the vigil oppose the war, and
though our presence in front of the hospital adds to the awareness of the
political problems surrounding veteran's benefits, the war, and Walter
Reed's closing, it is the people inside who are the reason we are there, and
therefore who we must focus on while we are in front of the facility. In
that the war is doing harm to the people and families of the U.S. military
who are involved in it, yes, it is against the war - but that is the limit
of what we wish to say in front of a hospital.
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