Report from Crawford II

The white Ford F250 pickup gunned its engine, slowed down, gunned again as people hustled out of the way. Especially dangerous were the oversized side mirrors that stuck out from the truck almost at head level. It was about 7 in the morning. People were stirring, stretching, wandering toward the portapotties, brushing teeth and hair, shaving, greeting each other and the morning in the uninhibited way of a family starting the day. The truck driver appeared to be local. Maybe he lived down the road. I don't know. His disdain for us was clear, and his recklessness disconcerting.

The sun rose very red and it wasn't long before you could feel the heat and sweat started beading on your skin. We moseyed down to the triangle where Lee McElroy from Bisbee, Arizona, was serving breakfast for Food Not Bombs. Her gritty brew was in the best Texas camp coffee tradition. Thick slices of multigrain bread and coarse-ground peanut butter, pumpkin bread and oatmeal raisin cookies were laid out, free for the eating. A pallet with stacks of sacks of rice, potatoes and boxes of organic fruit and vegetables was next to her kitchen tent, ready to be turned into marching grub for the peace troops.

Folks milled around, visiting, eating, sharing stories from the day before and anticipations of what would take place at the rally and barbecue scheduled for the big tent at Camp Casey II. Several vehicles with War People drove up, realized where they were and executed three or four point turns trying to get out as fast as possible. My favorite was a Suburban with "Bush Knows Best" on the tailgate window, a great cultural reference to the 50s sitcom "Father Knows Best". Maybe there is something to George Lakoff's family theory. Another one declared "Osama Says: Thank You Cindy". Considering the excellent terrorist field laboratory that Iraq has become, and the ample opportunities for terrorist recruitment and training, thanks should actually go to George Bush. 'Course, these decent, patriotic War Folks are so darn humble - it's not like them to brag on the president like that.

We now entered into the state of grace known as waiting in line, a zen practice that would either lead you to enlightenment or insanity. We would soon have ample opportunity to practice - queing for shuttle vans, portapotties, and food lines. Few minded, and conversations were light, witty, pleasant, and interesting. Even though folks didn't agree on everything (like what was the young woman wearing a "Hilary In 2008" t-shirt thinking?), no one wanted argument or discord or to lose the focus of the Casey movement: For what noble cause did the 1900 die? And we were reminded also, again and again, that our practice was non-confrontation with the War People. Our tactic was to ignore them. Easy enough.

All shuttles hubbed at the Peace House in Crawford. We finally made it there, and waited until another shuttle for Camp Casey II loaded us up. It was a 15 mile drive through mostly pasture country, remnants of the old Blackland tall grass prairie, country squire ranchettes, some modest, some ostentatious. Abundant rains had turned the landscape green, and ratcheted the humidity to keep up with the rising temperature.

Just past a picturesque country church ("Bush's photo op church" a passenger quipped), a road bore east barracaded with a Secret Service checkpoint, leading to Bush's bike ranch. Next to it on the corner - Camp Casey II, a 1-acre patch of prairie offered by local hero Fred Mattlage, dominated by a massive tent that looks a little like Denver Airport with 8 peaked center poles, covering a quarter of an acre. Support tents and awnings surrounded it: headquarters, medic area, free speech tent, veteran's tent, a chapel, a shrine to the fallen, refrigerated trucks, a line of portapotties, kitchen tent.

Two hundred named crosses were arrayed at the entrance to the camp, adorned with flowers, candles, and boots. This has always been the focus of the Camp Casey movement, what Cindy Sheehan returns to, and what has become the unassailable strength of the movement.

All the noble causes have proved false. William Rivers Pitt explains Bush's stay-the-course, do-it-for-the-fallen justification for adding more crosses this way, "...because so many American soldiers have been killed, we have to keep sending American soldiers to get killed as a means of honoring the American soldiers who have been killed."

That head-spinning equation is what Cindy Sheehan wants to banish. And its why the thousands were showing up at Camp Casey II on this torrid and steamy Texas day.