My account of the day i was arrested by Cindy Kaylor

this is the account i gave to a woman from the university of georgia who does research on women activists.

May 14th, 2007 there was a “Mother of a March” planned that took place in D.C., as well as sister marches in other cities, such as L.A. and New York. It was made up primarily of mothers and was held the day after Mother’s Day. Before the D.C. March began, there was a speaking event in Lafayette Park across from the White House. Among the speakers were: Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, Presidential candidate Mike Gravel, Col. Ann Wright, Cindy Sheehan and military moms, Sara Rich, Tina Richards, myself and many more.

We started the march in Lafayette Park across from the White House. Those of us who were military mom’s (Cindy Sheehan, Marte-last name deliberately omitted, Sara Rich, Tina Richards and myself…maybe one or two others that I don’t know) led about 300-400 people in the march with a banner that read, “NOT ONE MORE MOTHER’S CHILD”. Along with us was a flag, flying upside down, which is a Navy signal meaning, “we are in distress”. During the majority of the march, which ended at an intersection at Independence Ave. between the Cannon and Longworth Congressional Office buildings and the Capitol Building, we chanted, “no more funding, no more war, mothers say, not one more”. We circled the intersection and tied up traffic for about a half and hour. At that point, we were warned by the Capitol Police, once and then twice to leave if we did not want to be arrested.



I was not planning to be arrested, as I had to fly home the next morning, but at the time the warning seemed like a dare and I felt I would be abandoning my son, who is in the hellish hardship of a purposeless war in Fallujah, away from his wife and children. How could I walk away? It was a desperate plea to my congressman, Ray La Hood, who I have called, emailed and even had a face to face meeting with the day of the McGovern bill…and who still wasn’t going to vote for the troops to come home…still was going to give the President until September to let the troop surge work.

Thirty-three others felt the same way as I did and risked arrest to make a point to our government that we are desperately trying to get them to see how serious we are…and the sad state our country is in. The rest of America needs to wake up, because the next step may have to be a draft and your child may have to go to Iraq…then maybe it will be more understandable to you why we were so willing to be this drastic and go to jail for the sake of bringing our children home from Iraq.

The troop surge is using and abusing our soldiers who are exhausted and battle scared with PTSD and severe brain trauma. Sending them back for more…ruining them, their bodies and their minds and their families in a war for what? OIL? These same congressmen who continue this war…and this administration…are their children in this war that they think is so righteous? NO and they never will be.

How long will this administration continue to take lightly the sacrifice of our soldiers and their families? How long will our congress continue to not speak for the people and bring our troops home? How long will this President-Dictator, continue to stand in his pride and not admit this war was wrong or at least that he made a mistake?

We are not currently being ruled in a democratic fashion. When 70 percent of American is saying, bring the troops home and Congress isn’t doing it and our President is vetoing everything that is passed. All of this is why I have begun doing protest and become an activist.

Wake up America.

~ Cindy Kaylor