[Boston-editorial] new feature: Protesters Outnumber Military Supporters, as Peace Activists Protest Army Recruitment on the Cambridge Common

[Matthew Williams]

Protesters Outnumber Military Supporters, as Peace Activists Protest 
Army Recruitment on the Cambridge Common
by Matthew Williams, plaid_baboon (nospam) hotmail.com

On Tuesday, June 14, 2005, from 10:30 to 11:00 two to three hundred 
people gathered on the Cambridge Common to protest the army’s 
celebration of its 230th anniversary there, an event they turned into a 
blatant recruitment effort. This is part of larger drive by the 
military to get more people to join, response to the severe drop-offs 
in new recruits that all branches of the military face as the 
occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan stretch on with no end in sight. 
Protesters spoke out against the attempts to entice students to join 
the army, by making it look fun by creating something of a fair on the 
Common--when those who joined the army would most likely to be sent to 
kill and possibly be killed in pointless, bloody wars. In contrast to 
the large number of protesters, there were only about fifty to a 
hundred civilians there to attend the ceremonies, many of them school 
children bussed in as a fieldtrip. At times, it appeared that the 
protesters’ chants could clearly be heard over the official speakers at 
the ceremony. There were seven arrests, all a result of protesters 
refusing to remain in the officially designated protest pit.

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14 Jun 2005 | Filed under: News / Education : International