http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--peacerally0928sep28,0,7531170.storySYRACUSE, N.Y. - Active duty soldiers from Fort Drum will take part in a regional peace rally Saturday, saying it's time for them to be heard.
Organizers expect between 1,000 and 2,000 protesters to gather Saturday in Syracuse for what they describe as the city's largest peace rally since the Vietnam era when Syracuse University was a hotspot of anti-war activism.
"The average soldier is the most credible voice in finding out the truth ... and the most unheard and ignored," said Eli Wright, a 26-year-old medic from Denver who served in Iraq from September 2003 to September 2004.
Those speaking in opposition to the war will include for the first time active-duty members of the 10th Mountain Division, which currently has two brigades of approximately 7,500 troops in Iraq and has been in the thick of combat since the war on terror began more than four years ago. To date, 93 Fort Drum soldiers have been killed in Iraq. snip
Also, many soldiers don't want to admit, even to themselves, that the war is failing, said Michael Blake, 24, of Binghamton, a former Fort Drum soldier who served in Iraq from April 2003 to March 2004. Blake was discharged as a conscientious objector in February 2005.
"After two or three tours and seeing your friends killed and wounded, the only thing that keeps you going mentally is to justify it in your mind that this was the right thing to do. To admit anything otherwise is admitting your friends died for a lie," Blake said.
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