The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia

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March 19, 2008

Group marks Iraq war’s fifth anniversary with peace rally

Christian Giggenbach

LEWISBURG — Nearly 50 members of the Greenbrier Valley Citizens for Change braved rain Wednesday to protest the Iraq war. The event coincided with hundreds of other rallies held across the United States on the date of the war’s fifth anniversary.

In protest of President Bush’s policies on torture, three members also donned hoods and knelt on the ground with their hands behind their backs, a reference to many of the images seen that have been captured at U.S.-run prisons, such as at the Abu Ghraib facility in Iraq.

Randy Grumpelt of Second Creek says the 3-year-old GVCC is a “loosely based group where no one has titles” and focuses on “issues primarily related to the Iraq war.

“We are concerned with the cost of money, the cost of lives and the use of torture associated with the United States and the war,” Grumpelt said.

Members gathered at the Corner Green Space and held protest signs such as “Support the Troops, End the War” and “Torture is Unhuman,” while others handed out literature and gathered signatures for petitions to be sent to the state’s national delegation, including Sen. Jay Rockefeller and Rep. Nick Rahall.

Carli Mareneck of Sweet Springs said the group was trying “to actually affect national policy on the war.”

Larger signs provided by the Dearborn group, American Friends Service Committee, said each day the war in Iraq costs “$720 million.”

Taylor Landrie, a home-schooled 16-year-old from Alderson, expressed her dissatisfaction with the war as cars whizzed past her on Jefferson Street.

“I think the world needs peace,” she said as the rain pelted her protest sign. “It’s as simple as that.”

Grumpelt said the next planned rally and march by the group will be April 19 at the New River Unitarian Universal Church on South Kanawha Street in Beckley.

— E-mail:

cgiggenbach@register-herald.com

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