Anti-war protest sounds familiar themes

Remembering other wars, protesters at Sun City Center take on the Iraqi war threat.

By JANET ZINK
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 22, 2003

SUN CITY CENTER -- Veterans of protests past dusted off their picketing skills Friday to make known their opposition to a war with Iraq.

At a lunchtime demonstration organized by the newly formed Sun City Center Coalition for Peace, about two dozen residents carried signs on State Road 674 and waved to motorists who honked in support of their cause.

Many of the protesters have been down this road before.

Three decades ago, Doris Hoffer, 70, participated in an anti-Vietnam War march in Long Island. Friday, she carried a sign that said "Give Peace a Chance," the title of a John Lennon song.

"It's the same thing I said 30 years ago," Hoffer said.

Fern Frederick, 72, demonstrated against the Vietnam War alongside thousands in Washington, D.C. Sandy Miller, 67, sang, chanted and waved an American flag in Central Park during a Vietnam War protest.

Pat Hull, 89, was too busy raising her children during the Vietnam War to protest, she said. But she went to a peace rally in the 1930s when she was an undergraduate student at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.

"I object to this war because I think we can settle it without going in and killing people," said Hull, who sat in a chair and held up a green sign proclaiming "War Is Not the Answer."

Jean Van Ingen, 79, traveled from upstate New York to Washington, D.C., in the 1970s with a busload of people who marched in support of legalizing abortion.

"If I believe in something, I'm out there," she said.

She believes war with Iraq is a mistake.

"We should be punishing the man and not his people," Van Ingen said of Saddam Hussein. "We think so much of the CIA and the FBI. Why can't they get him and put him on trial? We should be focusing on our economy. I used to be upper-middle class. I consider myself poor now."

Several demonstrators were war veterans.

Sam Fridhandler, 78, a native of Montreal, Canada, who has lived in the U.S. for 20 years, served 3-1/2 years in the Canadian Royal Air Force doing World War II.

"I know what war is," Fridhandler said. "I would go to war in a similar situation."

But Hussein is no Hitler, he said.

"I'm very leery when the government gets into this kind of frenzy," he said. "They come up with all kinds of fabrications."

The group plans to demonstrate every Friday at lunchtime, said organizers, who were pleasantly surprised by the positive reaction they got from passers-by.

More than 80 percent of registered voters in Sun City Center are members of the Republican Party. But a steady stream of drivers put hand to horn to show support at the busy intersection.

Barbara Nicholson, 72, said there were only three negative responses. "For Sun City Center, I'm surprised we're getting this much support. I'm pleased. It makes me glad I moved here."

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