Western Front - 2006 October 13

              FRIDAY
ISSUE
OCTOBER 13,2006
ISSUE 5, VOLUME 139
W E S T E R N W A S H I N G T O N U N I V E R S I TY
Bellingham City Council approves TroopsHome!' Resolution
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Letters 9
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photo by Tom Callis THE WESTERN FRONT
Members of the Bellingham Raging Grannies protest the war on the front steps of City Hall before the City Council meeting Oct. 11.
Bring soldiers home/ says city
Tom Callis
THE WESTERN FRONT
The Bellingham City
Council passed the "Troops
Home!" Resolution 6-to-l
Monday, making Bellingham
the 107th city in the United
States to pass a resolution
urging the federal government
to bring an end to the war in
Iraq.
Councilman Bob Ryan
opposed the resolution, saying
the council does not have the
right to represent Bellingham
residents on a national level.
Local activists opposed to
the war celebrated by singing
"Imagine" by John Lennon
inside City Hall on the steps
leading up to the council
chambers.
The Whatcom County
Peace and Justice Center drafted
the resolution in June with the
help of local parents of Iraq war
veterans.
"We support our troops,
which is why we want theni
"/ saw the evils
of war. I know
what it does to
the morale of
our troops."
- Terry Bornemann
city councilman and
Vietnam veteran
to come home" said Marie
Marchand, executive director of
the Whatcom County Peace and
Justice Center. "We want them
to come home and have the
benefits they are entitled to."
Marchand said the
resolution had to be updated
almost daily to account for
the increased number of U.S.
casualties in Iraq. She said 187
U.S. soldiers died between June
and the submission of the final
draft on Oct. 5.
The City Council updated
the number of U.S. casualties
one more time Monday to
account for eight soldiers
who died in Iraq since Oct. 5,
bringing the total number of
casualties to 2,737 dead and
20,687 injured. The cost of the
war to the city of Bellingham
also had to be changed from
$60.6 million to $69.5 million.
Prior to the meeting, 10
members of the Bellingham
Raging Grannies sang protest
songs against the war. In the
tradition of Swedish-American
labor activist Joe Hill, they
write their own activist lyrics to
the tune of popular folk songs.
City Councilman and
Vietnam veteran Terry
Bornemann sponsored the
resolution. "I saw the evils of
war," Bornemann said. "I know
what it does to the morale of our
troops."
City Council president Gene
Knutson voiced his support of
the resolution by reading the
last letter that Bellingham's own
fallen soldier Corp. Jonathan
Santos sent to his mother, Doris
Kent. The council chambers
remained quiet as everyone
listened to Santos' last words to
his mother.
Santos was killed in
Karabilah, Iraq on Oct. 15,2004
at the age of 22.
Kent, who left her position
as Western's Wellness Outreach
Center coordinator after her
son's death, worked with the
Whatcom County Peace and
Justice Center to write the
resolution.
"My greatest fear was that
he would be forgotten," Kent
said. "I didn't want him to
become a statistic."
see SOLDIERS page 3 •
The AS club
Western Against
War gathered in Red
Square with American
and Iraqi flags Oct. 5.
Members took
turns reading a
list of both
American and
Iraqi soldiers
killed in action.
photo by Mark Malijan
THE WESTERN FRONT
w e s t e r n f r o n t o n l i n e . c om