Brian continued staring at my feet as I spoke. “I have never in my life ever done anything as rude or disrespectful as to protest at a soldier’s funeral, and I never would. I just don’t want people to die, Brian. That’s all. I just don’t want you or anyone you know to die in combat!”
I stood in front of him, out of breath and emotionally on edge from trying to explain myself. Brian continued staring silently at the floor before he raised his head and looked into my eyes. My heart cracked as I felt the waves of unspoken pain flowing between us. I didn’t want to break the silence, so I held his gaze as he reached out and ran a finger down my cheek before pushing the hair out of my eyes.
“Ava,” he whispered. “Go get dressed, you’re going to be late to your meeting.”
*****
As we walked to the quad and headed for the meeting, I thought about what we’d said to one another and I turned the discussion over and over as I thought about Brian’s misinformed view of the anti-war movement and how much pain it had obviously cost him. I was outraged that anyone claiming to be anti-war would ever dream of being anti-military member, but then I remembered hearing about some Midwestern church group who was using the funerals to promote their hate-filled, anti-gay message.
I turned and looked for Brian, but he was busy trying to blend in with the Sunday student crowd on the quad. He obviously didn’t want to talk about this with me, so I began formulating a plan. I’d have to run it by the group members, but I thought that once I explained the reasoning behind it, they would definitely agree with me and we could work to end the hateful practice of protesting military funerals.
Brian stayed outside the room while we discussed ways to take a stand against the groups that were using the funerals to promote their own hateful beliefs. We sketched out a plan on the whiteboard and then assigned group members to begin calling and emailing those we’d identified as allies. We might be a small group, I thought, but we’re mighty in our determination to do the right thing.
After the meeting, I walked outside and saw Brian sitting on a chair in the lounge area. He was obviously on high alert as he scanned the area, searching for any signs of Dominic. I smiled and waved at him to let him know I was ready to leave. I saw him furrow his brow as he looked past me, but when I spun around to see what had caused it, I saw nothing.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing, I just thought—” he stopped and started intently at the other side of the student lounge, then shook his head and said, “Nothing. It’s nothing.”
“Okay, if you’re sure!” I chirped. “Do you want to go get some lunch and hear about the plan we came up with?”
“Do I have a choice?” he grinned.
“Of course you don’t,” I grinned back. Two could play this little game.
“Touché!” Brian burst out laughing as we walked to over to Charlie Chang’s for a lunch of bibimbap.
*****
“So, tell me about this plan of yours,” Brian said to me with a mouth full of kimchi.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full!” I laughed as I took a sip of my iced tea before popping a piece of the spicy cabbage in my mouth. Brian laughed at my admonition as the server put two steaming bowls down on the table and asked if there was anything else we needed. I smiled and shook my head.
“But seriously, tell me what you’ve got up your sleeve, Ava,” he said as he stirred a huge squirt of hot sauce into his lunch.
“When you said that you associated the anti-war groups with disrespect and meanness, I started thinking about how a small number of protesters are defining the movement in negative terms,” I said as I pulled apart my chopsticks and balanced them carefully in my right hand. Brian watched and shook his head as he pointedly began eating with his fork. “So, I suggested that we address the issue of those people who protest at funerals instead of spending so much time writing letters protesting a war that is already happening.”
“How do you think you’re going to affect the protestors?” he asked.
“We don’t think we’re going to affect them, per se,” I replied. “They’re using their protests to accomplish something entirely unrelated to the peace movement. They’re using servicepeople as a mechanism to promote their hatred of people who they feel are eroding moral values. It’s somewhat ironic that they’re religious people, because they seem to have missed the overall point of their own religion.”
“How so?” Brian asked. “They’re standing up for what they feel is right and they’re protesting against what they feel is wrong, aren’t they?”
“Yes, but they miss the whole point, love thy neighbor and all, that is what matters, right?” I looked up at him as I explained my take on the situation. I wasn’t sure he was buying it.
“Okay, I guess I can see your point, but I don’t understand what it is you think you’re going to do about it,” he replied as he brought another forkful of the delicious rice and vegetable combination to his mouth.
“We don’t think that we can change the people who are protesting, but we do think that we can show those who are not part of the group how damaging the practice is,” I said as I carefully measured my next words. “We think that if we can show how much pain and suffering these groups cause, then we can get average, everyday folks to step in and help stop the practice.”
“And how do you propose to accomplish this?” he asked.
“Well…” I took a deep breath and pushed forward. “We thought we could use your story to illustrate the way in which the protestors caused so much pain during the funeral of your friend. We’ve got a couple of members who are journalism majors and they would write articles for the newspaper and a couple of other internet outlets that they write for, and then we thought that we could write letters to the university administration asking them to support our attempts to get the city to stop allowing these folks to protest within a certain distance. We also thought that we could do what other cities have done and ask members of various clubs to come form a human wall around the funerals so that the friends and family members wouldn’t have to even see the protestors.”
Brian had stopped eating and was staring at me with steely eyes. I casually continued eating as I waited to hear his response to my plan.
“Absolutely not,” he said quietly. “You will not use my story and you will not bring me into this mess.”
“But Brian,” I countered. “We could do so much good!”