The Protest To Free Private Bradley Manning

P.T. Barnum, the famed 19th century circus- and con-man would paint “This way to the egress” on the exit doors of his acts, knowing that many people did not know that egress means exit. Curious customers would open the door, which led them outside, and then would have to pay to get back in the front door. This is what it felt like today when we arrived at Ft. Meade, Maryland to attend a protest rally in support of Bradley Manning, the private who revealed government corruption to Wikileaks and is now being prosecuted for it. Instead of being able to get to the fort, the road was blocked off and police were directing traffic to a detour. My wife leaned out the window and asked a cop “how do we get to the fort?,” to which he replied “follow the detour.” The detour was long enough that we were worried we would be late to the event. But at last we could see the fort and breathed a sigh of relief. However just as we arrived another cop stepped up and directed us to take  a left turn. The next thing we knew, we were on the road out of town! We turned around and tried a different route and eventually saw protesters gathering outside of one of the base gates (all gates we saw were closed). We had to park about a half a mile away and walk to the protest in 90-degree heat, but we made it (and only 15 minutes late). Had the cops intentionally pointed us to the “egress”? We’ll never know for sure.

Fortunately the protest was running late and we didn’t miss much. About 200-250 people were there outside Reese Gate, holding up protest signs. Cops and cop cars with flashing lights were everywhere. The protesters were mostly white, with some people of various other nationalities here and there, and was evenly mixed between men and women, young and old. The first speaker we heard spoke glowingly of Manning (those who are on his side consider him to be a hero). He mentioned that $350,000 had been raised for Manning’s trial, which starts Monday and is expected to last 1-2 months. Young people stood in the audience with speakers on their shoulders so you could hear everything no matter where you stood.

I looked around for the press and saw a crew interviewing a Manning supporter. They were from Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR), a German public radio and TV outlet. Another media outlet appeared to be Spanish or Mexican. I didn’t see any American media, although my wife spotted some reporters from Alhurra, which is funded by the US Congress to run a satelite TV news service which is broadcast to Arabs in other countries. No local news channels, No national networks*.

As each speaker, the crowd cheered out “Free Bradley Manning,” and “He was only doing his duty.” Lots of anger at the Obama administration and the military for their part in the whole affair. Best cheer of the day: “We Will, We Will Free You!” sung to Queen’s “We Will, We Will Rock You.”

By now, the crowd had increased to about 350 and more people were continuing to trickle in. We didn’t know this, but it turns out the protest was going to end in a march, which we didn’t participate in as it was too hot and the march was going away from where we had parked. We watched the marchers head off into the distance and disappear (to where we knew not). We found a shady spot and had lunch, then went back to the protest area to see if there were any good leftover protest signs worth snagging. We got there just in time to hear two policemen approach a woman who was running a medical station and say that they wanted her to move away as there was an unaccompanied backpack with a phone in it that they were concerned about, so we just turned around and headed back to our car. As we went we mentioned to the people we passed about the bag. One guy said “it’s probably nothing, just some stupid kid who left his bag behind.” They probably said that at the Boston Marathon too. We kept heading to the egress.

Click Here for our complete slideshow: http://www.flickr.com/photos/48540772@N03/sets/72157633862639529/show/

Contribute to saving an honest soldier: www.bradleymanning.org

Posted by: GMan
Photos by: Laurie B.

*Update, WBAL TV 11 must have had  free lance intern with an iPhone camera ask one Baltimore woman a question. Blink you would have missed it.