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'Grannies Defy Infirmities of Age, Cross Brooklyn Bridge for Peace' ...by Grannie Joan Wile

Grannie Joan Wile is the author of soon-to-be-published book, "Grandmothers Against the War: Getting Off Our Fannies and Standing Up For Peace," by Citadel Press

You just can't keep us down. Despite arthritic hips and knees, blindness, hearing loss, cancer surgeries and other maladies of old age, the Granny Peace Brigade, Grandmothers Against the War, and the Raging Grannies of the New York City area walked across the Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan Sunday, September 9, Grandparents Day, and then all the way to Ground Zero. One wheelchair was brought along for the ride, and only occasionally used for short spurts by several of the more disabled women. Others walked with the aid of walkers and canes. Some of them are in their 80's and even 90's, you see.

What endows us old broads with the stamina and determination to undertake such arduous peace actions? That's easy. We are FURIOUS at the Administration and the Congress for ignoring the people's will to end the occupation and bring the troops home quickly. We had such hope when the Democrats took over the House and Senate and now feel utter despair at their shameful failure to accomplish this most urgent assignment. Thus, we go out to the streets again and again trying desperately to have some sort of impact on the powers that be and the general apathetic public to impress on them that WE MUST END THIS TERRIBLE WAR which is bringing such destruction and chaos to Iraq and imperiling the United States, the Middle East and, indeed, the rest of the world.

However, we grannies know how to have fun, too, while we protest, and Grandparents Day was certainly a case in point. After crossing the Bridge with our drums, our noisemakers and our giant black balloons inscribed in white with the words TROOPS HOME NOW, we produced some entertaining street theatre. First came a few speeches from New York's finest peace activists -- the great civil liberties attorney Norman Siegel; Vice President of the New York chapter of Veterans for Peace, Vietnam vet and chaplain Hugh Bruce; State Senator Eric Adams; City Councilwoman Gale Brewer; and our own super grannies, 92-year-old blind and practically deaf firebrand Marie Runyon and distinguished Broadway actress-playwright Vinie Burrows.

Toward the end of the final speech, suddenly two "feds" appeared and grabbed approximately 10 grannies and handcuffed us all together shouting that we were subversives and subject to arrest by virtue of the Patriot Act. They overpowered us and led us away in a veritable chain gang. It was so realistic that the REAL New York City police watching us from nearby rushed over to intervene. Of course, this was all pre-orchestrated to make one of our major points about the abuse of the Constitution under the new unlawful laws, and also to replicate what ACTUALLY happened to us two years ago when we were arrested and jailed as we tried to enlist at the Times Square Recruiting Center.

We followed up the "arrests" with songs by the Raging Grannies and then performed a little show with finger puppets representing Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Lincoln and Gandhi. We are not only amazingly spry and gutsy for our ages but are quite creative, too, I must immodestly state.

After concluding our street theatre, we trekked to Ground Zero where we read names of New York fallen in Iraq, each name punctuated by a single solemn drumbeat. Exhausted and sore, we finally ended our Grandparents Day of Protest and headed home.

The choice of Grandparents Day, September 9, had three-fold implications -- not only that it was specifically a day honoring grandparents but also the fact that it was immediately prior to the sixth anniversary of the September 11 World Trade Center atrocity and, most important of all this year, a prelude to the start of the Congressional hearings vis a vis the Petraeus report and the many planned protests throughout the country in that regard.

So, all of you reading this, we hope you are inspired to renew your efforts, get out there, scream and yell, hound your representatives. Do as we grannies do. We won't be here much longer and you must take on our mission before we fade from view.

PLEASE -- listen to your grannies!!!