Overview
Crawford is a tiny agricultural community with one stoplight at the intersection of two Texas highways.  A railroad divides the town and a huge grain elevator sits near the railway crossing.  It's Bush's town, no doubt about that, and patriotic messages to the effect that we love our president abound.  Even so, I witnessed very little hostility from the community (although there were a couple of aggressive incidents reported nationwide before we arrived).  I'd say we were tolerated, and even treated with an odd kind of distant respect, tempered by the hope that we'd soon go away and let things be.  I'll not forget the white king-cab pickup truck full of cowboy ranch hands that stopped on the gravel road next to our car where our new friend from CA had locked his keys inside. The cowboy leaned out his truck window with a smirk of superiority toward the dumb city-slicker war protesters... and handed us a "slim jim" tool to jimmy the locked door.  His only comments when we tried to engage him in conversation was to remember that this was his home and that the sheriff's deputies were standing in the hot sun all day long and would appreciate a drink of water.

A map of the territory that Cindy is "occupying" would show four key sites.  There is the Crawford Peace House about a block from the intersection and across the tracks.  Then there is Camp Casey I, the original site of Cindy's vigil several miles out of town along a winding stretch of country asphalt named Prairie Chapel Road.  Another two or three miles down Prairie Chapel Road there is a barricaded side road into the Bush ranch and about which nothing can be said except, "Do Not Go There."  A few more miles of country lane brings you to the site of Camp Casey II on Canaan Church Road where a 
huge white Denver-airport-shaped tent stands on the acre of land that sympathetic Crawford rancher Fred Mattlage made available.  On the other side of Canaan Church Road sitting picturesquely on a grassy knoll above a green pasture strewn with grazing bovines is a country church.  This idyllic Hallmark scene yields ironic contrast to the barely contained undercurrent of war fever within its sphere of influence.

The Crawford Peace House
To visualize the Crawford Peace House and what goes on there you need only dredge up memories of hippie anti-war enclaves from the '60s: a run-down house that glows with the vibrancy of creativity, communal sharing, and chaotic action.  There are hand-lettered signs taped to every surface with schedules of things that have already happened, or might never happen.  People rush around doing what needs doing or trying to find someone who can, like an beehive of activity where every individual has a purpose but the organization that controls the action is not at all self-evident.  You soon learn who does what and who to ask to get such-and-such done.  Like Tommy, the 70-something Quaker / Veteran who wears a name tag on which he marks off the number of days he's served at the Peace House as its "sanitation officer," 
which means he takes responsibility for emptying all the trash & recycling barrels on the premises.  Or Andrew, the college-student dynamo from Humbolt CA who makes sure everything gets done, or at least attempted.  Always carrying his leather cup of yerba mate, he moves a mile a minute all day long, continuing late into the night organizing and drafting volunteers to do what needs doing, or if not, then doing it himself.

The three of us from Silver City quickly found ourselves rooted within the Peace House communal volunteer spirit.  William & I became the 9-to-noon Parking Attendants, trying to keep the ever-increasing influx of cars semi-organized, and answering the newcomers' first questions: "How do I get to Camp Casey?" & "What's the schedule of events?" & "What can I do to help?" & especially "Where are YOU from?"  

Meanwhile Paul was busy at other tasks within the Peace House and at Camp Casey I & II.  As Peace House volunteers we were afforded space in the yard for our sleeping bags.  Things wound down around 11 PM and if you were lucky enough to be a heavy sleeper you could sleep through the night wrapped in your day's accumulation of oily sweat and Texas dust.  The less lucky would be awakened a dozen times by trains roaring through the center of town half-block away, fighting off invasions of mosquitos and other less identifiable insectoid creatures of the night.  Our random awakenings during the early morning included visits to one of the four port-a-potties which were thankfully (!) emptied daily, of wandering inside to see if the "coffee volunteers" had cranked up the urns yet, and of grazing the food tables under the meal tent for yesterday's dinner leftovers.

Any of you who've had the privilege of working communally will readily appreciate the atmosphere of camaraderie we enjoyed.  The sense of purpose, the sense of place, the sense of belonging, the sense of being part of something bigger than any of us, indeed bigger than all of us put together.  That's what it felt like to be at the Crawford Peace House.

Camp Casey I
As the spiritual center of Cindy Sheehan's vigil the original Camp Casey has become an icon of the anti-war movement.  Most everyone has seen news footage of the campsite or watched interviews emanating from the site.  So powerful is the meaning of the the original Camp Casey that when the vastly larger and more sophisticated Camp Casey II came into being, it was decided to maintain at least a vestigial version of the original.  For many who've been on-site at Camp Casey I during the first weeks of August, the new Camp Casey II can never acquire the same iconic significance.  The best parallel I can draw is with Woodstock in the '60s.  Even though the massive scale at Yasgur's Farm makes Camp Casey seem puny, the cultural significance is of a similar scale.  One of the frequent comments in Crawford is that "this is the center" out of which the New Peace Movement is spreading.  To paraphrase country-folk singer Steve Earle's powerful anti-war anthem: "The Revolution Starts Here!"

Part Renaissance Fair, part police presence, part memorial to the dead, part media event, Camp Casey looms larger in the mind than it does in physical reality.  I'm reminded of the small roadside shrines to the victims of auto accidents which, although small and uncrafted, carry a deep emotional meaning for the friends and family of the dead.  Camp Casey, too, carries a deep emotional meaning for the friends and family of Casey Sheehan, and for the thousands of dead & wounded American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and for the tens of thousands of dead & wounded Iraqi and Afghani citizens...all of them victims of an imperialist war.

Everyone who has seen Camp Casey will remember the roadside ditches along which cars, tents, and sleeping bags are strewn.  And the friendly sheriff's deputies with their frequent admonitions to "keep off the roadway." And the small triangle of land which became a no-man's land when its Crawford owner decided he didn't want war protesters standing on it.  And the cavalcade of media vans, of news network video cameras, and the thrust of a microphone in your face for an "on-site interview from right here in Camp Casey."  And the scattering of counter-protesters on the other side of Prairie Chapel Road with their unintentionally ironic posters urging us to "Remember 9-11" and to "Support The President."  And the long lines of small white crosses stretching along the roadside in the weedy ditch.  But most of all our remembrance of Camp Casey will be its powerful memorialization of the horrible cost of war.

Camp Casey II
If Camp Casey I evolved as the spiritual center of the Crawford anti-war protest, then Camp Casey II quickly became it action center.  With a near carnival-like atmosphere, the Big White Tent is a welcome source of shade and relative relief from the heat. Hundreds come by shuttle van or personal car simply to hang out during the afternoon and evening. They parade if they have a personal gig to show off.  They make new friends of like-minded people from all around the country.  They eat the marvelous food that all day long steams out of the 18-wheel catering truck from Dallas.  They burn up digital memory cards in a photographic frenzy of taking pictures of each other.  They listen to the stream of anti-war speakers whose message and passion frequently rouse the heat-lethargic crowd into '60s-style outbursts of anti-war, anti-Bush fervor.  They are moved by the sincere anger of Gold Star mothers lamenting the deaths of their sons in Iraq.  They are awed by the message of Rev. Joseph Lowrie, 
co-founder with Martin Luther King of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.  They wait for performers such as Steve Earle and Joan Baez to give new impetus to music's power to spark our feelings of solidarity.  And they, we, just flat-out enjoy "being where it's at" for this brief but special moment in time and place.

What It Means To Me
Camp Casey, the Crawford Peace House, and all the hundreds of remembered and forgotten details extend beyond the people who go there.  It extends beyond the weekend warriors who drove from Austin or Dallas on Sunday to check it out and maybe see Joan Baez.  It extends beyond the short-termers like William and Paul and myself who came to spend a few days at the center of it all.  It extends beyond the scores of dedicated workers who keep the faith and keep it going.  It extends beyond all the Gold Star mothers & the Veterans for Peace & the families with soldiers in Iraq & the Veterans of the Iraq War.  It even extends beyond Cindy Sheehan herself, she who made it happen, who, after all, is only one of thousands who have suffered the ills of war.  The scope of Camp Casey and all that happens there is nothing less than the scope of the anti-war movement itself.  It belongs to all of us.  It works for all of us and it works with all of us.

It is how we move forward.