A cold wind blew dead leaves and candy wrappers across the steps of the Oregon State Capitol building. Near the entrance sat Michele Darr, bundled in a puffy winter jacket and stiff brown denim work pants, talking with supporters Teresa Rees and Michael James. In a corner near them hung a canvas banner stating, “Pray & Fast for Oregon National Guard.”

Wednesday, November 19, was Darr’s nineteenth day of a hunger strike and round-the-clock protest against a 3,500 Oregon National Guard troop deployment scheduled for the spring. She said that if Gov. Ted Kulongoski will talk to her and some National Guard families about the deployment, then she would eat again.

In 1990, Darr moved to Kuwait with her daughter and civil engineer husband. According to Darr, the U.S. State Department told her that there was no safer place on Earth. She said that about two months after the move, Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait.

“I know first-hand how, overnight, everything in your life can be thrown upside down,” Darr said. “So I feel a deep kinship with the soldiers who risk their lives as a target to fight this war. We at least need to be able to justify sending them into war.”

Despite the overcast skies and her arrest for trespassing on Nov. 14, Darr looked upbeat, unfazed, and steadfast in her beliefs against the war.

“Today there are 3,500 Oregon families living in the shadows of this unjustifiable war,” Darr said. “There is no basis for it. Over the holidays, the governor will be around, but he won’t do anything. He says he’s unwilling to get on board with [her] movement.”

Darr, from Corvallis, is a full-time mother of six children, who are living with family members while she is camped out at the Capitol.

“I think the National Guard owes [the families] an explanation as to why they keep deploying them to Iraq and bringing them back home over and over again,” Darr said. “This [war] has been a travesty all the way around. The governor keeps saying no to more deployments, but nothing ever happens.”

No Surprise

The Oregon National Guard’s Public Affairs Officer Maj. Mike Braibish said he agrees with Darr’s right to protest the war and the deployment, but disagrees with some of her opinions and offers up his explanations for the deployment.

“The Guard has two roles: local and national,” Braibish said. “In peacetime, when the Guard is not mobilized, it is under the control of the governor. It is on loan to the state until it becomes federalized due to emergency situations such as war.

“None of us want to go; none of us want to leave our family. But this should come as no surprise; deployments are a simple fact of service.”

Braibish said that anyone who volunteers to join the military now should know that we are a nation at war and should expect to be a part of that. He added that the forthcoming deployment is not a surprise to anyone, least of whom the National Guard soldiers.

The 41st Infantry Brigade Combat Team, which Braibish said is the one being deployed from Oregon, spent August in Idaho specifically focused on this mission in Iraq.

Braibish said that military families have an easily accessible support system to help get them through the tough times.

“There are programs in place for families EMDASH such as the Family Readiness Program EMDASH which are funded by the federal government to help family members talk to each other and to provide them with other resources,” he said.

On The Home Front

Benjamin Lewis is an Iraq war veteran from Corvallis who leads counter-recruitment efforts in high schools and has joined a group called Iraq Veterans Against The War. He said he’s been recalled to the Marines as part of this spring’s deployment and intends to refuse what he called the “backdoor draft.”

“The Guard belongs at home, serving the people of Oregon,” Lewis said. He added that President George W. Bush’s administration used a clause in the Individual Ready Reserves, which Lewis said states that soldiers can be called to active duty in times of emergency. “Bush abused this policy for the ‘backdoor draft,’” Lewis said.

Darr believes Kulongoski can order the Oregon Guard troops to stay home, but Braibish said that the deployment comes from the federal Department of the Army and the governor has no choice but to follow those orders.

Kulongoski has been a critic of the war in Iraq. In a letter Darr and Lewis composed and sent to the governor, they quote him from an August 3 article in the Oregonian as saying, “I think everybody is worried about the continual deployment of the Guard ... I think sometimes we’re asking too much of these kids and their families.”

Messages left at the governor’s office by Salem Monthly to comment on this story went unanswered. As of the publication of this issue of Salem Monthly, so has Darr and Lewis’ letter.

New President; New Plan?

One of the major points of President-Elect Barack Obama’s presidential campaign focused on his early opposition to the Iraq war and his plan for the phased withdrawal of troops.

The section on Obama’s Web site that addresses his administration’s position on the Iraq war states: “Barack Obama and Joe Biden will responsibly end the war in Iraq so that we can renew our military strength, dedicate more resources to the fight against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and invest in our economy at home. The Obama-Biden plan will help us succeed in Iraq by transitioning to Iraqi control of their country.”

Regarding the phased withdrawal of troops, the Web site states, “Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. Immediately upon taking office, Obama will give his Secretary of Defense and military commanders a new mission in Iraq: ending the war. The removal of our troops will be responsible and phased, directed by military commanders on the ground and done in consultation with the Iraqi government. Military experts believe we can safely redeploy combat brigades from Iraq at a pace of one to two brigades a month EMDASH which would remove all of them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 EMDASH more than seven years after the war began.

Back On The Steps

A black rubber mat rested flat on the cement underneath the chairs. Rees kicked it out and straightened the edges. “This is where she sleeps,” she said, gesturing toward Darr. “I sleep next to her on the concrete.”

The weather has been cold overnight, Darr and Rees said, but so far their sleeping bags have kept them warm.

"It’s nothing compared to the hardship our troops are facing over in Iraq,” Darr said.

A little while later, Rees stuck her hands deep in her jacket pockets and shivered. “It’s not the frigid temps I’m worried about; it’s the rain that’s coming. We’re going to try and put up a tent just for the nights, but I don’t think they’ll let us.”

Darr said she would fast on the steps until she gets an audience with the governor, rain or shine.

A framed photo collage of Darr’s six kids leans against the wall near the “Pray & Fast for Oregon National Guard” banner. “I keep that there so hopefully people will make the connection that these wars affect more than just the soldiers.”