The Vigil: 26 Days in Crawford, Texas Reported by W. Leon Smith & the Staff of the Lone Star Iconoclast, Foreword by Cindy Sheehan
Review by Kent Manthie
For almost a month Cindy Sheehan held a one-woman protest/vigil that turned into a noisy throng of supporters, angry neighbors and, of course, the press, whom, if it wasn’t for, none of this would’ve happened. Sheehan is the mother of a soldier, a Marine, I believe, who was killed in Iraq
The Vigil is an account of what went on there, on the ground for those 26 days last year as reported by the staff of the local weekly paper The Lone Star Iconoclast, whose editor and some of whose writers covered this story after some initial doubt over its newsworthiness. It, of course, spiraled into this month-long camp-protest-throng that attracted the anti-war movement(s) and radical-types.
It’s pretty much straight-shooting-reportage, though, mostly through the protestors eyes, but you also get an interview with Bush neighbor and frustrated landowner Larry Mattlage, who caused a stir when he fired a shotgun on his ranch property, in preparation, he told the paper, for “dove season”, which was upcoming. Joan Baez made a stop, as well as some of the rest of the old hard-core protest crowd; they came out of the woodwork. With all that open country and rurality they could’ve had another Woodstock kind of thing going on. But, I think the “neighborhood” was a bit more conservative than landowners in the northeast US.
Ultimately, the Iconoclast came out on the side of Cindy and the protestors, with editorials in her favor, speaking out, letting those in power know of these public feelings, etc, but I think they did a good job noting pretty much all the stuff going on – well, as much as can be reasonably documented. It doesn’t get in to in-depth political analysis or heavy-handed pontificating; they just stick to the facts. It’s like if a bunch of reporters had covered the Watts riots or something and wrote a book with all the coverage in it. If you want a detailed record of the month in Crawford, then The Vigil is for you…website link is http://www.disinfo.com – KM.