Oak Ridge - 2000

Sunday, August 6, 2000. A not-so-quick (three hour each way) run over to one of the most desolate and forsaken places I have ever seen. If you want to feel sorry for the planet Earth visit Oak Ridge, Tennessee. We drove through the Y-12 reactor area before the demonstrations began and felt like we had been taken to a world where everything had failed. Roads were blocked all over the place, many with signs saying that it was not safe to travel those roads. Trees were dead and dying in vast numbers. Streams had signs posted reading: “Danger! Stream Contaminated. Do not drink, fish, wade, swim or trespass!” Other signs read “Avoid all contact with the water!” Then in smaller letters: “Condemned by the State of Tennessee”. Later we joined up with Br.
Utsumi and Sr. Denise and about 250 other protesters, most of whom appeared to be Oak Ridge residents.
I left my Nikon in the car and filmed the event with my Sony camcorder. The camcorder is a remarkable tool for conducting interviews and recording events since it captures not just images but also movement and sound. Later its story can easily be shown to selected music. Furthermore, the message of the camcorder reaches it’s audience not through the museumic dust of the ages represented to many modern viewers by a slide projector, but through the power, authority, intimacy and urgency of television.
We assembled for lunch and speeches at a public park, then marched about a mile and a half down the highway to the Y-12 Reactor entrance area where we became part of an omelet-stew featuring protesters, counter protesters, police, federal marshals and some 12 news outlets including Fox and ABC, perhaps others. The protesters were generally dressed in a post-modern-hippie array of clothes (partly because of the march in hot weather). Most of the counter protesters were dressed in some form of military costume, or parts thereof. We also had a “preacher” who had come uninvited over to our side, and later we found out he had been dispatched to us by the counter-protesters. He was a young man with an amazingly loud voice, perhaps in his mid-twenties, dressed in tan trousers and a long-sleeved white shirt and he carried a bible and some tracts. He began shouting at us, asking if we were Christians. He grabbed Br. Utsuni who was dressed in his Buddhist monk’s robe and asked if he was a Christian, Br. Utsuni put his palms together, near his heart, in the nomastai gesture of respect, bowed and said “Ah sooooo!”
“Well, you’ll burn in Hell forEV-er if you haven’t accepted the Lord JESUS CHRIST as your personal SAVIOR!”
Br. Utsuni walked toward the podium The preacher followed him.
“Brother are you SAVED?” Utsuni talked to someone else about the program. The preacher continued “HEATHENS will burn in HELL!” Then he added “FOREVER and EVER!”
I went over to the counter-protesters to interview and photograph them. They had a very powerful loudspeaker system that they had aimed at us and it played martial music at full blast. One old gentleman who was confined to a chair and oxygen was (according to his wife) a former member of “Merril’s Marauders”. I did not photograph or interview him. A young man held up a sign protesting the protest in the name of “vets”. I asked him where he had served and he replied that he had never been in the military but that he liked vets. Something new in the world, I guess. A woman grabbed my arm and asked how I could side with the “heathens” - then as a small crowd of counter-protesters surrounded me she asked if I had received the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal savior. I told her that I was a native American and that Jesus had been the worst thing that had ever happened to us. The result was a min-nuclear reaction. Bibles were produced (duly photographed), scripture was quoted(also recorded). One woman was dressed in what appeared to be part of an old WAC uniform but with brigadier general stars as her rank. I noticed a submarine patch had been sewed on her uniform. When asked, she said that she had sung a song for “the navy people” on a submarine and the “boys” had “awarded “ her this patch. She sang a partial verse of “Silver Wings on My Son’s Chest”. I asked her what service her son had joined and while I did not understand her answer, I took it to mean perhaps that she did not have any children. I did not ask again but she sang on about “...America’s best...” in what seemed to me to be a voice that alternated between tremolo and vibrato. She was obviously concerned about the path in which her country seemed to be headed now. I told her I had to get back to the other group and she smiled and said “Well, I shore hope you don’t git no aids ... .” I acted surprised and asked if there was any “aids” over there and she nodded her head and said “Yep, you can count on it!” As I headed back to “our” side I was thinking “Silver Wings on Jesus’ Chest ..” That train of thought ended when a policeman stopped me to see if I seemed bent on trouble, then he let me go on. I made his picture too and he looked very somber like he was the only person there who had noticed how hot it was.
There were two speakers on our podium; one probably American, the other appeared Japanese. They spoke briefly and then showed how to do a chant in English and Japanese - “Make Peace not War! War no More!” Then a rather well dressed man took the podium and began speaking about the consequences of America’s continuance of nuclear weapon building. He talked about moral obligations, international treaties, United Nations resolutions, court decisions, and legal ramifications. Meanwhile, the preacher still wandered about with his bible. “Are you SAVED?” “Brother! Listen!” “Sister, LISTEN to me!” “Are you washed in the BLOOD of the LAMB?” The counter-protesters were playing military songs, about Anchors Aweigh, The Cassions are Rolling Along, and Off we Go ...” All this added a dimension of immortality and imputed grave importance to the speakers words. Although the music was not exactly overpowering, it was still audible and the speaker seemed to fall into its cadence so that his words seemed to march forward as if an entire nation was behind their inexorable sweep to victory, and to the measured march of “From the halls of Montezuma”, the words stepped forward from the speakers mouth “... the re-spect for gen--RA-tions will de-pend on what we do!””The BLOOD of the LAMB!!”” ... for us to walk the talk ...” “hellFIRE FOR-EV-VER!!” “... moral obligations for humanity ...eternal damnNA-TION!!! ... moral obligations... “Around the Globe ... Depart from ME ye WICK-KED ... international tribunals ... with our banners gleaming ... and suffer in HELL forEV-VER!!

A shuffling of cards could suddenly be heard. Cards? What’s that? A glance showed federal marshals in dark camouflage marching in military formation to a blue line which had been freshly painted across the road that led to the Y-12 nuclear plant. Now the brigadier has found a microphone and is sending out an amplified, quavering song: “Silver wings on my son’s chest ...” “God’s ONLY Son!!!” “...he’s one of America’s best ...” “Heathens will go to HELL!!!” “ ...and then you will see ...” “BURN in HELL for all ETERNITY!!” A bell sounds to commemorating the explosion over Hiroshima and drums begin a cadence which will last for more than two hours. “Dum, dum, dum, dum, dum-de-dum; dum, dum, dum, dum, dum-de-dum” It was the cadence of the march from Atlanta to Oak Ridge. “In a lake of FIIRRE!!” Now the two Buddhists begin chanting and marching toward the new blue line. The crowd surges behind them. The Japanese man is at the microphone again shouting in Japanese but his words are overridden by the preacher who is in our midst: “The Lord sayeth in I-SAY-yah...” From the counter-protesters faintly comes the tune “Over there, over there, send the word ...” , and they are now waving United States flags. “Suffer for-EV-VER!!!”
The first two protesters walk across the blue line and stop. There is a cheer from the protesters, then breathless quiet. Faintly can be heard the tune from the counter-protesters Mine eyes have seen the glory ... A federal marshal, a tall man with an enormous belly, comes up to the protesters who have crossed the line and reads a statement to them from a card he holds in his hands. There are about six marshals surrounding the two protesters and probably twelve journalists with cameras, recorders and camcorders surrounding that entire group. The two protesters are both small elderly ladies wearing straw hats, and are perhaps both in their 80’s. “Now if you don’t leave, Ma’am, I will have to place you under arrest ...I will have no choice ...” he stops and bends his head over so he can hear what she is saying. ‘ ..he is tramping in the vineyard ...” . A swarm of camera lenses open and close constantly, flashbulbs flickering. For a moment he looks like he might be talking to his grandmother; she stares straight up, her fingers lightly touching his arm, smiling, as if looking at her favorite son. He straightens up. “Ma’am, I must inform you that you are under arrest; anything you say may be held against you ...” The lenses open and close constantly as if in amazement, not believing what they are recording. The marshal looks like his lunch maybe didn’t agree with him. Several marshals help the ladies over to the shade. A roar arises from the protesters, and a clapping of hands. “Make Peace not War! War no More!” “God have MERCY on your SOULS!!!...” then spontaneously all other noise is washed away by a new song which begins from one female African-American voice and instantly swells and seemingly lifts to fill the entire world! “We shall overcome ...” .

So, two more waves of protesters were arrested, about at 30 minute intervals, probably about 20 or so in all, and the once yearly celebration segued into the one which is held every Sunday there. That’s when we walked the mile and a half back to our car. On the way, at about 5:30 p.m., we noticed a bank temperature sign reading 96°.

© John Womack, 2006. All Rights Reserved.