I attended a rally outside the gates of the White House. It was bitterly cold, but I judge there were three or four hundred people there, most of us holding candles in memory of fallen soldiers. The crowd slowly grew as community leaders, Veterans of Iraq and past wars, and former Congressmen made a series of speeches which culminated with a somber reading of the names of soldiers from the Washington D.C. metropolitan area who had lost their lives in Iraq. During the 15 minutes it took to read the names, the crowd became quieter and quieter. Side conversations that normally accompany speeches on loud speakers subsided until no one was speaking but the man and woman softly uttering the names of the dead. But then, a rumbling sound in the distance began to grow and grow until it was so loud that it challenged the voices on the loud speaker. A helicopter was approaching, returning the President from a military base in Georgia where he had given another speech about why he has decided to escalate the violence in Iraq. Some of us turned and saw the helicopter appear from behind the buildings overshadowing the White House, and the roaring blades echoed off the stone faces of the buildings looming over Lafayette Square. The names of fallen soldiers were barely audible for a period of a minute, but the readers read on. As the last name was read, the helicopter must have landed on the other side of the White House lawn, because the night was silent again. The man with the microphone said, "Just as the lives of these men and women have been extinguished, so let us extinguish our candles." Hundreds released a breath into the winter cold and the many lights went out.

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