UCI War Supporters Stage Muted Answer to Protests

At six minutes past noon, Bryan Zuetel scurried down the 15 concrete steps from UC Irvine’s central walkway to a spot known simply as “the flagpoles,” where countless protests, prayer vigils and other public demonstrations have been held over the years.

Zuetel, a sophomore political science major and vice president of the UCI College Republicans, was about to lead another one. But there would be a delay.

“We’re waiting for patriotic music,” he told the 30 students on the steps. “We forgot the CD player.”

A few minutes later everything was ready and the music began -- Aaron Tippin’s “Where the Stars and Stripes and the Eagle Fly,” a country song about a “big ol’ land with countless dreams” where “happiness ain’t out of reach.”

When the song ended, Zuetel explained that the College Republicans had decided to hold a pro-war rally Wednesday because there had been too many antiwar rallies at UCI and no one was speaking up for the troops and the president.

There weren’t many voices raised Wednesday, either. What the College Republicans’ Web site had billed as a two-hour demonstration barely lasted half an hour, and the display was low-key -- a few paper U.S. flags, yellow helium-filled balloons and hand-drawn signs saying, “Support the troops.”

Zuetel introduced the afternoon’s only other speaker, former Republican Assemblyman Mickey Conroy, 75, who started by telling the crowd that, during a recent campus visit, he had to step around the bodies of antiwar protesters sprawled on the ground pretending to be dead.

“I was kind of hoping they would be,” Conroy said, eliciting scattered chuckles.

Conroy, wearing a row of military ribbons on his suit coat, told the crowd he left home at age 16 to join the merchant marine during World War II, served in the Navy during the Korean War and spent 33 months in Vietnam and other Southeast Asia postings as a Marine pilot in the 1960s.

“I went where my government sent me,” he said.

He talked about the importance of supporting U.S. troops, but he also talked about Communists and “soft-headed” leftists, tenure on college campuses and Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden.

“Today’s young people learn so little from history,” Conroy said, alternating between prepared remarks and off-the-cuff stories. “Don’t let the lefties get the best of you.”

As he spoke, a few antiwar demonstrators hovered quietly at the top of the stairs, forming a thin human wall between the pro-war group and passing students. One wore a U.S. Army T-shirt with a peace sign scratched over the emblem. Another had a small sign on his back that said, “Support the troops, bring them home.”

From the rear, it looked like a peace rally. Conroy didn’t see them.

“I’m sorry there’s no antiwar protesters here today,” he said, and as if on cue the protesters flashed two-fingered peace signs. Apparently missing this display, Zuetel returned to the microphone and echoed Conroy. “I’m glad to see we haven’t drawn much opposition today,” he said. The man in the peace-symbol shirt smiled and shook his head.

The speakers didn’t mention the news of the day -- that Baghdad appeared to have fallen and that the Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations had announced that “the game is over.”

Afterward, some of the demonstrators welcomed the news.

“I can sleep better tonight,” said Michelle Clark, 19, a sophomore biological sciences major from Corona, blaming the war for her insomnia. “You’re never at peace, because there’s so much turmoil going on. It’s good that we’re getting that much closer to resolving it.”

As she spoke, other students signed a banner supporting the troops that was to be sent to Camp Pendleton. As they scrawled messages, Lynne Tran gathered up the extra paper flags, which she and her family had glued to short wooden sticks.

Tran, 20, a junior political science major, was born in Garden Grove to parents who fled Vietnam by boat in 1979. War is not abstract for the family, and Tran said she showed up with the flags Wednesday to speak for unheard voices.

“There is a silent majority of Americans who support the war,” Tran said, holding the flag-stuffed box in her arms, a musical march blaring from a nearby speaker. “A few antiwar protesters don’t speak for all of us.”

Then she was off, heading for the parking lot as a volunteer silenced the martial music. The peace protesters had melted away too. A cool breeze swept down the empty steps, and the campus quickly and quietly resumed the flow of daily life.