Joe McIntyre/staff photographer
Peace marcher Mike Blake, at left, a former Army specialist and veteran of the war in Iraq, walks north Friday on Route 13 toward Cortland with other peace marchers.
War protesters march through Cortland
CORTLAND — Iraq War veteran Michael Blake of Binghamton has been on tougher marches, but the one he and about 25 others undertook Friday as part of New York State Marches for Peace was also an important one.
Blake and his companions marched between Dryden and Cortland, leaving at about 10 a.m. and not arriving at the day’s destination — the Unitarian Universalist Church on Church Street in Cortland — until the late afternoon.
Along the way, they were joined in Cortlandville by six members of Cortland Community for Peace, which protests the war Saturdays from noon to 1 p.m. outside the Cortland Post Office.
The marchers who passed through the city Friday were part of a broader Central New York effort to bring support and raise awareness for the active duty soldiers serving around the world today and the Iraq Veterans Against the War organization.
The Ithaca, or southern, route marched Thursday from Ithaca’s Dewitt Park to the intersection of route 13 and 38 in Dryden and then continued on to Cortland, while other marchers set off on the western Rochester route and the eastern Utica route.
Marchers will converge Friday at Ft. Drum in Watertown to show support for the Iraq Veterans Against the War, which is holding a three-day event to highlight the Iraq War’s impact on rural communities as well as the experiences of its members.
The local marchers were to head from Cortland to Tully this morning on the next leg of their journey to Watertown.
Local articles in today's paper:
- Local businessman Ames remembered as hard-working
- Homer fine-tuning proposed zoning
- DeRuyter school supt. to start in July
- Finch seeking a fifth term
- ‘She just cares for the students so much’
- Virgil fire department begins using thermal imaging camera
- Death and Birth Notices