Portfolio at NYU

Posted 11.20.03
War Bride
Fighting against the war is fighting for her husband

By Heather Marie Graham

Days before President Bush declared war on Iraq in February 2003, a peace march on Washington aimed to steer the Administration off its war-bound course. Melissa Halvorson's new husband, a Marine reservist put on active duty a year before, shipped out to Iraq the same week. Work forced Halvorson to miss the demonstration but she still felt the need do something to show her opposition to an invasion of Iraq. So she drove to D.C. from her home in New Paltz, New York in hopes of finding another anti-war event or rally. But, she says, nothing happened. There was no ad-hoc protest or spontaneous sit-in. Rather than retreat, the 29-year-old blonde strapped a sandwich board to her tall, thin frame that read: "Don't kill my husband or make him kill." She recalls the frustration that propelled her. "I was desperate. He had just left two days before. It was really awful; it was really traumatic. I was really pissed."

The couple met at a New Paltz bar called Snug Harbor, shortly after the terrorist attacks of 9-11-2001. While commiserating about the devastation of 9-11, Melissa says neither of them was put off by their political differences, which immediately became apparent. She respected his honesty; he, in turn, didn't back away from her leftie politics. By January 2002, with their courtship growing, he was called to active duty at Camp LeJeune. The bombing campaign had begun in Afghanistan and President Bush declared war on terrorism.

"I'd never really been a pound the pavement sort of activist," Melissa said. "But I've always written letters." In fact, she admits, she didn't fully immerse herself in the anti-war movement until January 2003 when "it became clear" her husband was leaving for the Middle East. During that time she heard a member from Military Families Speak Out (MFSO) give a speech at an event and immediately began an email correspondence with the group. She declared her membership shortly before her husband landed in country. MFSO appealed to Melissa's situation. Everyone in the organization has a family member -- husband, son, daughter, niece -- in the military. The group often links up with group like Veterans for Peace, a group that Melissa says are "beyond reproach" in many ways. "They've served in the military; they've been to war. They've examined it and come out the other side."

After linking up with MFSO, Melissa gave her first public address at a rally in Philadelphia. From that event she was invited to speak at events sponsored by Veterans for Peace and Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Writing letters to her husband faithfully during his deployment to the Persian Gulf, she also hung banners over Thruway overpasses with slogans like "No War" and "Another Marine Wife Against Empire." The joke there, she says, is that she doesn't personally know any other Marine wives opposing an American empire.

"I'm not the typical war bride," Melissa says, laughing. Actually, she never thought she would be any type of bride. "I had never considered getting married." Nevertheless, when Melissa's man came home on leave from Camp LeJeune in March 2002, the pair drove to New York City and eloped at City Hall. In a way, she says, getting married was an act of rebellion -- against herself. She never favored matrimony in conventional terms. But things change.

After her betrothal, Melissa wrote a letter to the local New Paltz paper criticizing the war and standing behind her man. In closing she writes, "I can assure the right-wing administration and its minions that I support my husband in the only way that makes sense; by opposing their war." Though she deliberately omitted her political activities in letters to her husband ("it wasn't the time") she kept records of her anti-war agitating and took pictures at rallies and events should he want look at them. When her husband arrived home in August 2003 after finishing his tour, she says she didn't overwhelm him with her tales or her scrapbook. "Little by little we've been discussing it," she says. But rather than force the topic, she wants to let it trickle in. "I don't feel the need to talk about it," she says; she lived it. Besides, she says, he knew of her activism before he left and he supported her.

"It was a big deal for me because I never would have been having this experience if it weren't for him." But, she continues, "It was a singular experience." What's important now is that Melissa has her husband back home. "It's enough right now to figure out have to have a relationship again;" much of their 18-month marriage has been spent apart. Now, she says, "doing nothing is doing something."

But that bliss doesn't come without some guilt. "Here's what shames me. I haven't done anything since he got home. I hate to think that my ethics only stretch that far." Doubtful. In her next breath Melissa explains the next phase of her fight against President Bush and the Iraq War. "I'm gearing up for a personal voter registration campaign." She plans to register folks to vote -- hopefully against the current Republican controlled administration. She's even "considered keeping a card table in the back of [her] truck" to register people when she has spare time from her schedule as a graduate student of education and student teacher. "I will go down trying to prevent the re-election of the current administration."


	One woman protest (Rick Bowmer/AP)