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:::EDITORIALS:::

Rachel Corrie comes home to all of us
By Sissy Bowen, the Americus Times-Recorder, published Nov. 16, 2003

I’m constantly amazed at how small the world really is … No matter how far removed we might feel from an event or an experience today, tomorrow we might find ourselves in the midst of it.

Eight months ago today, on Sunday, March 16, 2003, I was searching the Associated Press wire from my home. As the news editor for the Times-Recorder, I knew that war with Iraq was imminent and felt it was my duty to keep a close eye on developments in the Middle East.

Little did I know, but only hours earlier, 23-year-old Rachel Corrie, a student from Olympia, Wash., was run over and killed by an Israeli soldier driving a bulldozer while she was simply trying to protect the modest home of a Palestinian physician. As the photos of Rachel's terrifying reality began to upload, I began to weep ... I called to my house mate, my partner, and asked her to come and see the horror ... she held me while I completely fell apart.

I was irreversibly moved by those few moments ... so much so that I printed the goriest of photos you see on our Page 1A today, took it into our newsroom the next day and made our staff and colleagues look at it, while I told them, "This girl ... right here ... is going to be my motivation to get through this unacceptable ‘war’ that George W. Bush is about to wage. None of us ever has to accept that this war is acceptable, but we do have an obligation to do our best to make sure we offer our readers all sides of this war, and the efforts for peace."

I told the same to my publisher (at that time, Terry Connor) and he obliged my desire to find that balance in coverage fairly consistently. And Rachel Corrie has continued to be pumping in my heart as this war rages on.

About two weeks after Rachel’s murder, and my revelation, my old college friend and ally Edie Garwood, who married my friend (one of dozens of Palestinian classmates at Kennesaw College in 1986) Khaled Ali, emailed me to invite me to a memorial service for Rachel Corrie in Charlotte, NC.

"You may have heard about Rachel Corrie ..." Edie wrote, figuring I probably had, but having no idea. "Her parents are friends of mine here in Charlotte and I am helping them do a memorial service and thought you might want to come ..."

Can you imagine the chills that went over my body, much less through my soul?

I wasn't able to go to that memorial service ... as "war" was raging by that time and I had to work. But because Rachel's contribution has been so widespread and we live in the extraordinarily forward-thinking community that we do, and we are blessed with a body of people unafraid to stand up for peace, I have the opportunity to pay my respects to Rachel on Monday evening. You do too. I ask you to join me.

There is no irony in the fact that we honor the memory of Rachel Corrie at Koinonia Farm. Koinonia is not only the birthplace of a courageous and often violent struggle for Civil Rights in Sumter County, it also sowed the seed for Habitat for Humanity, the largest not-for-profit home builder in the world with a mission to help all people have a decent place to live. Rachel Corrie died trying to stop the needless destruction of the home that a decent family had already built.

When I presented this column to our new publisher Jack McNeely, who spent 14 years in the Army National Guard, including an eight-month tour in Bosnia-Herzegovina, he responded, "I've seen first hand the atrocities of a misguided people as U.S. soldiers unearthed mass gravesites in Bosnia. I’m not anti-war, but certainly everyone has their right to their opinion. And certainly, we need to cover both sides of every issue.” I felt his allegiance to truth.

I’m not anti-war either. Hell! I'm a warrior! I just believe we need to be willing to die, or put our soldiers in the face of death, for a truly just and human-centered cause.

Rachel Corrie was a remarkably brave young soldier in my army and willing and clearly able to die fighting in a war worth winning.

The desire for peace is neither a political nor a partisan issue in my opinion. It is a human issue that spans the universe. And as small as that universe really is, I urge us all to put our politics aside and THINK PEACE.

Sissy Bowen is News Editor for the Americus Times-Recorder and an award-winning writer and advocate. She can be reached at sdrummergl@earthlink.net