From Boston to New York:
A 39-Day Grind to Promote Peace

By Steven Scarpa
Connecticut Post
8/20/2004

To the casual observer, the group walking slowly along Route 1 in Milford and Stratford on Thursday appeared to be a small funeral procession. In a way, it was.

The walkers, calling their journey the Sept. 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows' Stonewalk, is in the midst of a 39-day trek on foot from Boston to New York City.

"We want to reforge a different kind of journey between Boston and New York," said founder Dan Jones, whose brother-in-law, Billy Kelly, was killed in the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. He recalled that the flights that destroyed the twin towers originated in Boston. "[It's a journey] of healing and remembrance," he said of the Stonewalk.

The walkers are pulling a caisson transporting a 1,400-pound Vermont granite memorial to civilians killed in war.Jones hopes that the walk will draw attention to the full costs of war. In the last century, Jones said, 80 percent of war fatalities were civilians people in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The march is also a political statement, having departed from the Democratic National Convention in Boston on its way to the Republican version in Manhattan on Sept. 2.

Around noon, the cart carrying the flat stone monument slowed to a crawl on Barnum Avenue in Stratford, with a parade of cars snarled behind it.

"I have to jump in here. I have to [help push] it on the hills," Jones said.The crew of approximately 15 people men and women of all ages and sizes were straining to move the heavy load up a slight incline."We are almost there. Come on, keep it going," Jones called out. "We are almost at the peak."

An older man wearing yellow monk's robes pounded out a single rhythmic beat on a small drum. The caisson was adorned with United Nations and United States flags and flowers.

An older woman saw the group's plight and read their large sign. "God bless you," she called from her car.

"It is an incredible, evocative and symbolic event for people to witness. We count on people from the community to help us along," Jones said. "It is a painful healing ritual."

The first Stonewalk took place in 1999, three years before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.The 1,400-pound stone was carried from Massachusetts to Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington for possible enshrinement with the nation's military heroes. But the group's petition was denied.

"We are calling on all policy makers, the executive branch and the legislators, to consider the human toll of our policies," Jones said. He is mindful of the pain he and his wife, Colleen Kelly, experienced as a result of the Sept. 11 attacks. It is because of this that he hopes to spare other people's families from similar suffering.
"We wanted justice. We don't think going to war is going to bring us that justice," Jones said.

Adele Welty, of Flushing, N.Y., lost her son, Timothy, a New York firefighter, at the World Trade Center. Nothing, including the destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq, will change that, she said. "I did not want my son used as a reason for going to war to kill more people," Welty said.

"They are just like us. We have a tendency to value American lives or Western lives over people who have darker skin or who live in far- away lands," she said. "There are people all over the world suffering the same loss."

The Stonewalk participants were hosted overnight by area families, and plan to lead a public "Service of Sharing and Reflections" at 7:30 tonight in the Unitarian Universalist Church, 96 Chapel St. in Stratford, before continuing their journey. For information, call Ellen McCarthy at 866-4375.

On Monday, another public service will take place at 7 p.m. in the First Congregational Church on the Green in Norwalk at Park and Lewis streets. Members of Peaceful Tomorrows will speak, and families of Sept. 11 victims are scheduled to be on hand. A musical program will include Pete Seeger, Ledell Mulvaney and Bruce Taylor, Call Barbara Hudgins at 866-6040 for more details.