BLAST: What happened to you and the flags Veterans for Peace were carrying?

“What Democracy Looks Like: The View From Occupy Boston” from Michael Gill on Vimeo.

RM: I was holding the American flag. The rest of the veterans were carrying Veterans for Peace flags. I was standing with arms locked in the center of the line of Iraq and Vietnam veterans. We were the first targeted, knocked down, and dragged away for arrest by police. I personally was not read my rights for several hours after my arrest. No policeman told me I was under arrest. They grabbed me by the neck and pulled me from from the group. My legs and feet were stepped on by the multiple police officers trying to pull me in all directions. My foot was bleeding and felt sprained for about a week after and it later got infected. No injury was recorded by police and they were “unable” to use an antiseptic to clean it out or provide a bandage or shoes during the entire course of my detention to prevent this.

I can’t speak for the reactions of other people, though they were strong and present across the country as I later learned, or to what happened to the American flag I was carrying after I was put into the police wagon. I saw it hit the ground in one video after a brief shot of me being drug out. I am told it was thoroughly trampled by police and it was not returned. It is either now a trophy for some policeman or it is in the trash. Most of the VFP flags were also lost.

BLAST: How did it feel when you and your friends were getting arrested?

RM: I didn’t feel angry, or scared…I was just being arrested, this was neither good or bad, it was just what was happening. It wasn’t something I planned for when I woke up that morning, or when I left for the VFP meeting. I wasn’t really handcuffed well. In the truck they put me in, I was able to easily take off my zip-tie handcuffs and use my phone. So for all the unnecessary force, the police seemed to be overwhelmed with adrenaline and some lost their composure and ability even to properly handcuff me. I’ve been in combat in a place at the time deemed the most dangerous in the world… this was relatively insignificant for me as I have been through much worse. Women in combat is rarely a part of the story told.

It was not that difficult for me to put myself in their shoes and understand where they were coming from in theory…just doing their job, just taking orders…I have been there. Though I don’t think their actions were right or appropriate, I know that it is difficult to do the right thing when you aren’t sure what is right or wrong, or if an order is lawful. That’s reality. Before the police started forming up, I talked to another Iraq veteran there. We both felt the same way we felt before missions in Iraq…not one of preparing to be attacked or to attack, but a feeling of unknowing. A feeling that whatever would happen next was largely out of our control. But what was different me, was a feeling that I was doing the right thing, without a doubt in my mind, and it didn’t matter what happened next, or what they did to me…all that mattered was that we stand there with the people. That we did what we felt was right, no matter the consequences for doing so.

When people endure struggle together, connections are made that cannot be broken. However terrible the things being done to us are, we are growing stronger together. Each wound inflicted on us by the police makes the entire movement grow and become more deeply connected. Together we are stronger and once one realizes that many people support them, that we’re in this together, we each are empowered. We find the courage to do what is right, no matter what, in each other. Once you open that door and you realize what really matters and how things actually are, you don’t step back into habits of complacency or indifference or apathy.

BLAST: They took you to Boston Municipal Court. How were you treated? Where do you stand in the aftermath?

RM: I’m trying to figure all of this out. I hadn’t slept or eaten for a very long time when I was arraigned. I don’t actually know many details about where I stand. I was noticeably upset…not because of how I was treated or the conditions of the three jails and seven cells I was moved to over the course of my detention, but because I could not look away from the fact when I walked into the courtroom that my country sent me to war in a foreign country on an oath to uphold and defend the US Constitution and there I was – in America – sitting in a courtroom for upholding that oath the only way I knew how, the only way that made sense, for standing between people exercising their 1st Amendment rights and the police, repeating the oath I swore and meant at age 17. What does that mean? For what did I serve? Who did I serve? For what did my friends die and come home wounded or otherwise suffering from their experiences in war, if not this very thing? That’s a tough thing to process. In the Boston Municipal Court, I was betrayed. This entire country and everything it stands for was betrayed.

BLAST: What roles are you taking on within Occupy Boston?

RM: I dedicate most of my time organizing with the Free School University. I feel that discourse is important to understanding the problems we face. Sometimes I serve food, sometimes I take out the trash, sometimes I march, sometimes I speak to the crowd when asked, I participate in the Women’s Caucus when I can…it just depends on the day and where I am needed or where I am drawn.

BLAST: Occupy Boston is a month old. How are things at Dewey Square?

RM: Things are great at Dewey Square. I don’t sleep there or I wouldn’t be able to keep up with school or my volunteer work with Calling All Crows and Warrior Writers. Energy level is good. Conflicts that arise are worked out. It’s clean, just passed inspections as well. We are still increasing our reach, finding common ground, talking, and raising awareness about the issues we face, providing each other with mutual support/encouragement, and occupying a physical space for participatory democracy in the absence of representation within the governmental bodies that – in theory – are supposed to address and respond to our concerns and redress our grievances. A lot can happen in a month. I take things day by day.

BLAST: Even though there’s a winterization working group, some say Occupy Boston can’t last the winter on that spot.

RM: They can say anything, but what are they doing? I try not to get too caught up in pre-figurative guessing. No one can say Occupy Boston “can’t” do anything. They don’t really know, do they? I don’t know. So I don’t claim to know. I do know people have camped in the winter before, so it’s not really a radical concept. It’s also likely there are more options for Occupy Boston than simply staying or going. Nothing is black and white.

BLAST: Where do you hope the occupation will be a year from now? Where do you think it will be?

RM: I hope that a year from now, all people will be occupied by the things that impact us in our daily lives. I hope that a year from now, people will realize that we have a voice and that we have each other, that we don’t have to exist within the dysfunctional systems created by other people – that we can actively shape the world we live in, redress grievances, rethink our government and vehicles of inequality, realize and fulfill the duties and responsibilities that coincide with our rights, and acknowledge our interdependence. Where do I think Occupy will be a year from now? I don’t know.

For more on McNeill’s experiences read, “The Girls Come Marching Home: Stories of Women Warriors Returning from the War in Iraq” by Kirsten Holmstedt.

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About The Author

Contributing editor John Stephen Dwyer is in love with his native Boston but has also done work in Amsterdam, London, New York, Paris and other cool cities. In recent months he's photographed notables including Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, and Rosalynn Carter.

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