"Appeal For Redress" Founder to Headline Local Peace Celebration In Glynn Co.

GlynnPeace Press Release

Navy Petty Officer Jonathan W. Hutto, Sr., will be among the speakers at a community celebration of the International Day of Peace, hosted by GlynnPeace on Sunday, September 21st. The event will be held at the Farmers' Market pavilion at Mary Ross Waterfront Park A community meal will be served.

Hutto is a native of Atlanta and enlisted in the U.S. Navy in January 2004. Two years later, with a small group of fellow servicemen and women, he began Appeal for Redress (www.appealforredress.org), which provides a way in which individual service members can appeal to their Congressional representative and senators to urge an end to the U.S. military occupation of Iraq. Hutto, currently stationed in Norfolk, VA, speaks often of the little-understood ability of active duty military personnel to exercise their citizenship rights.

Joining Hutto will be Iraq War veterans Maggie Martin, Jason Hurd, and Doug Ament. Maggie Martin spent five years and two months in the Army, 14 months of which was under "stop loss" (involuntarily extended). During that five years she was deployed for eight months to Kuwait for Operation Desert Spring, another eight months between Kuwait and Iraq with the initial 2003 invasion of Iraq, and finally for a year in 2005 for Operation Iraqi Freedom III. She is currently a student at Armstrong Atlantic State University in Savannah and has been a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War for a year.

Jason Hurd is also living in Savannah now. He completed 10 years of honorable service in the U.S. Army and the Tennessee Army National Guard. From November 2004 to November 2005 Hurd served in central Baghdad as a medic for Bristol, Tennessee's Troop F 2/278th Regimental Combat Team. He graduated in May 2007 from East Tennessee State University.

Douglas Ament joined the military in 1988, worked for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, and helped the United Nations run the 2005 Iraqi elections. He is now a graduate student at Emory University in Atlanta.

The United Nations established the International Day of Peace in 1981 and in 2001 declared the annual date as September 21st for a worldwide, 24-hour spiritual observation of peace, nonviolence, and global ceasefire. Building peace one day at a time is the vision behind the United Nations resolution. Events marking the day are observed worldwide, including a minute of silence at Noon.

The local community celebration of the International Day of Peace is co-sponsored by GlynnPeace: Citizens To End The War In Iraq and the Social Justice Team of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Coastal Georgia. Following morning observances during church worship services, a community gathering will take place at the Farmers' Market pavilion in Mary Ross Waterfront Park, on Bay Street in downtown Brunswick, beginning with the Noon minute of silence. Participants are encouraged to bring an international dish to share, but some food and drinks will be provided by the sponsors. Music will be provided by local musician Bill Owens. There will be special activities for children, literature tables, an opportunity to register to vote, and lots of food and fellowship. The time together will include brief presentations from Hutto, Hurd, Martin, and Ament, ending at 3:00 PM.

"Recognizing that churches let out at different times," says organizer Robert Randall, "we wanted to keep the schedule fluid. Folk can come anytime after church, put their dish on the serving table, dig in and eat, and just enjoy the time together with other neighbors. Kids can join in the activities for them. Listen to Bill. Talk with our guests. It's a time to put aside violence and live in peace."

Organizers plan to have the pavilion well decorated with signs, banners, and flags of many nations. "It's an international celebration, emphasizing that we're all in this together and we all want peace," stated Cathy Browning, another organizer of the event.

The event is free and the public is encouraged to attend. For more information call 262-1274 or 996-6523 or visit www.glynnpeace.org.