[Dialogue] What Did You Do in the War, Grandma?

[Harry Wainwright]

Published on Friday, April 21, 2006 by the New York <http://www.nytimes.com>
Times 

What Did You Do in the War, Grandma? 

by Clyde Haberman 

 

No ageism is intended, but we're willing to lay heavy odds that it has been
a long while since the Manhattan district attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau,
found someone older than he is to take to court.

Bear in mind that Mr. Morgenthau is 86. He has held his job for so long that
it sometimes feels as if he began before they invented Ovaltine. How many
90-year-old drug dealers or mob hit men cross his path?

Yesterday, things changed. The district attorney's office pursued a criminal
case against a band of women, some of them old enough to call Mr. Morgenthau
"sonny."

Not that Marie Runyon, 91, is what you'd call a hardened criminal. Nor is
Molly Klopot, 87, nor Lillian Rydell, 86. Nor, for that matter, are any of
15 other women - a few of them practically kids, no older than 61 or 62 -
who went on trial yesterday in Manhattan Criminal Court, charged with
disorderly conduct.

The Granny Peace Brigade, they call themselves. Last October, they descended
on the armed forces recruiting station in Times Square. They wanted to
enlist, they said. They've been around. Send them to Iraq, they demanded,
instead of some 20-year-old who has barely tasted life.

When the military, shockingly, showed no interest in signing them up, this
Walker and Cane Brigade held a sit-in. The police ordered them to leave.
They refused. So officers young enough to be their great-grandchildren
handcuffed them gently and put them under arrest.

Obviously, theirs was an exercise in street theater, intended to draw
cameras and scribblers to record their opposition to the war in Iraq. The
tactic worked. Grandmothers being hauled away in a police wagon is what we
in the news business call a story.

While the style was somewhat whimsical, the grannies' message could not have
been more serious. A similar mixture of soberness and good cheer was evident
yesterday at a pretrial pep rally outside the Criminal Court building on
Centre Street. Sure, there were denunciations of the war. But there were
also photos of grandchildren and great-grandchildren hanging from strings
around the women's necks.

The mood was a contrast to much of the political dialogue these days -
simultaneous monologues, really, often about as witty as a Pat Robertson
fatwa. The grannies are "positive, upbeat, respectful, loving America," said
their lawyer, Norman Siegel, who added, "But they also recognize that we
have some fundamental problems that need to be overcome."

The nonjury trial that got under way yesterday, before Judge Neil E. Ross,
did not have to be. Mr. Morgenthau's office proposed a plea deal that would
have allowed the dismissal of the charges in six months provided the
grannies, forgive us, kept their noses clean. But the women insisted on
their day in court, hoping for a chance to speak against the war from the
witness stand.

"We are at a very important point in the history of our country," Ms. Klopot
said. "It is our responsibility as patriots not to be silent."

Whether Judge Ross will give her a courtroom soapbox remains to be seen. As
far as the prosecution is concerned, Iraq is a nonstarter. "It's not about
the war," Amy Miller, an assistant district attorney, told the judge. "It's
about disorderly conduct."

That's not how Mr. Siegel saw it. The purpose of the protest was "to alert
an apathetic public," he said to Judge Ross.

He also argued that the grannies did not entirely block access to the
recruiting center, a point conceded by police officers who testified. And
so, Mr. Siegel contended, the order for the women to clear out was not
lawful. They had "acted on principle," he said, "in a great American
tradition of peaceful, nonviolent protest."

Then again, a guiding principle of nonviolent protest is that one must be
prepared to suffer the consequences. Age should not matter.

If convicted, each of the women could be fined $250 and sent to jail for 15
days. Are they prepared to do the time? Absolutely, said one of the younger
defendants, Jenny Heinz, 61. "A number of us have made a decision that we
will not accept fines or community service."

Of course, a guilty verdict would have to come first. Then Judge Ross, 46,
would have to decide if sending some women nearly twice his age to the
slammer is really how he wants to be remembered.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

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