My name is Genie Durland. 
I'm a Quaker and member of Colorado Springs
Friends Meeting, one of the sponsors of this memorial.   I'm speaking today,
though, as a member of Christian Peacemaker Teams along with my husband
Bill.    Marq Anderson spoke in his talk about the need to seek alternatives
to war. Christian Peacemaker Teams represents just such a possibility.
Christian Peacemaker Teams was originated by the 3 historic Peace Churches ­
the Quakers, Mennonites and Brethren. Its vision is that of an unarmed army
­ an army of Christian peacemakers willing to take the same risks and apply
the same discipline to campaigns of unarmed peacemaking and violence
reduction that armies apply to the conduct of war. We work in war zones and
areas of lethal conflict to try to reduce the level of violence by
nonviolent intervention and accompaniment.
At present, CPT has permanent teams in Columbia, in the Occupied Palestinian
Territories and among indigenous folks  in Canada whose land is threatened
by logging.    Beginning in the fall of 2002 CPT has also had a team in
Baghdad working, after the beginning of the occupation of Iraq, to advocate
for the families of Iraqi detainees.  Bill and I were members of the
exploratory CPT delegation in Iraq the winter of 02 and 03 to discern what
CPT's role might be there and to build connections with Iraqi NGO¹s working
for peace.   While we were there we make friends among Iraqis ­ so we find
the civilian memorial especially touching in a personal way.
In November 2005 four of our colleagues on the Iraq team were kidnapped by
the insurgency and held for 99 days. One of the four ­ Tom Fox, a Quaker was
killed. The others were finally released.
A few days before he was taken, Tom Fox wrote the following:
    It seems as if the first step down the road to violence is taken when I
dehumanize a person. That violence might stay within my thoughts or find its
way into the outer world and become expressed verbally, psychologically,
structurally or physically. As soon as I rob a fellow being of his or her
humanity by sticking a dehumanizing label on the, I begin the process that
can have, as an end result, torture, injury and death.
    Why are we here? We are here to root out all aspects of dehumanization
that exists within us. We are here to stand with those being dehumanized by
oppressors and stand firm against that dehumanization. We are here to stop
people, including ourselves, from dehumanizing any of God¹s children, no
matter how much they dehumanize their own souls.

Tom's name belongs with the names of the fallen we¹ve been reading these two
days because Tom Fox died in the line of his duty as he understood it as a
Christian peacemaker. The U.S, military must have recognized his courage and
sacrifice because he was brought home on a military transport in a
flag-draped casket along with fallen soldiers.
Speaking for myself and in memory of Tom, I challenge us, no matter what our
faith may be or how it is expressed, to remember that all life is sacred; we
are all created in the image of God; and the true horror of war is that even
one person is killed.