About 90 Sacramento State students rallied to raise campus awareness of the effect that the U.S. Military is having on Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Rally for Peace, as the event was called, was held on Tuesday and put on by the Campus Progressive Alliance, a group seeking to promote social awareness among Sac State students.

The president of CPA, Mallory Fites, planned and organized the event, which gathered a fair amount of support from students. “I was pretty surprised. I was expecting around 50 people,” Fites said.

To Fites, it is very important for events such as the Rally for Peace to occur at the Sac State Campus.

“Our campus is pretty apathetic. I hope that changes,” Fites said.

In addition to the anti-war cause, CPA also advocates any cause that its members believe needs attention in order to promote positive change in the community.

CPA’s rally featured speakers, as well as many exhibits and tables put together by organizations offering information in the form of pamphlets and fliers on the negative effects of the U.S. Military involvement in the Middle East. The activists themselves also offered their views on the situation.

“We don’t even regard it as a war. We call it unlawful occupation,” said Stephen Pearcy, an activist who prefers not to be affiliated with a group or organization.

Many of the speakers present shared this opinion on the U.S. Military involvement and told of the apparent suffering that Iraqi citizens are enduring.

“Under an occupation, people are oppressed. That is what we’re doing in Iraq,” Pearcy said.

A few of the exhibits at the rally offered students visuals on the effects of the war on the people of Iraq. One exhibit featured graphic photographs of dead and wounded Iraqi citizens.

“We just want people to be aware and learn about what’s going on?.[War] is not like what the recruiters tell you,” said artist Richard Jacobson.

Jacobson’s exhibit featured artistic renditions of cluster bombs and pastel colored grenades painted in Easter egg fashion. The real cluster bombs are responsible for the deaths of many civilians in countries that the U.S. Military has been involved with, Jacobson said.

The rally was also heavily decorated with colorful peace signs and slogans relating to the anti-war cause. However, not all of these visual aids evoked the reaction that CPA or the other organizations had planned. One rally attendee expressed great outrage at a poster on display at the Peace and Freedom Party table.

The poster had a picture of a military cemetery and read, “You can’t be all that you can be? when you’re dead.” The offended attendee, a veteran of the Iraq war, said that the poster was disrespectful to those soldiers who have lost their lives.

No other opposition to the rally was apparent at the event besides a single anonymous boo heard from the crowd during one speaker’s presentation.

Lyle Chan can be reached at [email protected]