"Let's listen in now to the Marine Corps Band," the CNN commentator says. The camera pans across the Washington Mall. People, as far as the eye can see, waiting for the inauguration of the 44th president of the United States of America, the first African American to ever hold this high office.

The music projects a holy canopy of sound over these proceedings. "Democracy's most sacred moment," the CNN commentator calls it.

George W. Bush appears through an arch of velvet curtains, waving, smiling, his last presidential appearance. The signal is given. The Marine Corps Band bursts into "Hail to the Chief." The musicians know it cold, having played it a thousand times before.

"This is the last time George W. Bush will hear ‘Hail to the Chief' being played for him," the CNN commentator intones as the president descends red-carpeted stairs, making his way to his seat of honour. "The next time you hear it, in just a few moments, it'll be for his successor, President Obama, who will then hear it for the first time being played for him."

It strikes me with the force of a physical blow: Tom, you used to play "Hail to the Chief" all the time. You were a member of the Marine Corps Band.

On 19 January 2009 fifty CPTers and supporters carried cardboard coffins covered with Palestinian flags through downtown Chicago, dramatizing Boeing's deadly connection to Israel's recent offensive in Gaza. Chicago police arrested four of the mourners when they knelt to pray beside the coffins placed at the front door of Boeing Headquarters.

Boeing makes the GBU-39 small diameter bombs and the Apache helicopters used by the Israeli military during its recent war on Gaza.  More than 1300 Palestinians, mostly women and children, lost their lives, and thousands more were injured when bombs fell on neighborhoods, schools, hospitals and UN food warehouses.

Participants in the 19 January Martin Luther King Day witness sought to honor Dr. King's call to end racism, militarism and poverty.

"Taking this step to expose one of the biggest perpetrators of militarism is a fitting memorial to Dr. King," said CPT training participant Janie Stein. "The people of Palestine and Israel will have a greater chance for peace and security when corporations like Boeing stop sending weapons to the region."

We were on the Cimitarra River, following a narrow creek to an adjoining lake, gathering families from four surrounding villages for the "Celebration of Life and Resistance to Oppression" at Four Rivers.  The sponsoring organization requested CPT accompaniment because we were entering an area of conflict in the ongoing war. As the creek narrowed, we encountered a larger boat stuck in the plant growth, making the creek impassable to us.

What would you do if armed government soldiers came into your home, greeted you formally, and announced they were taking your twelve-year old daughter? She would be a “military wife,” available for sex, cooking, washing, carrying heavy goods, and other chores that soldiers will not do.

Last week, soldiers did this to families of two schoolgirls in Kashenda village, which CPT visited last weekend with its partner Groupe Martin Luther King. The girls are friends--one in the last grade of primary school, the other in the first year of secondary school. Their families are heartbroken. Their parents are afraid to leave their homes.