by Don Kazak

Anti-war sentiment is building, with between 45,000 and 80,000 people in an anti-war march in San Francisco on Oct. 26, where Weekly chief photographer Kate Robertson shot the photo for this week's cover story.

Working on the cover story enabled me to interview people in the Palo Alto area who are against going to war in Iraq, who are troubled by aspects of the war on terrorism or by what's happening on the West Bank in Israel.

Paul George, of the Peninsula Peace and Justice Center, has dedicated his life to working for peace.

Carol Brouillet, a member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, has been working seemingly nonstop since 9/11 on a one-woman tireless crusade to criticize aspects of the war on terrorism and work against a war on Iraq.

Brooke Atherton is a recent Stanford graduate who spent part of her summer as a human shield protecting Palestinians on the West Bank from the aggressive Israeli military actions there.

And then there were the six women who signed a letter to the editor of this newspaper opposing the oncoming war. I learned they had been meeting together since 9/11 to give each other a little bubble of peace and support in a world seemingly gone mad.

The terrorists attacks on 9/11, a possible war in Iraq, and Israelis killing Palestinians and Palestinians killing Israelis are all part of the troublesome stew of the world we live in, which touches us in different ways.

As I reporter, I have to stand off from stories and try not think about what I believe personally.

I was in college during the Vietnam war. I was also part of a pretty tight group of high-school buddies in Chicago. After we graduated, I went to college and they didn't, but we still stayed in touch because I was living at home, playing basketball, baseball and touch football with them on weekends.

One of those guys, Mike, was drafted and sent to Vietnam. He was wounded, sent to a hospital to recover, then had 30 days of recuperative leave back home. All of us old buddies got together to shoot some hoops in a park near where I lived.

Afterward, we sat in a circle on the grass. All of the rest of us wanted to ask him what it was like in Vietnam, but we were too shy.

I held my tongue, because I was in college and firmly against what I thought was a wrong war. My other friends, if I could characterize them, had no interest in traveling half-way around the world to get killed, but I think they figured, what the hell, this is our country and we should do our part.

Finally, he just told the nine of us: "If you are drafted, go to Canada." Eight jaws dropped in astonishment.

Mike went back to Vietnam and served out his tour of duty safely. But on his last day there his platoon was due to go on a late-night patrol. His buddies wouldn't let him go, and the soldier who went in Mike's place was killed. Mike had nightmares about that.

Another friend from my high-school days has his name on the Wall, the eloquent Washington, D.C., memorial to the 58,000 Americans who died in Vietnam.

A year ago, also with Kate Robertson, I wrote a cover story published near Veteran's Day. I interviewed several Vietnam veterans in a Menlo Park VA Hospital program aimed at getting homeless vets back into society.

Their stories were heartbreaking, both about the war and what happened to them afterward.

I'm a reporter, not a peace activist, but I abhor war, as any sensible person should. There are good reasons to fight and die for this country, but Vietnam wasn't one of them, and Iraq may not be, either.

It will not be a popular war, if it happens. A recent Time magazine poll showed Americans are almost evenly split about going to war in Iraq.

By the way, the headline, Cry "Havoc!" will be recognized by fans of Shakespeare: "Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war."

Don Kazak is a Weekly senior staff writer. He can be e-mailed at dkazak@paweekly.com.