Marchers Ask Bush to Pull Out Troops

WASHINGTON —  War protesters marched more than five miles Monday to the White House from Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where many wounded soldiers are treated, urging President Bush to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq.

More than 100 demonstrators, carrying memorial wreaths, read the names of hundreds of war victims printed on slips of paper, which they then placed in a mock coffin.

“The administration needs to start telling the truth, stop hiding the toll and bring them home now,” said Gordon Clark, 43, of Silver Spring, Md., coordinator of the Iraq Pledge of Resistance, which organized the protest with Military Families Speak Out. “No one should be dying on a false case for war.”

The demonstration was part of a two-day rally that began Sunday in Dover, Del., to mark this week’s one-year anniversary of the war.

Jean Prewitt, 53, of Birmingham, Ala., mourned the loss of her 24-year-old son, Kelley, who was killed during fighting south of Baghdad in April. A former Bush supporter, Prewitt said she won’t vote for him now because he waged a war based on alleged weapons of mass destruction that have yet to be found.