Far from celebrating free expression, the Pentagon’s September 11 Freedom Walk was expression free

By Christopher Hayes
September 13, 2005

IN THESE TIMES

When the Pentagon announced it would be staging a march on September 11, 2005, to commemorate the victims of 9/11 and show support for the troops, it was hard not to expect the worst: Triumph of the Will on the Potomac.

But after three of the dullest hours of my life, I’m happy to report those fears proved unfounded. Maybe it was the fact that the nation’s attention remains focused on the disaster in the Gulf, or that the President’s approval ratings have themselves sunk below sea level, or maybe it was just that Sunday also happened to be the first day of the NFL season, but of the 15,000 people who’d registered online for the 1.7 mile walk from the Pentagon to the Mall, only about a third showed up. Stacks of t-shirts and plastic dog tags, which were distributed to every marcher, sat unused on the registration tables. At the post-march concert, organizers had set up a Jumbotron 50 yards from the stage to broadcast the image of country music star Clint Black (author of the pro-war hit song, “Iraq and Roll”) to the throngs who couldn’t get close enough to the action. But there were no throngs-just a few thousand folks in identical white t-shirts sitting on the grass and clapping politely.

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