Viper Pilot_ A Memoi..

a corner onto the Calle Vida, however, I heard the sound of drums and the
thumping of thousands of feet.
Now, the University of Seville was barely a quarter mile south, and it was a
definite hotbed of antiwar protest. But I’d come to see the church and its famous
bell tower and had no intention of walking through the university. That would’ve
been like cutting through UC Berkeley in 1968 wearing a uniform. So I ducked into
an alley next to the Alcazar—and came out face to face with a marching mob. Like
most protesters, they looked young. The majority of them were also waving flags.
All red. Banners, too. Hundreds of banners showing caricatures of George Bush
and Tony Blair; crossed-out NATO symbols, American and British flags, and one
very ugly Uncle Sam with his foot on the globe. They were chanting, too.
“No a la Guerra! No a la Guerra!”
“No to the war” . . . and there I was.
I got caught up in the flow, like a swimmer in a strong current, and simply rolled
through the dusky old streets with the rest of them. After a few twists and turns we
shot out into the bright sunlight, the crowd thinning as it filled the square. Blinking,
I slid sideways to put my back against a wall and looked up, startled, at the
sandstone-colored tower next to me. La Giralda; a minaret that survived the
destruction of the Seville mosque and was now a Catholic bell tower. Glancing
around then, I knew exactly where I was—the Plaza del Triunfo in front of the
cathedral. The square had filled quickly and I saw news crews scattered about, big
cameras panning back and forth over the crowd. What a terrific headline that
would make, I thought.
AMERICAN FIGHTER PILOT JOINS ANTIWAR RALLY IN SPAIN.
Then I saw her.
A young girl, maybe twenty, with long, black hair blowing in the breeze. She’d
jumped up on one of the concrete piers lining the sidewalk and was holding an
immense red flag. The sun was behind her, and the flag was made of thin material,
because I could see through it. The girl had on an oversize white blouse, a dark,
loose skirt, and no shoes. As I watched, she began waving the flag slowly back and
forth. All the people at the base of her piling began chanting and the girl smiled. It
was, in retrospect, a true Kodak moment. I watched for a few seconds then turned
to slip away—directly in front of a BBC camera filming the girl. Without hesitating,
I raised my fist and yelled, “No a la Guerra!” before gliding off into the crowd.
I eventually made it back to the hotel and never told anyone about it. As we