Lauren Justice
David Soumis, left, and Lars Prip, center, talk with Sachin Deshpande beneath a drone replica at the Dane County Farmers’ Market on Capitol Square.
It’s a beautiful, sunny Saturday morning at the Farmers’ Market, and David Soumis is patiently listening to a man make a point.
“I’m a warmonger,” asserts the man. “No, call me a militarist. I believe in strong defense and a strong military, but I also believe in the Constitution.”
Soumis, who’s wearing a Veterans for Peace vest, advocates a much different worldview. But he doesn’t try to change the man’s mind.
“I allowed him to say his piece. I am not confrontational. I do not yell. I do not persuade,” Soumis later says. “My place is to listen, to understand where others are coming from, and present a peaceful alternative, which I did earlier in our conversation. Plant a seed, if you will. It is up to each of us to find peace within ourselves.”
Soumis and Lars Prip are a regular presence on Capitol Square. They’re members of Veterans for Peace Chapter 175, based out of Janesville, and started No Drones Wisconsin.
During this Saturday morning, they interact with several people. A photographer who takes aerial photos with drones is “tired of hearing all the bad stuff that the military does; it gives drones a bad name.” A U.S. Marine thanks them for being here. Another man suggests they put the number of people killed in drone attacks on a sign. “You just gave someone a full-time job,” answers Prip, a Marine veteran who provided security for the American embassy in Saigon in 1968.
Prip’s parents moved from Denmark to the United States when he was 10. His twin brother, Sorn, also a Marine, died in combat in Vietnam. “Fifty-eight thousand Americans were lost in Vietnam,” says Prip, “and that doesn’t count the injured, those who still commit suicide because of it, and the millions in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. All this loss of life, and nothing has improved.”
Soumis had strong anti-war feelings in high school, but his draft lottery number was 81, a guarantee he would be drafted. In an attempt to avoid combat, he enlisted as an aircraft mechanic and was sent to Phù Cát Air Base in Vietnam. He saw action during the Vietcong’s 1972 Easter Offensive. “I spent six months there, in war,” he says.
Almost 40 years later, both felt called to a different sort of action when they came to the Capitol in 2011 to protest Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican-controlled Legislature. “Something happened to take me out of my comfort zone,” says Prip. “I came here and never left.”
Similarly, Soumis “felt an energy that overcame me, and I had to get off my butt and get in the streets and talk with people.”
They met at the June 2011 Democracy Convention in Madison. In October 2011 they went to Washington, D.C., for a protest against air warfare. There they met Nick Mottern, a Vietnam-era Naval pilot who had built six drone replicas and put them in front of the White House as a protest display. They asked for one and got it in 2012. In summer, they bring it to the market most Saturdays.
“The American Air Force and CIA assassinate targets in residential areas, at funerals and weddings, and routinely murder children, mothers and entire families,” Prip says.
Today, people greet their presence positively. One person says, “Sorry you have to be here for another year.” Several men admire the drone.
Prip says, “It’s a slow process, teaching people what the government is doing. If just one person today changes their minds, I did a good job.”
Sharon Dawley Carr sits at the Mensa table nearby. Another market regular, Carr sometimes sees people say negative comments to the vets. “I’ve seen these guys with people like that, and they’re kind and calm and don’t engage with the other person’s anger. It’s beautiful to watch.”
Miles Prip has driven to protest at the Capitol: A Beloit resident, he estimates 26,000 miles just for the Saturday protest in the past five years.
Number of hours Prip and Soumis have protested: About 4,000 each.
Places they’ve protested besides Madison: Washington, D.C., Chicago, Milwaukee, Oshkosh, Fond du Lac, Minnesota.
What they do in winter: Demonstrate in front of the Veterans Museum and in the Capitol.
