“A Soldier’s Peace”

“A Soldier’s Peace” to Mark Iraq War’s 5th Anniversary

In 2006, Utah National Guard Sgt. Marshall Thompson came home from his last active-duty tour—a year as a military journalist and editor in Iraq. He was proud of his service, he said; he was a patriot, but he opposed the war in Iraq.

This Friday (3/21), to mark the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war, Thompson will screen “A Soldier’s Peace,” an 87-minute documentary about his 500-mile walk across Utah in 2006 to express his conflicted feelings about the war. Thompson says he felt he “had to do something” after returning from Iraq. A quiet, private man, he settled on walking north-to-south across his native Utah, the reddest state in the Union, from Idaho to the Arizona border—one day for every 100 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq.

It will be the award-winning movie’s first showing in Thompson’s hometown, part of a series of events sponsored by Cache Valley Peace Works to mark the war’s anniversary. Earlier in the day, CVPW will sponsor the day-long exhibition of EYES WIDE OPEN, the powerful American Friends Service Committee collection of combat boots and civilian shoes representing Iraq war dead. Taggart Student Center, Utah State University.

Thompson, a journalist, Mormon and Utahn, graduated from Utah State’s journalism program in 2002 and has served as a journalist or National Guardsman—or both—in Iraq, Kosovo, Korea, Jerusalem and, currently, as a reporter for the Ogden (Utah) Standard-Examiner.

Following Friday's film, he will be part of a panel on “Activism—An American Heritage,” also featuring local social activists: Friday, March 21, 7 p.m., Eccles Science Learning Center Auditorium, Utah State University, Logan, Utah.

For more information on Marshall Thompson, his views on the Iraq war or to find out more about booking his documentary film, see his website, A Soldier’s Peace (http://www.asoldierspeace.com).