On March 17, 2007, the ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition organized a march to the Pentagon to coincide with the 4th Anniversary of the Iraq War. At the same time, the event marked the fortieth anniversary of the historic march on the Pentagon during the height of protests to the Vietnam War.

Approximately 50,000 demonstrators participated in the event whose potential numbers were severely diminished by plummeting temperatures, high winds and several inches of rain, snow and sleet that blanketed the Northeast the day before. Led by a contingent of Iraq war veterans, active-duty service-members, Gold Star families, and veterans from other wars, the march began at Constitution Gardens (near the Lincoln Memorial) and proceeded across Memorial Bridge, down Washington Boulevard and to the north parking lot of the Pentagon. Speakers at the rally included Cindy Sheehan, Cynthia McKinney, Jonathan Hutto (co-founder of Appeal for Redress), Mahdi Bray (Executive Director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation) and Rocky Anderson (mayor of Salt Lake City).

Protestors were greeted that morning by hundreds of counter demonstrators, many of whom were veterans. The counter rally and mobilization of counter demonstrators had been organized under the name of “Gathering Eagles” through the patently false rumor that plans were afoot to vandalize the Vietnam Memorial. Participating groups included “Rolling Thunder”, the name given to the U.S. Air Force's B-52 carpet-bombing of Vietnam between February 1965 and October 1968, in which thousands of Vietnamese civilians died each month.

Whether the “Gathering Eagles” were there to protect the Vietnam Memorial or not, it was clear that many had the ulterior motive to line portions of the march route and intimidate anti-war protestors. Of the thousands that marched that day, there would be scarce few that could not recall several (if not numerous) “incidents” initiated by counter demonstrators, including body-slamming, grabbing and tossing of headgear, spitting, racist comments, the taking and tearing up of signs, and the use of obscene verbal and physical gestures. On numerous occasions “provocateurs” would block the progress of a marcher, issue inflammatory statements and attempt to elicit a response that would likely have been met with strong physical retaliation.

Affiliate organizations of the Virginia Antiwar Network (VAWN) helped to mobilize people to the event from across the Commonwealth. Two motor coaches, each, were sent from Tidewater, Richmond and Charlottesville, with an additional motor coach coming from the Blacksburg/Roanoke area. In addition, numerous carpools were also organized from other parts of the state. VAWN affiliates marched under the banner of “Bring Them Home” … “Money for Jobs & Education, Not for Wars & Occupations”.

Unknowingly, VAWN organizers had selected a “meet-up” spot for assembling the “Virginia Contingent” immediately adjacent to the rally site of the “Gathering Eagles”. Counter demonstrators from the rally spilled over along Constitution Avenue, forming a “gauntlet” along the sidewalk, through which pedestrians had to pass. The Virginia Contingent, along with members of Code Pink and other antiwar demonstrators attempting to make there way along the sidewalk to their rally site, had to pass almost single file through the counter demonstrators, being subjected not only to jeers, but the grabbing of signs, verbal threats and physical threats through stiff shoulder blocks. Police were present but did nothing to control the counter demonstrators.

Once on the other side of the Memorial Bridge, marchers were finally free of the abuse and intimidation by the “Gathering Eagles”, the sun shown briefly for a few minutes and a small rise gave a good vantage of the size of the crowd of antiwar protestors that had gathered that day to mark the 4th Anniversary of this illegal and immoral, “preemptive” war that has utterly destroyed the infrastructure of a once vibrant nation, cost the lives of tens of thousands of innocent people, greatly magnified the threat and use of terrorism, and destabilized an entire region, the consequences of which have yet to be fully played out.