By Jeff Gilmore

Life during wartime

HALF MOON BAY – It's been another rough week here on the Coastside. Seven more people were killed, four of them kids, when the Coalition Forces dropped a 500-pound bomb on a house in El Granada. They claimed there were "pro-Bush insurgents" living in the house, but it was just Mrs. Norris and that group of kids she's been trying to take care of since their parents were all killed in the "shock and awe" campaign last year.

You remember that time, don't you? When they took out Pilarcitos Reservoir and the power station? Now we're living in the dark and drinking the polluted water from the creeks to survive. And remember the bombing of Main Street? Somehow despite all the death and destruction of those weeks, what sticks in people's mind was how sad they felt seeing the crater where the newly rebuilt Cunhas Store used to be.

Down at the Green Zone they set up in the old Strawflower Shopping Center, some of the former members of the police and sheriff's departments were queued up at the razor-wire barricade waiting to get the monthly payment they were promised when the police forces were all disbanded. I guess one of the soldiers inside didn't like what one of them said and started shooting into the crowd. That made people so mad that they rushed the razor wire, until a helicopter gunship started firing missiles and everyone ran off (except for the three who were killed).

Worse, though, was what they did in Pescadero. The folks down there have always been proud and independent, and they've never taken kindly to being bossed around by these so-called "liberators" who were sent in to "save us from the tyrant Bush."

Anyway, a group of men and women had been meeting in secret and gathering up what they could find in the way of hunting rifles and pistols to try to strike back at the Coalition invaders. Somebody even figured out how to make a fertilizer bomb. They had loaded it into an old van, and Bob was planning to make a suicide run with it into the Green Zone.

You remember Bob, don't you? There was that picture of him last year in the Half Moon Bay Review, before they closed it down, sitting surrounded by the bodies of his wife and two daughters, with tears streaming down his face. I saw him a few weeks ago and, I tell you, one look in his eyes and you have no problem understanding why he would volunteer for a suicide mission.

So anyway, these guys were almost ready to make their strike when they got ratted out by some fink who wanted to get one of the big rewards the Coalition puts out for informants. Before you knew it, they sent in fighter jets and helicopters. Then they came in with hundreds of troops and started shooting at anything that moved. The guys from the local fire department tried to come in with ambulances to save some, but they wouldn't let them in.

They say the screaming of the wounded went on for hours before they finally died or went unconscious.

Worst of all, the day after, I heard one of their damn generals on the Coalition radio station saying, "At least 95 percent of those killed were insurgents." What a despicable lie – they killed every man, woman, and child who couldn't get out of their way.

Sometimes I get so mad I just can't take it. We've lost nearly everything, but one thing keeps me going – I won't let those murderers win without a fight. This is my home, and I'm not letting them add it to their empire while I'm still alive. I just hope I last long enough to make a difference.

Jeff Gilmore is a member of Coastside Peace and lives in Half Moon Bay. A version of this piece first appeared in the Salt Reader.