by Joe Carr

March 12, 2006

I first met Tom Fox in Chicago at a Christian Peacemaker Teams' training and we became good friends through our work together. He was a father with children about my age, and was like an uncle to me.

He was my team's coordinator during my month in Iraq. Shaggy, a young Iraqi friend and translator, nicknamed him "Uncle Tom" because of his paternal but playful manner. He provided a calm and steady presence, and an open and compassionate ear. His warmth and humor helped me to hang on through my depressing and fearful time in Iraq.

by Joe Carr

[The following are edited excerpts from the journal of former Olympia resident Joe Carr. Carr spent May and part of June in Iraq with the Christian Peacemakers Teams (CPT), documenting and bearing witness to the impact of the US occupation of Iraq. His complete Iraq journal can be read at http://www.lovinrevolution.org . He has recently returned to the United States.]

The Resistance

(Late May 2005)

[Joe Carr is a former Olympia resident. In 2003 he worked with the International Solidarity Movement in the Palestinian city of Rafah, where he witnessed the Israeli military killings of Olympia activist Rachel Corrie and British activist Tom Hurndall. He subsequently volunteered with the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) in the southern West Bank. In early May, he joined CPT in Baghdad, as one of the few internationals based outside the US-fortified Green Zone. The following is an edited excerpt of his ongoing journal, which can be read in its entirety at http://www.loveinrevolution.org .]

(Photo by Joe Carr)