A Marine veteran, author, and activist, an Army veteran turned activist that recently spoke at Cerritos College, a Cerritos College student activist and Anthropology major, and Art/Psychology major at Cerritos College were all part of the AnswerLA coalition organized anti-war march and rally on Saturday, March 19.

Hundreds of people gathered at starting point for the 1.5 mile march between Hollywood Blvd., Vine Street, and Ivar Street.

By the end of the route, the march seemed to swell to a few thousand.

While some speaking did occur before the march and even during a couple of stops along the route, during the rally, the voices of protestors were fully unleashed.

One of the speakers that appeared before the march, Enas Khaleq, is a member of AnswerLA coalition.

“There is a club on campus called Students Fight Back, which is members of AnswerLA  just recruiting students from Cerritos College to stand up and fight back against the US war machine,” Khaleq said.

Khaleq was very excited by the turnout of people, “You look around and all you see is a big crowd, I am really proud of us for pulling this off. So much hard work went into it,” she said.

One of the voices heard  after the march during the rally, also recently spoke in the conference room on the side of the Cerritos College library.

Mike Prysner, an Army veteran delivered a speech before a full house March 9.

Prysner said the day marks, “The anniversary of an atrocity, an illegal unprovoked war of aggression against a people that did not do anything to us.”

He said the importance of people uniting in support of a cause is because, “Change doesn’t come on its own, it comes through a people’s movement.”

Prysner said that the group March Forward, that he is a part of, was made up not only of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, but also, “several members of the Army and Marine Corps who are on active duty, who are refusing their orders to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.”