Joan Baez
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(CBS/AP) Joan Baez was against the Vietnam War and she showed it — appearing at marches, once even blocking the entrance of a military induction center.

The folk singer is against the Iraq war, too, and she showed her support Sunday to protesters camping out near President Bush's ranch.

Baez took to the stage for about 500 people on an acre lot offered by a landowner who opposes the war, performing such classic peace anthems as "Song of Peace," and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone"

"In the first march I went to (opposing Vietnam) there were 10 of us. This is huge," Baez told the relatives of fallen soldiers before performing just up the road from the ranch.

Joan Baez Joins Peace Mom's Cause Singer Shows Support As Protest Flourishes, Even Without Sheehan
CRAWFORD, Texas, Aug. 22, 2005 | by Sean Alfano
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/08/22/politics/main789375.shtml

WASHINGTON _ John Mellencamp had hoped to have a famous friend on stage when he performed for wounded Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center on Friday night.

But at the last minute, Army officials refused to allow Joan Baez to take part, triggering a debate in Washington about music, protest and war.

It is doubtful that many recovering soldiers in their 20s know much about Baez, 66, a folksinger from the era when protest songs climbed the charts. But 40 years ago, the former Bob Dylan pal was a mainstay of the anti-Vietnam War movement, performing classic covers like “Blowin’ in the Wind.”

In a letter to the Washington Post published today, Baez described how Mellencamp, an anti-war activist himself, had invited her to perform with him at the concert. (Mellencamp, known most recently for singing in television car ads, stuck to music rather than politics at Walter Reed.)

Baez described in her letter how she declined during the Vietnam era to perform for returning troops. “Doing so would have meant condoning a war that was tearing soldiers, civilians, this country, Vietnam and, in some senses, the world, apart. I do not regret that decision.”

05.02.2007 10:52 am Anti-War Icon Joan Baez Unwelcome at Walter Reed
By Bill Lambrecht Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau
http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/dc-download/dc-download/2007/05/anti-war-icon-joan-baez-unwelcome-at-walter-reed/