CAPITAL REGION — On Thursday, Saratoga Springs resident Jim Fulmer will travel to Utica, where he will join peace activists, soldiers, veterans and anyone else who wants to come along on a 10-day walk across upstate New York to Fort Drum in Watertown.

The marchers — Fulmer estimated there would be at least 100 — will stay in churches and homes, discussing the war in Iraq with people from all across the political spectrum. Organizers have planned community discussions at each stop along the route.

This is the first march of its type, said Fulmer, a member of Veterans for Peace Adirondack Chapter 147. “What makes it unusual is that it’s peace activists working with soldiers and military families to bring about a dialogue that will end the war in Iraq,” he said. “We feel the best way to support the troops is to bring them home and make sure they get the medical care they need.”

“We’re hoping to have respectful, rational dialogue,” Fulmer said.

The event, called New York State Marches for Peace, is sponsored by a coalition of groups that includes New York State Direct Action for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, the Saratoga Peace Alliance, Military Families Speak Out of Upstate New York and Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace. It will begin in three different locations — Utica, Rochester and Ithaca — with the marchers converging in the Oswego County town of Pulaski before heading on to Fort Drum, a distance of about 45 miles.

Fulmer said the marchers are interested in talking with people who may not necessarily agree with them, and finding common ground. He noted that polls indicate a majority of Americans are opposed to the war. “I was talking to an ex-Marine in Pulaski, and we both had different opinions on the war, but we agreed on the importance of care for soldiers,” he said. “We’re all human, and I think we all want peace.”

Fulmer will march the entire 10 days, but people can walk with the group for any amount of time. “People can join along the way,” he said. “They can march for an hour or a day.”

The march will end on May 17 with a day-long festival in a park in Watertown that will feature live music, clowns and puppets. The hope, Fulmer said, is that active duty soldiers based at Fort Drum and their families will attend the festival.

Fulmer said he joined the peace movement after Sept. 11. He began to question, he said, whether a military response would be the most effective way to end terrorism and promote peace.

“I’m drawn more to the teachings of Jesus and Gandhi and Martin Luther King,” he said. “I’m concerned the war on terrorism is creating more terrorists than it’s going to stop.” He described Saddam Hussein as a “genocidal maniac who had to be dealt with,” but suggested a protracted war was not the best approach. “Is it moral to destroy an entire country in the process?” he said.

In a statement, Mike Totten, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War who served in Iraq as a military policeman before returning to the U.S. in 2004, said, “The time has come that the American public knows what is really happening to our soldiers and to the people of Iraq in their name. We can no longer rely on the politicians and generals to accurately report. Our voices will reveal the truth.”/story>