Protesters met at the courthouse square to share stories of fallen friends and memories through music. The gathering was full of sights and sounds that rang out for peace.

"Columbia is pretty liberal. It's one of the most liberal places in Missouri. So if your going to have any large showing of peace like this it's going to probably be in Columbia or St. Louis," said Justus Lacewell, a protester for peace.

"If you can get a bunch of people together and all be there for the same reason it really establishes a sense of solidarity," believes Glenn Rehn, another protester.

"You'll probably hear estimates of upwards 1500 people. Something like that, my conservative count is probably about 600-700 people. But, that's still a pretty darn good turn out," said protester Duane Burghard.

"It's called 'A Thousand Strong for Peace' so we're shooting for a thousand," said Rehn. "It should be just a shade under that but it should be close."

"If we all join together as one, maybe we can actually get something done," thought Misty Dawn McCullough. "We the people need to unite in order to raise our voices up and have our boys come home and our women come home."

"To unite for peace through this sort of symbolic huge chain. That if each of us link together than we can create a huge web, huge chain for peace," said protester Liz Klug.

"There's a lot of signatures on that banner up there," Justus Lacewell pointed out.

"People want something different to happen but we don't have the resources to make it happen right now," Rehn said.

"For those that think there might not be any opposition to this realize that there's all these people to say they don't like it," said Lacewell.

"It's going to be pretty big. It's pretty good...the march is pretty fun," thought Lacewell.