A retired nurse and 72-year-old grandmother from Ames is risking her life to spread a message of peace to the citizens of Iraq.

Marian Solomon will leave Oct. 23 for a trip to Iraq that is illegal — and dangerous. Solomon and 13 others will arrive in Amman, Jordan, before continuing by bus to Iraq.

The trip will last for two weeks if all goes as planned. It could last longer depending on circumstances that arise in the Middle East.

Solomon said she is going because she “recognizes that people are suffering.” She said the role of the group is “to stand in the way of violence and prevent it if possible.”

Members of the group — more than a dozen peace activists from both the United States and Canada — each face a possible 12-year prison sentence and a $1 million fine.

Gabe Huck, spokesman for Voices in the Wilderness, which is co-sponsoring the trip with Christian Peacemaker Teams, said for the most part the entrance law has not been enforced. Recently, however, one man was fined and put in jail for attempting to enter the country with medical supplies.

Huck said the team going to Iraq will bring awareness about life in the Middle East to others here at home.

Also, “by their presence in Iraq they are communicating that many, many people in the United States are against war,” he said.

Claire Evans, delegation coordinator for Christian Peacemaker Teams, said the team will go “with eyes open and ears listening” so they can communicate what is happening back home.

She also said the United States might think twice about bombing Iraq if it is known that U.S. citizens are there.

Congress’ approval of a resolution yesterday that gives Bush the power to take aggressive action against Iraq makes the trip even more urgent, Evans said. She said the organization planned the trip knowing this might happen.

Christian Peacemaker Teams has been traveling to Chicago to protest against a possible war for weeks.

Solomon said some of her Palestinian friends wanted her to return to the Middle East. Although this will be her first trip to Iraq, last year she went to the West Bank, the Israeli-Palestinian battleground.

“Things were very bad last November when I was there,” Solomon said.

She said while she was there cars were set on fire, children were not allowed to go to school and people were brutally killed. This leaves many Palestinians with no hope, she said.

Solomon’s group will be going to Iraqi hospitals and will try to help undernourished children and talking to doctors, trying to share medical information with them, Huck said.

Solomon said she does not want the United States to go to war and is trying to do what she can to prevent it.

“If I don’t do anything, why, I’m just as responsible as anyone else,” Solomon said. “If I get killed … that’s the chance I take.”

Fearless activism has been a common theme of Solomon’s life. She became a pacifist nearly 50 years ago while in college. Since then she has lived in India with her husband, Ted Solomon, a retired ISU professor of philosophy and Methodist pastor.

Marian Solomon was jailed for protesting segregation in the 1960s.

She also participated in protesting the Vietnam war in the 1970s, and in the 1980s she helped to distribute school supplies to Nicaraguan children.

She is currently focused on helping people in the Middle East both by going to Iraq and by lecturing about the Middle East in the United States.

“I’m just trying to help people understand the peoples and religion of that part of the world,” Solomon said.

She said the United States is a self-centered society that often just worries about protecting materialism.

“Our youth need to be more concerned about other people,” she said.

For students “there are ample opportunities” to get involved, Solomon said. Even things like studying abroad can be a very eye-opening and broadening experience.