Sister Mary McGehee said she didn't know what to expect when she saw a man clearly upset over her and her fellow Benedictine nuns' protest of the war in Iraq approach them, reach out and grab a sign suggesting peace not war and rip it to shreds.

The man, later identified as Johnny Wood, a U.S. Army veteran who spent 17 months in Iraq as a gunner for the Arkansas 39th Infantry Brigade, later told Cullman police he "just lost it" when he pulled into the Town Square Shopping Center Saturday afternoon and saw the group of women holding signs protesting the war.

A passersby, who reportedly witnessed the sign snatching incident, called police fearing the confrontation might escalate. The nuns, however, said later they had no intention of filing charges against the man, whom they said was clearly suffering inside as a result of his experiences in Iraq.

"When I first saw him, he walked straight and hard to Debbie (Williams), grabbed her sign and ripped it apart. He screamed something like, "Why are you doing this? Who are you? or something to that effect," Sister McGehee said. "He told us he had been in Iraq and that 35 of his friends had died there. Here is a man who faced the ultimate and the amount of suffering he has inside and the amount of suffering being experienced by those in Iraq is unimaginable to me."

McGehee stressed that no one was injured as a result of the brief confrontation.

She and Sisters Eleanor Harris, Bertha True and Mary Ruth Coffman, all reside at Sacred Heart Monastery in Cullman and all are members of Benedictines for Peace — some for as long as 25 years.

Asked if any among them were members of the group which came to be known locally as the "No Nuke Nuns," because of their public protests of armaments and other lethal ordnance shipments through Cullman by rail, Sister Mary Ruth Coffman said they were one in the same.

"We're still at it and we've been doing it a long time," she said.

Beginning this past fall, the group received permission to gather at the Town Square Shopping Center in peaceful protest of the ongoing war in Iraq.

"We've been meeting here the first and third Saturday of each month and this is the first time there has ever been a disturbance of any kind," Sister McGehee said.

They hold signs with such slogans as "Make Bread, Not Bombs," "Peace Is Pro-Life," "Wage Peace," "Support Our Troops, Bring Them Home," and "War Is Not The Answer."

"Ours is a life of prayer and service. It's our prayer that we find a way to live on Earth together in peace instead of killing each other," Sister McGehee said.

Cullman police questioned the nuns and Wood. After receiving assurances from Wood that he would not return to the shopping center or cause any further disturbances he was allowed to leave. That was a tremendous relief to his wife Lori and son Seth, who feared the decorated veteran may be arrested.

"We drove into the shopping center. We intended to go into Office Max and make some copies when we saw the protesters and that really upset Johnny," Lori Wood said. "He said, 'Do they not realize what I went through?' He said he wanted to tell them what they are doing to a soldier and he walked over to one of the women and grabbed her sign and tore it up. He didn't touch her, but I was so afraid they could charge him with something for just grabbing the sign out of her hand."

A gunner and sniper, Lori Wood said her husband cheated death on at least seven occasions during his deployment to Iraq between October 2003 and March 20, 2005.