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News :: Protest Activity |
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Veteran's Day in Chicago |
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by Jessica Pupovac, Chicago IMC
Email: pupovac (nospam) bust.com (unverified!) |
12 Nov 2004
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This morning in downtown Chicago, Vietnam Vets Against the War held their annual Veteran’s Day rally, drawing a crowd of about fifty Vets, along with their family members and supporters. They have gotten together for over thirty years now to honor Veterans by standing up for their rights, denouncing their being sent into unjust wars and calling for the US to put it’s money where it’s mouth is and “support our troops.” However, this year differed from those that came before it in one very significant aspect: taking the podium was a newcomer, representing a generation of Veterans just recently finding their voice and their place in the anti-war movement. This year‘s rally included veterans back from Iraq and opposed to the occupation.
Wisconsin resident Private Leah Byron was the first to take the podium. She enlisted in the army three years ago, attracted to the career and educational opportunities and the dignity that comes with being a soldier. She went into Iraq was with the first troops almost two years ago and has been home since last December. She spoke of her fears of depleted uranium, of recent drastic cuts in Veteran’s benefits, and of the growing opposition within the military to the occupation. “If you don’t get active, you are doing a disservice to our troops,” she said. Joining the anti-war movement was a given for Leah, who sought conscientious objector status during the buildup to the war, already questioning the rationale for the invasion. After spending one year there, she is convinced.
For others, like Marine Sargeant Rob Sarra of Chicago, crossing over to the anti-war movement was one of the hardest decisions one could ever make. “I’m no pacifist,“ Rob explains, who joined the marine corps in 1995 to be a “hero.” But, after he came home and watched the administration fumble their eroding case for war, it became clear to him that “the main reason we are there is because Halliburton needs a security force.” After much soul searching, he began to speak out. “It’s very hard,“ he explains, “being a marine, being a soldier, being a combat veteran, having buddies over there, having guys still engaged.. and saying ‘hey, this is wrong.’ Nobody wants to come home from a war and realize that it was the wrong war, that what you did was for nothing.”
Previously, opposition to "Operation Enduring Freedom" from within the military was found only among a handful of retired generals and senior officers, who questioned more than anything optimistic Pentagon projections. But now, almost two years after the first troops rolled into Iraq, rank-and-file soldiers and their families are gradually beginning to speak up, and as more and more men and women begin to come home, their numbers are growing.
One of those supportive family members is Stacey Paeth of Military Families Speak Out, who also addressed the crowd. Stacey told the story that her son, who just returned from the war, isn’t ready to share. Justin was apparently forced to continue fighting after receiving an injury that put him in a leg cast. The conditions are horrible,” Paeth reported. More than one of Justin’s colleagues committed suicide while he was there.
The lack of care and attention afforded our soldiers by the military, according to Pvt. Byron, is evident in the lack of training they are receiving to safely deal with depleted uranium. Equipment such as docimeters, which the military is required to furnish for every soldier, to signal dangerous levels of radiation, are not being issued. Byron suspects that this lack of information is a deliberate attempt to keep the extent of uranium contamination from public knowledge.
Byron also reported rampant cases of sexual abuse taking place, with no repercussions. She says that soldiers are arbitrarily assigned to act as ‘Equal Opportunity‘ point persons, regardless of their experience or personal views, and are to field all complaints of race- or sex-based discrimination and abuse. “They might even be someone who condones that behavior,” she says, “ and so ultimately there is no one to report it to. It is another one of those things that is being swept under the carpet.”
Local Vietnam Vets denounced the erosion of Veteran’s benefits, an problem that Iraq Vets are only beginning to grasp. Bill Davis of VVAW said, “The Bush administration says it values veterans but shows its hypocrisy in its actual policies: trying to cut imminent danger pay, closing VA hospitals, requesting cuts in military housing and medical facility funding for active duty military [and] keeping sick and wounded soldiers waiting for months to see doctors.”
Leah and Rob, like many of the Vietnam Vets who came before them, enrolled in the military with the idea that they would be fighting for democracy, freedom and dignity. They came to find that these are not ideals that they were sent to secure for foreign countries or even defended for their own, but rather they are ideals they are fighting for today, through speaking the truth about their experiences, through fighting to bring their friends home now and through struggling to obtain the benefits, and the dignity, they so deserve. The have found meaning in this war among the ranks of the anti-war movement.
Rob is currently serving as the Midwest Regional Contact for Iraq Vets Against the War , a group that made it’s public debut outside of the Republican National Convention last August, where he said that the Vietnam Vets present greeted them with open arms and “treated us like little brothers.” More and more returning vets are being drawn to the organization and Rob reports that they are receiving a flood of email messages from soldiers on active duty, eager to get connected upon their return. |
See also:
http://www.ivaw.net
http://www.vvaw.org
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This work is in the public domain |
