Bring Them Home Now! (By Carol S. Grier)
This was written by good friend and former Ojai activist, Carol Grier. Carol now does her peace work from a beautiful island in British Columbia. She recently spent some time in Washington, D.C. at the Winter Soldier Hearings. I was deeply touched by her reflections, and felt moved to share them with our community.
In Peace,
Sally
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They were dressed all in black, in the hundreds, marching single file, with white death masks and the names and ages of war victims on placards ‘round each of their necks. I caught my breath and watched in anguish—this after having listened to three grueling days of eyewitness accounts of the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations at The Winter Soldier Hearings in Washington D.C. last month. Five years on, and there’s no end in sight—another quagmire.
As a child of the 60’s and 70’s, I am still impacted by multiple tragedies of the Vietnam War. I know many families who were split politically and are still not healed. Countless Vietnam vets living in nests under bushes or in encampments under bridges across the nation are “survivors” still unable to come to terms with the illegal and immoral war in which they were used by their government and thrown away like so much refuse. More Vietnam veterans have died since the war by their own hand than were actually killed in Vietnam. And thousands more tragic stories from the Vietnamese too, should have taught us—but here we are again.
Tens of thousands of Vietnam “draft dodgers” and Americans who opposed their government came to Canada and have made this country their home. I now count myself among them. I made Canada my home as a result of America’s latest wars and occupations—those of Iraq and Afghanistan. I can no longer support a country that imposes its free market religion on the rest of the planet at gunpoint. Arundhati Roy’s words come to mind “--when the soul of [my] country worships violence.”
With this ache in my heart I went to Washington to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war. Though I’ve been back from D.C. for some time now, I can’t erase the words and images of soldiers’ testimonies from my mind.
The Winter Soldier hearings bore out my pre-war fears. Though not visibly wounded, these young men and women will carry the mental and emotional scars of war with them for the remainder of their days. They spoke in graphic detail--of running over civilians as if they were bumps in the road with their Humvees, of planting weapons on dead civilians to make them look like insurgents, and showed photos and video of the true human cost of war and occupation—oozing brains and entrails, torture, and the constant drumbeat of racism, sexism and dehumanization to make it possible to kill the enemy and obliterate his country. These were not the sanitized images that we see on the nightly news.
The first Winter Soldier hearings held in 1971, were an attempt by Vietnam Veterans Against the War to show that the My Lai Massacre was not just caused by “a few bad apples,” but by the immorality of the war itself. John Kerry, who participated in the first Winter Soldier Investigation explained prior to his testimony to Congress: "We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could come back to this country; we could be quiet; we could hold our silence; we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what threatens this country, the fact that the crimes threaten it, not reds, and not redcoats but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out."
Perry O’Brien, an Afghanistan war veteran (a medic), Winter Soldier organizer, and now Conscientious Objector, suggested in an online video interview http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031908J.shtml that there is an unofficial “don’t ask don’t tell” policy between military personnel and civilians--civilians want to glorify the warrior, but don’t want to hear the gory details of war. He suggests that the people at home have a willful ignorance that goes hand in hand with the military telling soldiers that the civilian psyche can’t handle the reality of war and that soldiers should keep what they do in war to themselves.
Winter Soldiers speaking publicly will allow citizens to understand the reality and true cost of war. For soldiers, it’s a chance to unburden themselves of what they’ve done in the name of so called patriotism, freedom and democracy--and to vent their anger over being used for naked imperialism.
Upon returning home, it’s taken some time to integrate what I saw and experienced in D.C. The faces of those young vets are seared into my mind along with the faces of war resisters I’ve met personally who have come to Canada to say no to this latest illegal and immoral war. These young men and women are often met with the opinion that they should not be allowed to stay in Canada because they are part of America’s new volunteer army and a contract is a contract.
We know that the US government lies. The “all volunteer army” is in fact, a poverty draft. Testosterone laced recruitment campaigns featuring F-16s, helicopters and aircraft carriers appeal to youthful idealism and dreams of adventure while promising job skills, and being part of something greater than oneself—not to mention large signing bonuses and college tuition. All this sounds sweet to young men and women without prospects following high school graduation. This deliberate targeting of the most vulnerable and destitute in society for use as cannon fodder is despicable and sickening at best. There is little resistance to war without a draft—as long as there are willing bodies to go off to the latest manufactured conflict—to fight for our ‘way of life,’ to keep us safe from the bogeyman du jour.
The reality for soldiers returning home is that the war is no longer a topic of conversation—either in the news, or on the public’s mind. One soldier described his dismay one night in a bar when someone remarked on his uniform and exclaimed, “You mean we’re still over there?!” And if soldiers are not forced to return to the war zone for second, third, or even fourth tours of duty, many have to fight a gargantuan bureaucracy to have their physical and mental wounds attended to. For many, that deferred college education becomes a low priority as they try to rebuild their shattered lives and survive just one more day fighting internal demons or PTSD. Is it any wonder that there is an epidemic of suicides among veterans—over 120 per week in 2005?
So I return from D.C. with a recommitment to align myself especially with soldiers who have the courage to speak out against war and militarism--Americans and Canadians alike. It’s they who can end the scourge of war because they speak with the moral authority of those who have been there and know war’s realities.
War is an ongoing cycle of death, destruction, and horror, and Canada can do better. She can welcome U.S. War Resisters once again with open arms. She can reassert her leadership in the world as a peacemaking and peacekeeping nation, and stop following the criminal conduct of the U.S. government, and bring her soldiers home.
I urge you to listen to the Winter Soldier testimony at http://www.ivaw.org/wintersoldier and to support War Resisters at www.resisters.ca.
Carol Grier, a former Ojai activist, now lives and works on a small island in British Columbia where she continues her work for peace and social justice. This article was originally written for a Canadian audience. The debate and vote on whether US War Resisters will be able to stay in Canada will be coming up in Parliament soon. The author can be reached at grier - at - saltspringwireless dot com.
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Comments (10)
You can thank a soldier for your cozy east end paradise. Our soldier are the best of what this society has to offer, not the " most vulnerable and destitute in society" like you would like to characterize them. And many have been going back voluntarily for multiple tours of duty. Leave Iraq now and let Iran and the insurgents slaughter their country ? Not something the world would enjoy watching.
Comment #1 Posted by: Freedom Train | April 16, 2008 11:06 PM
Carol and Sally, THANK YOU for sharing this account!
i downloaded ALL of the Winter Soldier 2008 testimonies and panels, and as audio they make up a 10-disc set (one disc as mp3's). if anyone's interested in having this historical and wrenching account, i'd be willing to copy the discs in either format for the nominal cost of discs and time.
Email me if you're interested.
Comment #2 Posted by: evan austin | April 17, 2008 12:17 AM
First of all - thank you Sally for sharing these heartfelt observations. This is all so tragic, senseless and horrifying for the future.
Freedom Train: With regard to the overwhelming concern for and indebtedness to our troops, aren't we all on the same side? Don't we all want these young men and women home safe and sound - physically, emotionally and spiritually. Haven't they done enough, sacrificed ENOUGH?
"Leave Iraq now and let Iran and the insurgents slaughter their country ?"
With all due respect, I am curious to know what you are implying with this statement. Which country are you worried about being "slaughtered". Iraq? Because hasn't that already been done - by us. Iran? If we invade Iran, isn't the danger there that we will do to them exactly what we've "accomplished" in Iraq?
I also must beg to differ with you as regards to what the rest of the world wants....but maybe we'll leave that for another thread.
One last thought, however -where in the hell is Osama?
Comment #3 Posted by: LTOR | April 17, 2008 05:54 AM
Sally, thank you for posting this editorial by Carol Grier.
We love and miss her!
Carol speaks the truth. I am wondering where else she is publishing this. I suggest giving the article a different title, one that conveys the scope of the article. Add author credit, contact info at the end.
I hope this will be published widely. Let me know if you need help sending it out.
Comment #4 Posted by: Suza | April 17, 2008 07:09 AM
Good to see Carol is still active up in Canada. She was instrumental in putting on our first anti-war, anti-Bush play back in June of 2003. I'm still a little bitter that Canada got her, although I'm not clinging to my guns.
Comment #5 Posted by: spk | April 17, 2008 09:33 AM
More Vietnam veterans have died since the war by their own hand than were actually killed in Vietnam.
This old urban myth, again.*sigh* Untrue. This unvetted propaganda has been recycled for decades, but a 1999 CDC study shows Vietnam Vets suicide rates no different than the general public. Don't believe it, just because you WANT to believe it.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20051111/news_lz1n11vets.html
Comment #6 Posted by: John Crowley | April 19, 2008 07:56 PM
The point in the article was not to give specific numbers, but to show that many soldiers since the Vietnam war have had difficulty adjusting to "normal" life after war. The point was not to denigrate those who've chosen the uniform, but to suggest that if a nation asks its young men and women to defend the country, then it must be prepared to care for all of them when they return, and pay the bonuses and college educations that were promised. The United States government has done a disservice to its veterans since Vietnam. My point is that war is serious business, and we should not be making capricious choices about it. The President lied to the American people to take us into Iraq. Congress abdicated its responsibility by not properly debating the seriousness of it, and the media sold us a bill of goods and acted as cheerleaders.
The military has done its mission as well as it could under the circumstances. It's time to bring the troops home--including the contractors, and let the Iraqi people take the reins of their own government. We need to fund the reconstruction of their country, and rebuild the lives of our soldiers coming home, not to mention the rule of law, the Constitution, and our civil liberties.
Comment #7 Posted by: Carol Grier | April 20, 2008 10:47 AM
Carol, you are so right on.
Well said.
Comment #8 Posted by: Dennis Rice | April 20, 2008 11:25 AM
My point is that war is serious business, and we should not be making capricious choices about it. The President lied... Your point in the article is not lost, you would be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't understand that war is "serious" and that peace is preferable to war. But when you claim More Vietnam veterans have died since the war by their own hand than were actually killed in Vietnam that number is @ 58,000. The CDC study estimates @ 6,500. That is 11%. 11%! You have overstated by 9 times. Do you realize that you could be accused of a lie? I'm not accusing you, I think you just didn't know. Now you know, and I hope you (and others) won't propagate the myth of the "wacky Viet Nam vet" with inaccurate statements. Thank you in advance.
Comment #9 Posted by: John Crowley | April 20, 2008 01:41 PM
Excerpt fromNY Times: 4/2108
On Monday, a class action suit brought by veterans groups opened in San Francisco charging a “systemwide breakdown,” citing long delays in receiving disability benefits and flaws in the way discharged soldiers at risk for suicide have been treated.
Up and running since August 2007, the hotline is an attempt to respond to at least some of those in crisis. Over eight months, it has received more than 37,200 calls and made more than 720 rescues — sending out, from a narrow office here in upstate New York, emergency responders all over the country to find someone on a bridge, with a gun in his hand, with a stomach full of pills.
Paul Sullivan, the director of Veterans for Common Sense, one of the groups involved in the lawsuit, said of the department: “I’m pleased they’re responding. However, much more needs to be done, so vets aren’t turned away from health care and don’t have to wait for benefits.”
Mr. Sullivan said that suicidal patients have not been able to get care promptly, citing the case of Jonathan Schulze, who was turned away twice from a veterans’ hospital before he killed himself in January 2007. Mr. Sullivan, who has worked at the agency monitoring benefits, said, “more than 600,000 veterans are waiting, on average, more than six months for disability benefits.”
Exact statistics on how many veterans commit suicide each year are difficult to obtain and verify. But experts agree that veterans are more likely — perhaps twice as likely — to commit suicide than people who have never served in the military.
Meanwhile, a RAND study released last week estimated that roughly one in five veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan has symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, which heightens the risk of suicide.
Comment #10 Posted by: Dennis Rice | April 21, 2008 01:00 PM