Winter Soldier

Received in an e-mail yesterday . . .



"A Letter To Veterans"

There is a certain bond between those who have served in the military.
Veterans come in all sizes, shapes and persuasions and don't
necessarily always agree, but we cover each other's backs. Especially
among those who have trained for or seen the horrors of war directly
and are now committed to a peaceful world. When we hear a veteran speak
about combat it does something to us. Even among non-combat vets there
is empathy for the suffering we know will be expressed. There is guilt
about what more we could have done. Surviving veterans know each
other's pain.

Combat vets served during the very hardest of times. Vietnam and Iraq
are the nadir of empire, and we have seen the bloody entrails when
bullets and bombs go wrong and a country turns its back. Like the Light
Brigade, we were sent on missions we couldn't have won, and shouldn't
have won if we could. We ended up killing and being killed for the
wrong reasons or for no reason at all. These wars were fool's errands
that made the few rich and left the many with too much pain to
remember. As the war of occupation in Iraq nears completion of five
bloody years with 4,000 Americans and over a million Iraqi deaths,
Americans, especially veterans, have an increased awareness of how
occupation destroys the occupier as well as the occupied.

But who is there to tell? The people back home, misled by the Bush
administration and the media? The media waved flags and cheered the war
on, blinding America to the coming burdens, sufferings and deaths of
our own soldiers and of the Iraqi people as their country and lives
were destroyed. There are deep wounds, both of the body and spirit that
our veterans bring back home, if they come back at all, to the country
they served, not always proudly but with love.

Many now are sick of the so-called glory, sick of the lame excuses
that send young men and women to fight in a war for oil and empire to
make the few wealthy, gorged with their own power, while hundreds of
thousands are reduced to desperate, haunted lives because of lies.

That is why from March 13-March 16, U.S. veterans who served in Iraq
and Afghanistan will testify to what is really happening day in and day
out, on the ground in these occupations. It is called Winter Soldier
and is organized by IVAW (Iraq Veterans Against the War).

Iraq Veterans Against the War intends, by telling their stories, that
they begin to heal not only themselves but also our country. This is
the second version of Winter Soldier, the first being the testimony
given by Vietnam veterans in 1971, consequently made into a full-length
documentary of the same name.

But the name goes back even further to another time in history, a
period when Americans were the ones being occupied by a foreign power.
Tom Paine, then a foot soldier at Valley Forge in 1776 wrote, "These
are the times that try men's souls.

The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis,
shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now,
deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."

Following Winter Soldier on Wednesday, March 19, and marking five
years of occupation in Iraq, national and local peace groups are
calling for a day of non violent civil resistance and direct action in
Washington D.C.

Veterans For Peace, a national organization of vets dedicated to
raising public awareness of the true costs and consequences of
militarism and war is inviting all veterans to join in a massive
Veterans March for Peace throughout the Capital on March 19.

Veterans for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Vietnam Veterans
Against the War and other veterans groups dedicated to peace do not
intend to desert the country in its time of need. Service men and women
take an oath to uphold and protect the Constitution (and the country)
against all enemies foreign and domestic. These days it is clear that
the real enemies are our own so called leaders. As veterans we look
forward to another chance to serve, this time, as citizens to free
America from the evils that imperil us and the world: an administration
spun out of control, wreaking our economy, polluting the earth, waging
preemptive wars of aggression and killing millions in our name. These
are the times that try men's (and women's) souls. Please join us.

To find out more about Winter Soldier and March 19 google Veterans for
Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War and/or 5 Years too Many. Actual
web sites are: http://www.veteransforpeace.org/;
http://www.5yearstoomany.org/; http://ivaw.org/

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The video below includes brief interviews with some Iraq Veterans Against the War as well as combat re-enactments staged during demonstrations in New York.