VVAW 40th: The clock's tickin'...

UNITY, STRUGGLE, VICTORY !

Cracker Swamp, Fl - Five and a Wake-Up -- and I will have stepped back through time in Chicago amongst folks that I haven't seen or talked to in over thirty years. Folks who collectively, along with thousands of others from all across America, locked arms and changed the face of America way back in The Day.

Talk about flash-backs!

The last time that I was in Chicago with VVAW was for national meetings in the early 1970's. What a time it was! There was an incredible energy surrounding everything that we did back then. An energy that pulled folks from all over the country to rally around the Objectives of VVAW, and to plan and manage a national identity and successful political strategy from the grassroots up -- an identity that ultimately had Nixon and his lackeys reeling in frustration, and suffering agonizing public defeat.

It was a maddening frustration for them born of VVAW's charismatic power to reach and influence the American electorate with its message of peace in Southeast Asia and social and political change right here at home. All of this despite the best efforts of the Justice Department, highly paid political operatives and negative media campaigns not only funded by the RNC, but which were openly supported by Nixon's increasingly crooked administration, i.e. Plumbers and Dirty Tricks.

Those best efforts were actively mounted against VVAW with a tyrannical vengeance, i.e. Gainesville 8 (12) trial re Center For Constitutional Rights, and the FBI COINTEL program re Glass House Tapes,1973. No biggie; we won anyway. Truth always wins in the end as long as someone stands up to tell it as did VVAW at the Winter Soldier Investigation, Operation Dewey Canyon III, and Operation Last Patrol to the Miami Republican Convention in 1972. Nixon ultimately fell in disgrace, many of his cronies went to jail and peace came to Vietnam. For a short while, America had its Flag back.

Now we gather in Chicago once again in another century, no less! This time it is to reflect on our history and our continued unity of purpose: the preservation of the Truth of Our Times and our apparent staying power under less than favorable conditions. It is a time to exchange tales around the campfire. Tales not only relived from The Day, but from what for many of us have become the lost years. Those years that were lost following the melting back into society of the true heart of the movement; the masses of stalwarts that took the mission and carried us to victory. Those years that the adrenaline was still pumping without a target for its manifestations.

I would like to think that this VVAW 40th Anniversary -- an incredible validation for those who stood and fought back in The Day and is in the best Winter Soldier tradition -- will also stand as a positive example for today's Combat Veterans as they return to The World and encounter the unfeeling bureaucracies, and experience the DOD and the VA's inadequacies in caring for their Special Problems. Problems that are unique to, and directly result from, America's Second Great Nightmare of Counter-Insurgency Warfare. Problems which were never adequately addressed by the government the first time around and so are now festering into open wounds again today, i.e. Walter Reed. Special Problems that are not only physically debilitating, but socially and psychologically debilitating. Problems that we have been actively dealing with for 40 years. Lessons that we have been learning for 40 years; lessons that we can share with them:

Unity, Struggle, Victory.

This 40th Anniversary gathering is a living example for our returning troops. By organizing and demonstrating a unity of purpose and employing the very training and skills and lessons learned in a military combat environment, they will earn a more powerful voice and image than those who would do them any disservice for political, personal or capital gain. These are the very ingredients that made VVAW history and ensured its continued existence.

It is these returning troups that bring us together again in Chicago on 3-5 August, 2007, some thirty years after we prevailed victorious against the tyrants of The Day, and the smoke from those surrealistic battles has long since cleared. We gather to consider and gain validation over our past history, sending a loud and clear message to our young Brothers and Sisters:

As we did it Together Then...

They can do it Together Again...

We are still here to support them in their battles, whenever needed and/or called upon.

Semper Fi!

Willie Hager
VVAW Regional Coordinator
Calif/Nev 1972-1974
http://www.vetspeak.org/

The Dramatic Disparities between the Tragic Casualties of Virginia Tech and War

By

Dr. Raymond Scurfield

Dr. Raymond Scurfield, recognized internationally for his expertise in war-related trauma, has written a trilogy of books about war’s impact. The most recent is War Trauma: Lessons Unlearned From Vietnam to Iraq. He also has several writings about the impact of Hurricane Katrina. He is an associate professor and director of the Katrina Research Center at the University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast and can be contacted at raymond.scurfield@usm.edu.

http://www.usm.edu/gc/gchealth/scurfield/index

Gulfport, Miss. -- The 32 people murdered at Virginia Tech on April 16 have received an amazing and heartfelt plethora of national media coverage and public attention for several days, and rightfully so.

This coverage included front page stories, color photographs and columns about each victim; all national magazines and television stations carried major in-depth coverage. Virginia Tech is rallying, shouting out, "as terrible as the deaths are, we shall survive and not be defined by this, and we will not forget those who were killed." What a wonderful community and national outpouring of grief, caring, reflection, recognition and determination.

Conversely, as a Vietnam veteran, I am acutely aware of the contrast and the deafening sounds of silence about almost all of the deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan of American servicemen and women. These deaths were recorded in small boxes at the bottom of a page in newspapers. An example of such a recording states, “A Marine died Friday during combat in Anbar province;” some notices add name, rank and hometown. No photographs or columns of testimony about each war casualty, about their lives and dreams that had been snuffed out in the war zone; no coverage of what family, friends, former schoolmates and teachers had to say about them. No nation glued to the television, no other national media coverage and no sharing in a national communal grieving and homage.

In fact, the over 3,300 killed-in-action (KIA) in Iraq and Afghanistan have all arrived back in the United States in caskets – in the middle of the night. This is a purposeful political decision to keep our war casualties shrouded in secrecy – diametrically opposite to the national spotlight shining on Virginia Tech. Similar treatment occurs for those classified as wounded-in-action (WIA) and arriving on medical evacuation flights. There are no television cameras to greet them or interviews about how they survived. In contrast to the wounded survivors at Virginia Tech, there are no interviews about their thoughts regarding their comrades-in-arms who were killed. I was in tears as one wounded Virginia Tech survivor described his fortune to be alive and his grief over those killed. Yes, this is how the coverage and homage should be.

Wait a minute. Why not the same extent of coverage and homage for each serviceman and woman KIA and WIA as that accorded to the Virginia Tech casualties? Are American servicemen and women war casualties so inconsequential as to not deserve such prominent, in-depth homage as a group, let alone as individuals? Or perhaps there are just so many KIA and WIA that the grief would be overwhelming if the media and the public attempted to pay the same depth of coverage and homage

Is it that too many in our country, from political figures and other leaders down to John and Jane Doe citizen, want to avert the painful reality of the mounting toll of losses and how horrific the actual daily carnage of this war is for American servicemen and women? Lest we forget, there is the exponentially greater carnage to the Iraqi people.

Until we are willing to have a Virginia Tech-level of national outpouring of sympathy, caring, grief and homage for each and every casualty of the current war that we are fighting, we will continue to keep our heads buried deeply in the sand. We will continue to deny, minimize, sanitize and avoid, truly avoid, full recognition of the tragedy and grief of the death and mayhem that we are sanctioning hundreds of thousands of Americans to face and experience day after day in a distant foreign land.

I say enough is enough. It’s time to stop such collusion of sanitization and silence about the full human carnage that is the immediate cost of this war, the extraordinary longer-term cost of those WIA and the costs for the even greater numbers of psychiatric casualties. Give each and every such casualty the same coverage, caring and homage accorded, rightfully so, to the dead, wounded and other survivors of Virginia Tech. Otherwise, stop the disparity, indeed, the hypocrisy. Treat the dead and survivors of Virginia Tech and their memories just like we treat each KIA and WIA in our nation's war.

Let's uncover who the real hypocrites and sanitizers of the full cost of war are, versus those who are willing, with eyes wide open, to continue to sanction a war about which we truly acknowledge the full human cost. Or we can continue to devote a mere few lines of national media print to each American life snuffed out, no in-depth national media coverage, no national mourning and homage. There will continue to be even less coverage of those WIA and even less of impacted families and friends. We can forget about any mourning and homage for the tens of thousands of dead and maimed Iraqis.

This is one of the many lessons unlearned about our American way during and following every war that we have fought. We engage in war with our eyes wide shut about the full human cost, now and later. The remarkable disparities between how the casualties of Virginia Tech have been appropriately recognized, mourned and honored, in vivid contrast to the pittance accorded to almost any of the 3,300+ KIA in Iraq and Afghanistan, is a tragic testimony to that indisputable fact.

America can treat our nation’s finest – who put their lives and health in harm’s way in service to our country – a whole lot better.

www.VetSpeak.org

Deja vus...again...

This piece was originally posted on VetSpeak in June of 2005, by Diane Ford Wood, authoress of the audio-book, Camoflouge & Lace: My journey with a windbender, http://cdbaby.com/cd/camo . She is also the On-line Editor and co-founder of VetSpeak.org. Juxtapose what you read here to the Iran and Afghanistan Veterans, given the recent news that shouldn't be too much of a stretch. Sadly, as we have been saying it should for equally as long; not much has changed, lo these thirty some odd years. There are lessons to be learned from all of this...so, here we go, one more time...

Windbender

www.VetSpeak.org

x

x

BEAUTIFUL AWARENESS, ARTIFICIAL PEACE

"It was through relationships and families that America first absorbed the veterans of Vietnam. And it is through their voices that America might finally embrace the heroes of that war." Russ Scheidler, Vietnam-era vet, St. Paul, MN

What follows is a letter to Anna Acker, a young Calif. woman writing a master's thesis on VVAW (Vietnam Veterans Against The War), Orange County, Ca, and their activities during the early 1970s. Anna was deeply moved by her interviews with Vietnam Vets while gathering and researching her material. We are moved by Anna's serious commitment to learn the true history of VVAW -- despite current efforts to rewrite it.

Dear Anna,

I speak for no veteran. I speak for myself as a woman who once marched beside vets protesting the very war they had just returned from fighting. To answer your question: Yes; it is hard not to be moved by Vietnam veterans, especially VVAW vets.

Back in "The Day," the entire country desperately needed to justify the losses of their sons and daughters overseas. VVAW and other organizations risked everything to point out society's mistakes and limitations. The price they paid you can still see in their eyes.

This collusion by society to discredit knowing voices is one of the most insidious demons we all face, vets and non-vets alike. Our eyes have seen, we know what we know, yet we are not only urged to be silent, we are commanded to be silent, faced with every type of loss if we don't maintain the status quo. The vets you are interviewing have spoken out at a great personal price. Some still speak out. Even today, the status quo demands to be maintained. Vietnam vets carry those knowing eyes into every life situation.

How can they not be disillusioned! How can we not be moved!

I believe that many Vietnam vets do not know peace because they will not adjust to lies or knowingly coexist with lies. And once you see one lie, you see them everywhere, not only in the government, but at home, at work, and even in ourselves. Learning to live in a world that expects us to get with a program like that − wow − what a painful challenge to our sanity most of us can't and will not meet. Some of us drown our beautiful awareness in medicines and other types of artificial peace to get by, others go blank, others never make it that far, some never made it back from Vietnam in the first place.

"How can I convey what I saw and felt: The feelings, emotions, flaming on-fire eyes of those young veterans around me, the frustration, pain, hopelessness and rage they experienced as they tried to readjust to a society that generally did not accept them; a society that often wrote off their ravings as whining, where parents rejected grown children and grown children rejected back?" excerpt from Camouflage & Lace liner notes

But lies are nothing new. Disillusionment, stereotyping, terrible loss, flashes of happiness forever mixed with guilt and sadness, are also not new. We all know the costs of speaking truth to power, and disillusionment is one of the biggest. Understood for what it is, disillusionment is an extremely valuable, conscience-inspired state of being. It is not the end of the road or a place to live. It is a place to visit, understand and move on from. In fact, I also believe that just at that moment when we break under the burden/gift of vision into full-blown disillusionment, is the exact time when true personal and social change can happen.

If we can understand our own disillusionment as the prophet it is, happiness and peace are actually possible − even in a terribly imperfect world. Yet most of us have no clue how to do this without relying on yet another form of enslavement like religion, paramilitary groups, cults, etc. Even more difficult to survive are those friends and family committed to a circular lifestyle of endless anger and hopelessness. Afraid of change, sticking close to the pain they know so well, they resist our attempts for a better life, and try to pull us back. Risking banishment, we move ahead anyway. The shift that causes in our lives, by nature, will also cause shifts in their lives. And that is one way to change the world − friend by friend.

To move forward, we must believe in our own sanity, even if the world does not agree. We must believe that where there's smoke, there is not always fire, that the crowd is often wrong and often desperately limited in perspective. VVAW is one group that has worked to educate the masses about actions the American people condone − but really have no clue about. Most Vietnam veterans know the truth. What a beautiful, selfless, essential mission. No matter what political agenda floats our boats, even if our lives are in great working order, or hopelessly tangled up in blue − that dedication and commitment should be honored, lauded and respected. But that is, of course, not often the case.

There is peace and strength in separating our own sanity from that of society's, but we can't stop there. The tooth fairy is dead − there is no beauty or hope waiting under my pillow. Our long-deserved moments of happiness or peace will not come unless we get the f--- out of bed, and do what we need to do to take care of ourselves. Our happiness (or even a good night's sleep) does not diminish anyone else's. It makes us stronger, and therefore the world is stronger. Disillusionment is a human, not American state. Every day the light bulb goes off and some of us find ways to live thoughtful, productive lives, no matter how grave our mistakes, no matter how much pain and anger we've inflicted or confronted to get where we are going.

So, Anna, even at your young age, your heart already knows all of this. You seek meaning and explanations for the unfathomable and unthinkable. It may take a lifetime to grasp the overview; maybe the older vets you are meeting will help move you along faster. Maybe the younger vets will, too. Maybe someday you'll write the book, or be a journalist who exposes lies with insight and compassion. Or maybe, like some of us, you'll end up boring strangers in some dark, Joni Mitchell café. But promise me you won't linger there too long, okay?

You are the future, dear Anna. I see great hope and beauty in that.

Diane Ford Wood
Camouflage & Lace
camo@alaskapress.org
www.VetSpeak.org

Swiftie (?) Update:

What Goes Around, Comes Around...:-)...

White House Withdraws Nominee:
Fox Gave to 2004 Anti-Kerry 'Swift Boat' Group
AP
WASHINGTON (March 28) - President Bush on Wednesday withdrew the ambassadorial nomination of businessman Sam Fox after Democrats denounced Fox for giving money to a controversial conservative group that undermined Sen. John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign.

Beyond Walter Reed: The Full Tragedy of Lessons Unlearned From Vietnam to Iraq

By
Dr. Raymond Scurfield
Associate Professor and Director of the Katrina Research Center at The University of Southern Mississippi.

Dr. Raymond Scurfield, recognized internationally for his expertise in war-related trauma, has written a trilogy of books about war’s impact. The most recent is War Trauma. Lessons Unlearned From Vietnam to Iraq. He also has several writings about the impact of Hurricane Katrina. He is an associate professor and director of the Katrina Research Center at The University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast and can be contacted at raymond.scurfield@usm.edu &

http://www.usm.edu/gc/gchealth/scurfield/index.

GULFPORT, Miss. -- Does the widespread reaction to the recent expose at Walter Reed and the neglect of some of our nation’s physically wounded Iraq veterans indicate that our nation has had a wake-up call to what the full impact of war entails—and what is required to address it? As a Vietnam veteran with a 25-year leadership career with the VA, please forgive my skepticism. The underlying institutional problems go far beyond any benefits from sacking high-ranking officials; cosmetic cover-up and pest control treatment at one military facility; and renewed time-limited Congressional oversight that eventually dissipates.

Walter Reed characterizes one of over 30 lessons unlearned about our nation’s treatment of war casualties over many decades: Our country sends us to war. Our military uses us in war. And our country forgets us after war. This unlearned lesson is compounded by a second--When our nation sends us off to war, a sacred covenant is made--in return for going into harm’s way and putting our lives and our comrades-in-arms’ lives and health at risk, the nation promises to honor our sacrifices and provide humane and timely war-related financial benefits, health and medical/mental health services. When this sacred covenant is broken, despair, isolation, rage, and alienation cascade in turbulent waves over our war-wounded and their families.

The wounded languishing at Walter Reed reflect the plight of many veterans who have been, are, or will return to find themselves warehoused too often in sub-par facilities and inattention in the limbo of “medical hold” status at numerous military installations. Just check out medical holds at Ft. Benning, Ft. Dix, Ft. McClellan—or elsewhere. As one mother of a severely wounded Iraq veteran said, “When he was no longer of use to the military, they forgot about him.”

These physically wounded are a fraction of a much greater number of casualties even more forgotten --- those suffering posttraumatic stress and other serious mental health problems. Various studies indicate mental health problem prevalence rates of up to 30 percent or as many as over 400,000 uniformed Americans who have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan to date! And this number will grow exponentially, because the acute psychiatric casualty rates of war always are much less than the longer-term casualty rates.

And then, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the object of several recent investigations, epitomizes more unlearned lessons. The head of the VA is a political appointee; thus, VA officials typically echo what the White House stance is and not necessarily act as vigorous advocates for veterans’ interests (Max Cleland was a notable exception)…another unlearned lesson. When a “new” war is being conducted, veterans of prior wars, their families and programs are pushed to the bottom of the priority list. In the midst of the emotionally charged climate to support our forces in harm’s way, perhaps this is somewhat understandable---understandable, but absolutely not acceptable.

A related unlearned lesson: pro-military political forces are not necessarily pro-veteran; too often they consider funding for veterans’ programs to be detrimental to funding the enormous costs to sustain the DOD in (or out of) war. And veterans’ programs suffer. It was the case before and during my leadership of several VA national and regional PTSD programs, and it is the case today.

One recent example: a McClatchy Newspaper study revealed that some 100 local VA clinics provided essentially no mental health care in 2005! And this is to a veteran population that includes still as much as well over a half million veterans from the Vietnam War alone with war-related mental health problems---the unseen or hidden casualties of war. And both physical and mental health casualties and their families are left, by and large, alone during the ensuing decades to fight the unglamorous, unbelievably courageous daily battles with lifelong, unremitting severe chronic pain, disabilities, disfigurement, impairment and/or anguish from seemingly indelible horrific war trauma memories. Research reveals that those wounded are among the highest at risk to develop PTSD---a double whammy.

Another lesson unlearned is the collusion to not tell us all that studies since WW II consistently demonstrate a very strong linear relationship between exposure to combat and the development of mental health problems, e.g., those who encounter the heaviest combat, have extended or multiple deployments are at higher risk to develop war-related problems. This is exactly what is happening today. The costs and implications for war policies and taking care of our own now and later are enormous—and lest we forget or not care, for tens if not hundreds of millions of Iraqis.

Furthermore, in Iraq, the increasing nastiness of and prolonged exposure to horrific combat conditions are combined with the increasing polarization and divisiveness about the war in Iraq and the growing specter of no honorable way out. These factors fuel a perfect storm of anguish and malaise that may well engulf untold legions of yet another era of wounded warriors and families.

Do not let Walter Reed be only a wake-up call; insist that our nation rallies to support the full range and duration of physical, psychological and social casualties of war and fully honors that sacred covenant that has been forged in blood and sacrifice. And yet . . . the experiences of innumerable Vietnam and (still counting) Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and their families keep intruding and pulling at my heart, whispering loudly to me, “You know that this, too, shall pass and if history tells us anything, it is that, once again, selective amnesia will eventually envelop yet another era of veterans and their families.

Dr. Raymond Scurfield, March 2007

www.VetSpeak.org

(This article reprinted from THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN MISSISSIPPI Marketing and Public Relations OPINION COLUMN; Media Release 3 March 2007)