GI SPECIAL
4E23:
[Thanks
to David Honish, Veterans For Peace, who sent this in.]
“The Soldiers Have Become More Vocal In
Expressing Their Opinions Against The War”
One of the
things we discussed was the recent poll of troops in Iraq in which 72% stated
that the US should get out this year.
One of the
soldiers just back from Iraq told us “72 percent? It’s more like 99 percent!!!”
5.21.06 By Ron Ruiz (U.S. Army out of
service): Member The Military Project Organizing Committee, and Veterans For
Peace.
On May 20th members of the
Military Project and Veterans For Peace launched another day of outreach action
with soldiers of an Army National Guard unit in New York City.
This unit has many soldiers who
have returned very recently from duty in Iraq.
We were successful in
distributing the largest amount to date: more than 115 of the Traveling Soldier
newsletter and a GI Special excerpt, and many GI Hotline cards and GI rights
brochures.
Soldiers who stopped to speak with us told us
the materials we’ve been distributing are being widely read, and we are
also being asked to provide new materials as well.
We spoke to eight soldiers who just returned
from Iraq.
One of the things we discussed
was the recent poll of troops in Iraq in which 72% stated that the US should
get out this year.
One of the soldiers just back
from Iraq told us “72 percent?
It’s more like 99 percent!!!”
At one
point a sergeant nearby as we gave out materials to a small group of soldiers
told us to “stop giving those things to my soldiers.”
The
sergeant then turned to the group of soldiers and told them “I
don’t want you to bring that stuff inside.”
As the
other soldiers present nodded in agreement, one soldier, especially angry about
Bush and the war, responded loudly in front of everybody. “He’s
just saying that because he hasn’t been over there (Iraq)”
They paid
no further attention to his demands, proceeding to openly “bring that
stuff inside” the Armory.
It’s clear that we’ve made a
significant breakthrough with our outreach work. The soldiers have become very receptive
towards us and are recognizing our presence there. We are able to interact with them in an
increasingly friendly and welcoming environment.
The soldiers have become more
vocal in expressing their opinions against the war and are less hesitant now in
making anti-war statements to us.
It’s important to
continue building on the progress we are making.
Today was a significant turning
point in our outreach work as it has become very clear and visible how strong
and vast anti-war sentiment is among the troops and for the first time we
witnessed soldiers openly dissenting.
Do you have a friend or relative in the
service? Forward this E-MAIL along, or
send us the address if you wish and we’ll send it regularly. Whether in Iraq or stuck on a base in the
USA, this is extra important for your service friend, too often cut off from
access to encouraging news of growing resistance to the war, at home and inside
the armed services. Send requests to address up
top.
IRAQ WAR REPORTS
Another U.S. Marine Killed In Anbar
May 22nd BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP)
A U.S. Marine was killed in
action in Iraq's volatile western Anbar province, the U.S. Command said
Monday. The Marine, assigned to
Regimental Combat Team 5, died Sunday but gave no further details.
Funeral Services For Local Soldier Scheduled
[Thanks to David Honish, Veterans For Peace,
who sent this in.]
May 22 KOCO ChannelOklahoma.com.
Funeral services have been scheduled for a
hometown hero killed last week in Iraq.
Lance Cpl. Hatal Yearby's funeral will be 11
a.m. Monday at Marietta High School.
Yearby died Sunday when his vehicle hit a
mine. He was part of the 3rd Marine Regiment.
Bethesda Marine Dies
Of Bomb Wounds
May 12, 2006 By Dan Morse, Washington Post
Staff Writer
A U.S. Marine from Bethesda died Wednesday
from wounds received in Iraq, 18 days before his first wedding anniversary.
"They had so many plans, so many things
they wanted to do," the Marine's mother, Gilda Carbonaro, said when
reached by telephone yesterday in Germany, where her son died at Landstuhl
Regional Medical Center.
Sgt. Alessandro Carbonaro, 28, was known as
Alex. A reconnaissance Marine with
numerous medals and commendations, he was wounded May 1 while involved in
combat operations in Anbar province, according to the U.S. Defense Department. He was injured when the Humvee in which he
was riding ran over an improvised explosive device. He suffered burns over 60 percent of his
body, his mother said.
Carbonaro was on his second
tour of duty in Iraq.
Carbonaro grew up in a red-brick home on a
tree-lined street northwest of downtown Bethesda. His mother teaches Spanish at St. Albans
School. His father, Fulvio Carbonaro, a
native of Italy, is an information technology consultant. Alex was their only child.
As a boy, he hated seeing other children
picked on, his mother said. He graduated
from Sandy Spring Friends School. In his spare time, he and his buddies played
in a basement rock band, with Alex on guitar.
He joined the Marines in 1998. Four years later, while home on holiday, he
met his wife-to-be, Gilda, through friends of his parents. "Love at first sight," a family
member said.
Gilda was then a student at George Washington
University. Her first name is the same
as Carbonaro's mother's.
In 2004, Carbonaro took part in the assault
on Fallujah, suffering a foot injury from an explosive device.
The next year, on May 28, he
and Gilda married. By that time his
priorities had changed, his family said.
He was planning to get out of the Marine Corps by the end of next year. The couple wanted to live either in Georgia
near her parents or in the Washington area near his parents.
The couple wanted to raise
children, travel and have "long Sunday dinners with their parents,"
his mother said.
On Monday, Carbonaro's father warned
neighbors that his son's condition had deteriorated. "Our pain is unbearable," he wrote.
Two days later, he wrote again: "Our
dearest son Alex passed away at 10:30 this morning." He wrote that four people -- he, Alex's
mother, his wife and his mother-in-law -- were at his side. "We held him in our arms until he
exhaled his last breath."
Dothan Marine Sole Survivor Of Humvee Attack
May 19, 2006 Lance Griffin, Dothan Eagle
A Marine from Dothan was seriously injured in
Iraq on Sunday when the Humvee he was driving struck an improvised explosive
device.
Lance Cpl. Adam McDuffie, a 2003 graduate of
Northview High School, was driving the Humvee during combat operations in the
Al Anbar province in northern Iraq.
Three other Marines in the Humvee were killed. McDuffie suffered a severe arm injury. The extent of his other injuries are unknown.
According to information provided by the U.S.
Marine Corps, McDuffie’s life may have been saved by his protective
gear. He was reportedly wearing a newly
issued Kevlar helmet, flak jacket with front and side protective plates,
ballistic goggles, special gloves and throat and groin protector.
McDuffie was treated at the scene, then taken
to Al Asad Surgical in Iraq for further treatment. Other information provided indicates he was
transferred from there to Germany for more surgery.
McDuffie played four years of football at
Northview as an offensive and defensive lineman. Members of his senior class elected him
“Most School Spirit.”
“A Number” Of U.S. Soldiers Wounded In
Baghdad
5.22.06 Indo-Asian News Service
Two Iraqi troops were killed in
a roadside explosion aimed at their patrol in al-Adhamiya, a neighbourhood that
also saw another roadside blast targeting a US patrol, leaving a number of
soldiers injured.
The Battle That Never Happened:
The Coverup Continues
[Here
again is the news story. Since then,
over a month ago, nothing but silence from command. What happened? If you know, write GI Special. Confidentiality assured. T]
Panicked Marine Command Trying To Hide Details Of
Heavy Losses:
Two Dead, 22 Wounded:
Was Outpost Overrun?
April 20, 2006 New York Daily News
Two U.S. Marines were killed last Thursday in
Iraq's Anbar province in a battle that injured 22 other Marines, one of the
highest U.S. casualties from a single attack in recent months.
The Marines have refused to release details,
but it was the latest evidence that U.S. troops in Anbar, the vast desert area
west of Baghdad, are now facing large-scale assaults, with the enemy attempting
to overrun outposts.
FUTILE EXERCISE:
BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW!
A
U.S. soldier inspects debris after a bomb attack along a road in Baquba, May
10, 2006. REUTERS/Helmiy al-Azawi
AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS
Australian Soldier Wounded By Mine
May 22, 2006 AAP
AN elite Australian soldier in
southern Afghanistan suffered shrapnel wounds after the special forces patrol
vehicle he was travelling in ran over a mine, defence said today.
Australian Defence Force (ADF) chief Angus
Houston said there were no serious casualties from the accident but one special
forces member suffered minor shrapnel scratches.
The vehicle was badly damaged after running
over the mine. "The vehicle was
recovered by an Australian Chinook helicopter and will be returned to Australia
in due course."
Key Collaborator Killed
May 22, 2006 (RFE/RL)
The chief of police in
Afghanistan's Ghazni Province says a key ally of Afghan President Hamid Karzai,
the former governor of Paktika Province, has been killed.
Police Chief Abdul Rahman Sarjang said
Mohammad Ali Jalali's body was recovered today from a desert area in Ghazni
Province.
Jalali and four others were abducted from a
car on May 21 after attending a funeral service in the town of Chahar Diwar in
Ghazni.
Sarjang said the other abductees were
released alive.
A purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yosuf
Ahmadi, says Taliban fighters killed the former governor.
Jalali was a respected tribal leader in
Paktika, a volatile province that borders Pakistan. He was also the first
governor that Karzai appointed in the province after the ouster of the Taliban
regime in late 2001.
“Attacking And Then Melting Back Into The
Population”
18 May 2006 By Alastair Leithead, BBC News,
Afghanistan [Excerpt]
The Taleban fighters are still feared in
villages across wide swathes of the country.
Even if they are not supported they are
tolerated, and by attacking and then melting back into the population, they are
a difficult enemy to fight for the coalition and NATO forces.
TROOP NEWS
THIS IS HOW BUSH BRINGS THE TROOPS HOME:
BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW, ALIVE
The body of Army Spc. Bryan Quinton, 24,
during the graveside service at Green Hill Cemetery in Sapulpa, Okla., May 17,
2006. Quinton was one of two soldiers
killed when a bomb went off near their vehicle May 4 in Baghdad. (AP Photo/Brandi Simons)
Support The Troops By Supporting
Their Resistance And Rebellion:
“Thousands Of Active Duty GIs Were A Vital
Part Of The Movement To End The War In Vietnam”
May. 18 by Mara Ortenburger, Indybay.org
If there is one thing that antiwar folks have
heard over and over in the past three years, it is this: feel free to bash
Bush, criticize Cheney, and hate on Rumsfeld until your voice is hoarse and
your protest signs turn to dust, but, for the love of god, you had better
support the troops and you had better support them no matter what.
But what does supporting the troops actually
mean?
Funneling money into the magnetic ribbon
industry? Sending telepathic messages to Iraq through prayer? Allowing military recruiters free access to
our schools to bolster troop numbers? Blindly
trusting that politicians and generals will conduct the war in the best
interests of the soldiers?
While the definition of “support the
troops” is vague at best, what it means to be unsupportive of them has
been made crystal clear.
In fact, it has been burned into our
mainstream collective consciousness through historical example: the treatment
of soldiers during and after the Vietnam War is generally upheld as the epitome
of citizen-soldier relations turned sour. The image of the enraged and irrational
antiwar activist cursing and spitting on the stalwart, apolitical soldier
returning from Southeast Asia is hauled out and dusted off at almost any
indication of contemporary protest activity that goes beyond a meek request to
give peace a chance.
This version of Vietnam War history has translated over the years into
the idea that antiwar folks should avoid messages and tactics that directly
engage members of the armed forces.
We are told that soldiers just follow orders and do not have the luxury
of sharing our silly philosophical concerns with war because they are busy
defending our freedom to have those concerns in the first place.
The implication for today seems to be this: if you absolutely must
voice your opposition to the war in Iraq please do it in a way that the troops
won’t notice because it will only hurt morale and interfere with their
ability to fight this war (which, by the way, is going on whether you like it
or not).
But this analysis obscures an
important historical truth that has drastic implications for understanding what
the phrase “support the troops” has meant in the past and what it
can mean today: soldiers themselves, including thousands of active duty GIs,
were a vital part of the movement to end the war in Vietnam.
Far from being political
neutrals whose morale suffered as a result of antiwar activity at home, many
members of the military actively protested the war from within the belly of the
beast.
Sir! No Sir!, a new documentary by director David
Zieger, chronicles these efforts for the first time on film and presents an
impressive picture of the GI resistance movement that has been suppressed in
mainstream accounts of history and in popular representations of the Vietnam
War.
It was a multifaceted movement that included
both individual and collective acts of rebellion at military bases in the US as
well as on the frontlines in Vietnam.
Some of these acts of defiance happened
spontaneously as individual soldiers reacted against unreasonable commands and
degrading commanders.
In the beginning of the war,
these acts were relatively rare and easy to punish with prison sentences. As the war escalated, however, rebellious acts
became more frequent and more collective in nature as groups of antiwar
soldiers began cultivating a thriving counter-culture of defiance among the
ranks.
Between 1966 and 1971 the Pentagon recorded
503,926 “incidents of desertion.”
By 1971, entire units were
refusing to go into battle.
Underground newspapers, with names such as
“Fed Up!” and “The Retaliation,” began circulating to
spread information within the movement: over 100 separate publications in all. Dozens of coffeehouses, such as the Oleo Strut
in Killeen, Texas, were established on or around bases to provide a place for
antiwar soldiers to communicate and organize.
One of the most popular entertainment shows
for the troops was Jane Fonda’s Fuck The Army (FTA) Review.
May 16,
1970 was declared Armed Farces Day as thousands of soldiers and veterans staged
mass rallies and protests of the war. By
1970, riots at military prisons, acts of sabotage and mutinies at bases, and
incidences of “fragging” (officers being killed by their own troops)
began occurring at rates that caused one military officer to conclude that
“By every conceivable indicator, our army that now remains in Vietnam is
in a state approaching collapse.”
Although this rebellion within
the military was well documented during the Vietnam years; a staggering amount
of evidence is freely available in the public record; it has been almost
entirely eradicated from our collective memory.
Sir! No Sir! describes an exerted effort by
the government, the media, and Hollywood to suppress this history, including
the development of the “myth of the spitting hippie,” a cultural
fairy tale which was crafted to deemphasize the fact that some of the most
effective and intense resistance to the war occurred from within the military
itself.
Needless to say, the people in power who have
crafted the US invasion and occupation of Iraq do not want this story to be
told because it allows for a radical re-conceptualization of what it can mean
to “support the troops.”
Support the troops by
supporting their resistance and rebellion.
Support the troops by bringing
them home now.
Supporting materials for this article can be
found in the extensive archives of the Sir! No Sir! website.
The site includes official military reports
and transcripts, material from underground GI newspapers, and a huge audio and
video database documenting the movement. Check it out at http://www.sirnosir.com!
Sir! No Sir!:
At A Theatre Near You!
To find it: http://www.sirnosir.com/
MORE:
After Hearing Hueys And A Hunter In The Woods
[Thanks to Michael Letwin, NY City Labor
Against The War, who sent this in.]
By David Connolly
David Connolly served honorably in Vietnam
with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. He takes pride in having been, and
continuing to be, a Vietnam Veteran Against the War. His collection of poems, LOST IN AMERICA, was
published by Viet Nam Generation, Inc.& Burning Cities Press in 1994.
After Hearing Hueys And A Hunter In The Woods
His children urged him
so he went walking
in the almost nude,
late November woods,
flashing,
on what was a jungle
before the planes,
that he walked through
with other children once,
and still does some nights.
He knew he would hear them
even before he did
but that didn’t help.
The other noise,
unconnected,
but inseparable to him,
started also.
Not the innocuous
“KPOW”
that we used as children
but the “KUSSSH”
that killed,
that looked for us
in woods like these.
He doesn’t know how many
times
his oldest said,
“Dad,”
or how long the little one
cried,
as he ran, low and loping,
dragging them along,
away from the danger in his
mind.
The older one, at ten, knew,
and comforted him
as if he were her child.
“It’s OK, Dad,
really.”
The younger one, at seven,
didn’t know,
but without his explanation
said,
“I was scared cause you
were scared,
but I wasn’t scared of
you, Dad.”
Sir! No Sir!:
At A Theatre Near You!
To find it: http://www.sirnosir.com/
Just In Time For Memorial Day:
House Of Representatives Cowards Dishonor Troops
Who Fall In Battle, Again
May 22, 2006 By Rick Maze, Army Times staff
reporter
The House of Representatives has defeated an
attempt to allow media coverage of the arrival and departure of the bodies of
service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Texas, tried
Friday to repeal the March 2003 public affairs guidance prohibiting media
coverage of the coffins being shipped from the war zone.
“What a shocking
statement to make to the nation that when our soldiers fall in battle or when
they lose their lives as members of the United States military there is a
blanket order, an exec
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