Merry Christmas.

I don't like this video completely, and it's kind of old (ignore the call at the end), but I woke up with this song in my head and figured I'd share it. Christmas is always heartbreaking as it is beautiful.

DWI-Driving While IVAW.

There is something about being an IVAW member, I will say, that gives you a healthy respect for the amount of bullshit that police officers can pull on you if they want to. I've seen "the rules" ignored so many times that I no longer believe in the inherent righteousness of every cop and MP. Instead, I believe cops very well will pull you over if they don't like your bumper sticker, or the way you look through a window. Whether this is good or bad, I don't know.

I got to experience this fresh fear today. While driving off post after my Krav Maga class, I suddenly noticed flashing lights behind me. Please don't let them be for me, please let them be for the guy in front of me. It was nonsensical, but I hadn't thought I'd done anything wrong. I was too exhausted to have done anything wrong, having just spent the last hour and a half beating and being beaten on. Of course, they were for me. This kind of thinking is nonsensical. It's like that scene in Kent State when the black kid turns to the white one and says, "The guns are always loaded." The guns are always loaded, and they are always coming for you. And they may just smash a friend's face while they're at it. I have no inherent faith anymore.

A thousand things flashed through my mind. Was I going too slow? MPs love to look for people going too slow. They assume they're drunk, and we had another DUI just last night. Yes, a Monday night. Yes, there was one the Sunday the day before that. That's just how this post rolls, especially with the 1AD back. I wondered what kind of sobriety test they would have. Would I be able to pass it in my exhausted state? I could barely lift my hand above my head, and my walk had been kind of a slow stumble to my car. Would they ask me to get out of the car? I was in gym clothes, so I breathed a sigh of relief, that I might be safe. Then I remembered what gym clothes-black Army PT bottoms and my IVAW tank top. Would he recognize the logo? How much trouble might I be in?

The MP strode up to my window and asked for my license. My hands were clumsy as they reached for it, but it was not with fear. He assumed it was, of course, as he told me "not to be nervous". I wondered what mysterious sin I was going to be down for. What my nervousness translated to in his head. If he would spy the pack of SITREPs on the seat next to me. Instead, he just leaned in my front window, and said, "You know your headlights are out?" I felt like the biggest idiot in the world. In my hurry to get home and to my hot shower, I had turned lights on, but the ones that only provided a little light. I immediately flipped to that and the MP thanked me and let me go. It wasn't about me. It wasn't about my politics. It was about headlights. This time. And I wish I could say that this incident let me relax, let me think that there's never going to be a jerk MP who's going to ask "What the hell is this Iraq Veterans Against the War shit you have on your bumper?" But it didn't. It was a reprieve, but not a permanent one.

I got home, and enjoyed the hottest shower I could possibly stand. One thing I will say for the Army is that they really make you appreciate a few of the simple things in life. Like hot water. Until the end of my life, I will cherish a truly hot shower with good water pressure. I've had many a time without it. I've lived, but I've hated it. A truly hot, good shower, especially after an awesome workout, is almost as good as sex, just for the initial minute.

On a random sidenote, WWII combat vets are awesome yet very strange. I ran into a retired one who I suppose still lives in the area of post (didn't ask him why) Old as the hills, but still looked wiry and alert. I was making conversation, just to pass the time, when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he popped out with something about us surviving Bush, and something about how people who hid in the Air National Guard at home while everyone else went to war shouldn't get to send other people into combat. Of course I shook his hand and continued the conversation, but (and I know you'll be surprised) it got too much even or me. He continued on. "And it was one of the assassination cycles, too. I was so disappointed. You know, the twenty year assassination cycles..." And on that point, my dear readers, I was off. That was definitely not the conversation I needed to be in, so I smiled, said goodbye, and headed for the door. I have apparently found the point beyond which I won't go in my dislike for our current president. It's small, but it's there.

No Christmas For You: Three Years!

I know how pay is supposed to work. I know the processes of how it and paperwork are supposed to function. I know its crafty ways and means. But like anything with enormous power that you are powerless against, I've begun to impart it with the flavor of a certain rude mythology. It's not that somewhere in the chain, a link has been broken. No, it's that the gods of S1 have somehow decided to make my Christmases a personal hell.

I haven't had a lot of pay problems in the Army, really, as things go. Really, I've been fairly lucky-only four or five over eight years. Why am I so bitter? Because out of those four or five, literally three of them have hit or culminated in a slim Christmas paycheck. Not in my wild single days, no, that would be too easy. No, literally every one of those three slim Christmases have hit while I've been a parent.

Once, because somehow in the mysterious world of paperwork, the Army decided that I didn't really have any dependents, and had been cheating them out of BAH for the past nine months. It was fixed, alright, and I got some hefty back pay-but still, my kid got a watercolor set for Christmas and some stocking stuffers, because it was already bought.

Then came the time when the dreaded Government Travel Card struck. There was a backlog getting travel claims settled while I was on a five month long TDY, and I was on paper rather than DTS. Well, my shop wasn't able to straighten it, and the card got turned off, leaving me to pay with my own cash or get kicked out of the hotel. That was a very, very expensive time-and guess when it started? You got it. December.

As I write this, I am now three months in to the worst Army pay problem I have ever had. One of those Army pay problems that really kicks you in the teeth and bends you over, without even so much as the courtesy of lube, or a reach-around. By my count, I'm now $6900 down. I've had to take out one personal loan and one AER loan just to keep myself and my family afloat. And the worst part is that I'm not ever going to see any of that money. The best I can hope for-the absolute /best/- is that things will be fixed and I'll stop actively being shorted. Hopefully this month.

How did it happen? That's the worst of it. I may as well curse the nebulous Finance Gods, because it's a culmination of a lot of small shit. Including my stupidity at trusting Finance, which is a thing that you never, ever, should do. They told me what I needed to get, and I got it, stupidly trusting that everything would go smoothly. Then came the hitches. They needed another piece of paper. I dug around and got it. Then they needed it submitted on a different form. Not a big deal. I wasn't discouraged just yet, because I knew that I'd get the backpay all at once, and I'd be able to pay back the loans.

It was two months after the entire paperwork runaround that they really dropped it on me. They had been telling me the exact wrong process. What I had wanted required an entirely different process. It would have taken an exception to policy to do it the other way, and despite my battalion commander looking into it, no one was having any dice. Oh, and then came the other shoe: there wouldn't be any backpay coming. When it got straightened out, the pay would only start from the specific date that something else happened.

Thanks, Army.

So now the paperwork has been resubmitted to start the process to get my pay issues fixed. It got sent last week to brigade, but somehow brigade waited a week to find something missing. They just sent it back. It's being sent up from battalion this week.

Who wants to take bets with me that it gets lost again?
Oh well. At least I already ordered and paid for the major Christmas presents already. Take that, Finance Gods!

Anyone military who wants to commiserate over the specific details is welcome to email me, it's a bit too technical to explain all in one long post.

Homecomings

My neighbor in the housing development is welcoming her husband home. I can tell not just by how many times she's talked to me and everyone else about it, but by the signs and homemade decorations that adorn our dingy apartment complex. "I love YOU, (Soldiername!)" "I love you, honey!" Construction paper hearts and letters and AAFES-mass-produced signs let me know how much she wants her husband to know he was missed.

In my cynical way, I scorn it. I don't rain on her parade, but every time I pass them I look at the commercial quality of the sign, the child-reminiscent nature of anything made with construction paper. I think to myself how glad I am that I never received a display like that, that the saccharine nature would make me hurl.

But I wonder how much my elitist thoughts serve to hide any thought of what I would have liked to have received. The truth is that I came home to a much-needed divorce and a child that had been taught to call someone else Mommy. I've never really had anyone to come home to, then or now. Sure, there's family-a father that talked all my life about his boyhood inspiration, the heroes at the VFW post, and now that I'm a member and offered to bring him inside to have a drink, he gives me an embarrassed smile, and says no. I'm not the son who could have killed him a dozen with my bare hands; not the son who could have erased his 4F status when it came time for Vietnam. Nor, even if I were a man, could I have been. I'm not the sort to revel in bloodshed, or the men I have indirectly helped to kill. Who is the killer? The one who stands and points and says "Him" or the one who pulls the trigger? Both, and neither. We are all the killers. We are all the guns. My father does not want my remorse, or to hear my thoughts on the war. He is still jealous that I shook McCain's hand and does not comprehend why, having done so, I would not vote for him. I am still forbidden from his house, the casualty of a chance google search that pulled up thousands of provocative hits.

There is a mother, who even when posted stateside, called, frantic, because a military plane went down somewhere in America and she wanted to know if I was on it. I cannot comprehend her fear. I cannot live touched by her fear. I disentangle myself as much as possible, as she tells me, once more, how she was tricked into signing the papers only because the recruiter promised there would never be a war. Does she have reason? Perhaps. She saw the fallout of Vietnam-lost friends and lovers, some to combat, some to hidden wounds and their own hand. My godfather put a bullet in his head at the age of 30, and it shattered her. She is fearful now that I will join him, and listens for it every time I talk, in the catch of my voice, in a breathy silence. Everything is a cue. She offers me organic foods and healthy alternatives, as though a return to a lifestyle of a more peaceful and hopeful time might somehow save me as well.

And there are lovers. Lovers that are loved as the Army has taught me to love-never to make any one person too important. You will always have to leave, the Army teaches, albeit unconsciously, and you must be prepared for everyone you love to leave you. Whether a PCS or a funeral service, if you make someone else the focus of your world, what will you do when they are gone? You get used to saying goodbye, to smiling at someone with sadness inside you as you show them the orders taking you away. Civilians find it too hard-they rail at you, angry at you, the Army, the universe for taking you away. They do not understand, ask the significance of things that have you in tears. It is better to stick to your own kind-but your own kind is adept at self-protection, at building defense barriers that can mask a career full of pain. Once you are out of sight you are out of mind. Temporarily Divorced for a Year, What Happens On Deployment Stays On Deployment. When you are there they will welcome you, cherish you, make extravagant gestures for you. Once you step on the plane, it is a different world, one in which you are a faded memory that they will reference only obliquely. It's the same for you, though you won't admit it. Already you're thinking of someone else, someone who will make you smile and laugh. It's the way of survival-but it's hell on homecomings, welcomes, those picket fences you think that you might have wanted.

I cannot laugh at her for loving in a different way than I.
But I cannot allow myself to think of having someone to myself, someone who would not go away. I cannot allow myself to think of the possibility of caring too much.
So I hurry by, run up the stairs as though I were trying to answer a phone, or save a life, or catch a dream.
She, in the apartment below, thinks only of happiness.

Krav Maga: Eye Gouges and Groin Punches for all!

I'll start with a cautionary tale for any who aren't fond of violence: you do not want to read this post. Really. Do not be fooled by my views on the Iraq War. If you are a pacifist, this post is likely not for you.

That said, OMFG, I am in love with Krav Maga. Why aren't we training in this instead of combatives? Seriously. It is much, much more useful. And versatile. And utterly brutal...but I anticipate myself.

For those who haven't known me long, I've had a fascination with Krav Maga for quite some time. Krav Maga, again for the unfamiliar, is an Israeli close combat technique first developed for...have you guessed? Defending against Nazis. How much cooler can you get? Then the Haganah got it, the Jewish underground. It isn't religious at all, but the philosophy is definitely very Jewish-you assume the worst, and work from their. You assume that your opponent is not going to back off voluntarily, and that you can get away from the situation best by crippling them. You start in some bad positions, and it teaches you to defend against multiple attackers, while you're protecting people, while you yourself are crippled, blinded, etc. It is so many times cooler than combatives that I just want to run around shouting about how awesome it is. Fortunately for my neighbors, I have a blog instead.

The crowd was pretty mixed, and there were one or two guys from my unit there. I had been wondering how triggering it might be-with domestic violence PTSD, a session of people hitting, choking, etc you is not necessarily a recipe for a happy time. But it worked out pretty well-the only problem was that I was a little too violent, out of proportion to what we were supposed to do. (Like for example, when one guy taunted me to hit him and I attempted to punch him in the face before he had finished speaking.)

The instructor was an absolute champ, though. At one point, during a technique (and all stuff was at speed and force), I accidentally sliced his wrist up a bit with my nails. But he didn't say anything, and just continued.

The class was for five hours-five hours of straight glee for me. Tiring glee-as I write this, I'm lying on the couch, and not sure when I'll move. I'll probably have a lot of bruises tomorrow. But it was so worth it. One of the fun points was just realizing exactly how brutal it can be. The point at which the instructor explained exactly what parts of the body you can punch dangerous holes in if you put a key in your fist was amazingly enlightening. So was the groin punching. The guys who were Krav Maga regulars all had metal cups, but the others had lighter cups, and man did they take a beating. The sight of guys wincing and holding their genitals was a common one throughout the five hours.

Five was an awesome number for that-it was also the minimum amount of times to strike your opponent. As our instructor explained, Krav Maga is not a pretty sport that looks beautiful and you do competitions around. Krav Maga is a lethal set of techniques that is used to cripple or kill. As such, if you have to take damage in order to incapacitate the other person, you take it.

Man. Again, so awesome. I can't wait until the next class.

Nominations

If only more of you people showed those shameless self-promotions, I might have known it early enough to self-promote here for the Blog Awards sometime before it closed. As it is, I still received nominations, but most likely not enough to put me into the finalists-which is okay, because I'm pretty sure most of my favorite blogs did.

Anyway! Thanks those of you who liked my blog, I really do appreciate it. You know, all 18 of you. ;)

"Alone"

Let me start this out by saying that I do appreciate what IAVA is doing for veterans. They're trying really hard to help get them taken care of, and have done a lot of outstanding work on the GI Bill and other pieces of legislation. They're also doing a lot of good work in getting veterans aware that they are a political force to be reckoned with, and that is always a good thing in my book.

Sometimes it's funny, though, how much they march along, whether consciously or unconsciously, with IVAW. For example, their latest campaign/ad "Alone" is a fantastic ad. I really dig it. But in a sense, it also makes me laugh-I had no idea IAVA admired IVAW's "You Are Not Alone" campaign so much! At any rate, here's the ad for your viewing pleasure, and only LT Nixon will be able to say whether or not it in fact measures up to McGruff.

I don't usually promote IAVA here, because I can really only focus on one organization at a time-same way I'm also a member of the VFW and the American Legion, but you don't see me talking about a lot of their programs here. However, after being specifically contacted by one of IAVA's ad folks with a suggestion to put something up about it, I could hardly be so graceless not to be willing to spend five minutes of my time writing a post about it.



As everyone knows, readjustment challenges of "combat stress" (I hate the buzzphrase, because of course combat is stressful, but it is a real issue) can compound the many other challenges servicemen and women face when they return to civilian life. Also, I've talked to a lot of vets, and for them one of the hardest things is losing the welcoming and supportive military community. The lack of it alone can severely tweak a veteran. This is, of course, where IAVA's brand spanking new Community of Veterans comes in.

They're wrong, of course, it's not the only online community for veterans, but it is the first to offer open yet regulated membership. There are still a few bugs in the system-for example, their registration refused to accept AE as a valid state-but I have faith that it will all get ironed out in time.

Also at some point this month, the campaign will extend to families and friends, called Support Your Vet. I think this is a really good idea so that they can talk out their problems and help each other to provide good advice and support. They too really need to feel that it's not alone. I've suggested to IAVA that they should have some communication between the sites, where veterans can maybe anonymously answer family member's questions, we'll see if that gets implemented too.

So keep it in mind! I'm not sure yet how politically neutral it's supposed to be, I may just give it a broad pass for its own sake rather than my own. But those of you, especially those who want support but not politics, should go there and check it out.

Coffee Strong Now Open

Anyone who's been in the Army for more than five minutes knows the important relationship between soldiers and caffeine. We drink it, delight in it, and would probably cheerfully create an IV for it if we thought it wouldn't kill us. Fortunately, there's no need for such drastic measures, at least not by Fort Lewis, Washington, home of the recently established Fort Lewis IVAW chapter. Fort Lewis, for the non-Army folks among my readers, is an Army post located near Tacoma, WA that is scheduled to deploy 10,000 troops to Iraq in the coming year.


The new soldier-friendly, veteran-owned coffeehouse, "Coffee Strong", is now open.

Here the veteran-barristas work on creating concoctions for any and all comers.


At the moment, hours are Monday - Saturday, 10am to 6pm. Those hours will soon be expanded to includ evenings and Sunday.

How do you get there to grap your fresh, hot cup of often exotic and delicious joe? Well, the coffee shop is located at 15109 Union Ave SW, Lakewood WA 98498. They are accessible right off the freeway on the Berkley Ave exit (#122) on Union Ave next to the Subway.

And this won't just be your usual Starbucks imitator with camouflage lipstick. In addition to delicious drinks, good atmosphere, and friendly waitstaff, Coffee Strong also provides soldiers, families, and recent vets a place away from post where they can learn about resources available to them. There at Coffee Strong, they can meet with GI Rights and other types of counselors, and access regular VA workshops to advise them about their benefits. In addition, the coffeehouse will hold weekly movie nights, concerts, and other events.

And don't forget, feeding our delicious, delicious, legal addiction.

I owe posts!

I figured if I listed them here, the public humiliation would be a motivating factor for me to actually get it done.

1. A post on IAVA's new PSA.-Done!
2. A post on Coffee Strong -Done!
3. CJ and his guest last night.
4. Balad
5. Stars and Stripes Loves Me
6. Casey Porter and Living Fobulous
7. The Lautenberg amendment and domestic violence in the military


Have a topic? Post it here ! and I'll do my best to respond to it in a timely fashion.

Yes, Darling, You Can

I didn't post about it, because it had nothing to do with the cause I fight in this blog, or my military life. I didn't post about it for two weeks, and that fact is probably one of the most shameful things I've done in activism. It wasn't intentional, but can I honestly say that a corner of me wasn't wondering: will I lose my street cred on the Iraq War if I come out in full opposition to the Yes On Prop 8 folks? To quote Emerson, "As soon as he has once acted or spoken with eclat, he is a committed person, watched by the sympathy or the hatred of hundreds, whose affections must now enter into his account."

But that is low. That is small, and puling, and weak, and low, and I refuse to do it any longer, if in fact I ever was. If any of you think less of me because I see nothing whatsoever against gay marriage, then I'm sorry for your opinions, and you're welcome to cease associating with me at any time if you are so moved to do so.

I hear a lot about reasons why Proposition 8, banning gay marriage from being recognized in California, passed. One of the things I hear about is an ad, in which a cute little girl is heard saying "Mom, guess what I learned in school today. I learned how a prince married a prince, and I can marry a princess!"

Not known to most, because I don't talk much about it, is that I, too, have a little girl. I don't mention it because politics is vile, and I didn't want her to see someone outside her school yelling at her because of her mother's opinions. I may not mention it again after this post. But she is beautiful, and smart, and everything a mother could dream.

Why is that ad so vile? More importantly, why is that ad so scary? If my daughter were to come home and tell me that, that she learned she could marry a princess, I would not be afraid. I would scoop her up in my arms, like I do for all the serious conversations, and say, "Yes, darling. You can be a lawyer, a poet, a dreamer or an astronaut. You can be anyone you want to be and if you want to be a princess who marries another princess, then I will dance at your wedding and laugh with your children no matter whose Y chromosome they bear. Because I love you, and your happiness is worth more than my own."

And all I've got to say about this issue comes from a song from SonIa, which is absolutely amazing and expresses pretty much how I feel about not just this but a lot of issues, including patriotism and why I'm involved with IVAW. And I hope and pray that my daughter, no matter who she decides to love or what she decides to do, can always feel safe enough to come to me like this. It's called, "Me, Too"

Her daddy was a soldier in the Vietnam War
And she was proud to see her father in a fresh-pressed uniform
He came home on a stretcher in 1966
Welcome back - fellow Americans throwing tomatoes and sticks

He said, "Darlin', don't you worry, there are two sides to everything.
I did what I believe in; I want you to do the same.
I stood up for my country, and that's a solid bet.
And I'll stand up for freedom every chance I get."

Because America shines, in front of me
All the world could see if they wanted to
I raise this flag for you,
Me, Too

She grew up on a bible, she grew up on love
She grew up thinking she could change the world, if she only worked hard enough
She became a lawyer, hoped to marry a good-looking man
But she fell in love with the girl next door, so that wasn't part of the plan

Because America shines, in front of me
All the world could see if they wanted to
I raise this flag for you,
Me, Too

The years spin by while the corn grows high
For every train you catch, you miss one
So watch your life just racin' by
It's time to tell Daddy this one

She sat down in the corner, she could still see the door
She said Daddy, I've got to tell you something I've never said before
He said, "Shhhh. Everybody has a war."

You see, it's not about oil, and it's not about guns
And it's not about rainbows, it's about daughters and sons
If you believe in tomorrow then I have taught you well,
'Cause if you don't believe in yourself, life's a living hell

And you'll always shine in front of me
All the world could see if they wanted to
I raise this flag for you,
Me, Too

A President Like Me

Isn't that what everyone's been talking about for the last eight years? They elected a president like themselves, or like they wanted to be seen. They elected a president they thought they'd rather barbecue with, and enjoyed what they viewed as the back-door morality of his decisions, regardless of what they did to the country.

Hopefully mine won't prove as disastrous, but reading this New York Times story about Obama in the digital age, I realized that I now understand what those guys were talking about, even though I still disagreed with their assessment. At last, I have a President who in many ways is just like me.

His messages to advisers and friends, they say, are generally crisp, properly spelled and free of symbols or emoticons. The time stamps provided a window into how much he was sleeping on a given night, with messages often being sent to staff members at 1 a.m. or as late as 3 a.m. if he was working on an important speech.

I've lost track of how many times various IVAW members and allies threatened not to allow me to submit any more work unless I got a varying minimum hours of sleep a night. And god! Correct spelling, perhaps even a grammarian! Despite myself and my best intentions to stay neutral, I can't help but get a little starry-eyed.

He received a scaled-down list of news clippings, with his advisers wanting to keep him from reading blogs and news updates all day long, yet aides said he still seemed to hear about nearly everything in real time. A network of friends — some from college, others from Chicago and various chapters in his life — promised to keep him plugged in.

Again, I'm reminded of that long drive from Florida to Maryland for Winter Soldier, with a documentary filmmaker in the car terrified of how often I was checking my email from my phone, as friends and associates from all over the country kept me looped in even though I had no access, other than cellphone-based email, to the internet.

Oh, Obama. I too, like the right in this country for the last eight years, dream of a President who shares my values, and will even have his staff meeting with IVAW. I dare to hope that with the quirks, dedication, and drive come the shared passions and commitment to sacrifice. I dare to hope that these similarities are not just superficial, but real.

I dare to hope..but yet, the eternal cynic, I fear being disappointed.

Emails of Doom

One thing I really, really hate in the Army, though I'll be the first to admit it probably only exists in the MI Corps, is the passive-aggressive email.

It's all the better when the email comes from someone who sits less than ten feet from you, or even when they're just a hundred feet away. It makes me really hate the computers. Rather than take the effort to actually get up, walk over, and tell the soldier what they need (or god forbid, pick up a phone) some incredibly lazy NCOs just send out an email. The advantage is that the stupidity just looks even funnier when it's actually in text.

Like this one. A little background: right now, I have access to the NIPR, because my battalion commander decided to be awesome and while I was pulling a detail, encouraged me to sit down and use the computer and still get the job done. Is my NCO aware of that? Probably not. As far as he knows, today I may not access email, tomorrow is an appointment at Landstuhl, where I'll be nowhere near a NIPR, and Wednesday is the event he's talking about.

"We will be conducting an APFT on Wednesday, 19 November. You will both be graders, along with myself and SFC Laidback.

Also, on Thursday, 20 November, we will be having an inspection of the winter PT uniform at work. Please bring the PT jacket, pants, gloves, cap, and PT reflective belt. The reason we are doing this is to ensure that we are all wearing the appropriate uniform for the Brigade run the next day, on 21 November.

First of all, again, it is the purest of coincidences that I got this email. I still haven't received any call, or touching base, or hell, even a "Please acknowledge receipt". It is highly likely that I could have gone without knowing that a PT test was magically scheduled and I was magically a grader, resulting in me not showing up to the location and failing to report for duty. Thanks, guy.

Secondly, is he actually serious? We're having an inspection of our winter PTs? I have been in the Army for eight years. In that time, I've done my good share of Brigade, Battalion, and even Post runs. During none of that time have I ever, ever, EVER, had a PT gear inspection the day prior, to be sure that my PT gear didn't eat itself magically overnight. The usual answer is "Wear all your gear, this is the uniform, if it's jacked up, you'll be sorry". And very rarely is anyone jacked up for those. The only time I ever had a soldier with a uniform problem, it was because someone stole his PT jacket that morning out of the dryer. Which, you know, a PT gear inspection the day prior would not have prevented, I note.

I think a large part of the reason why this came out in email form is because any NCO worth their salt would have been ashamed to pass this down. "Hey, NCOs, I need you guys to, uh...do a PT inspection.." By the time we were finished laughing, he might have reconsidered. But on email, you don't have to see the other person's face, you can just throw a lot of 'you wills' in, to make any questioning challenging an order.

Man. This guy really pushes all my buttons...

Charlie Chaplin and the Shredder

Well, bloggers everywhere are capturing the exciting moments. A majority of my "Exciting" moments were classified, and also, unless I miss my mark, in the past ever since I was taken out of the deploying battalion I was initially placed in. I'm still not sure what makes someone strongly opposed to the Iraq occupation a potential liability for the Afghanistan War, but hey. I'm also pretty sure it's not the smartest move they ever made. "We're going to punish you, by not letting you be in a high-rotation deploying unit." Man, if only the rest of the Army knew or thought that way, people would be lining up in droves to do anti-Iraq-war organizing.

At any rate, I am in the unit I am in, and it's probably better in some ways. Definitely lower stress than being downrange. But there's also a higher sense of the ridiculous. As, for example, the shredder incident today.

I don't know about the rest of the Army, but the Military Intelligence Corps loves its destruction of classified and unclassified material. It didn't always used to be so high-tech, of course- I remember days gone by where we got to put it all in a metal garbage can and toss a match. Those were good days, as were the ones when we got to use sledgehammers to break anything what needed breaking. But these days, it's usually the shredders of doom.

I won't describe them in too much detail, lest the enemy read this post and design comprehensive anti-shredder technology. But suffice it to say, we were by the ultimate daddy of shredders. It was one of those shredders that if your mother had seen, she would have shrieked at you for not getting a finger caught. That thing was the ultimate doom of unwanted paper. Which was good, because we had about two dumpsters full of material to shred as we pack up our battalion. How did I get tagged for this detail, you ask? Well, somebody had to supervise, and I've never been a big believer in leading from the rear. Yes, exciting Army times indeed, but someone has to do it.

I'm sure I'm forfeiting any potential hearing disability compensation by admitting this, but I'm one of those soldiers who almost never wears hearing protection. This has led to some interesting times when ill-timed explosions have tried to make me regret that decision in the past, but after having met a fellow soldier who set off a cannon (yes, really) by his left ear and survived intact, I have always been one of the folks to tough it out.

After five minutes of that behemoth of a machine, however, I took the damn hearing protection.

This wound up having the delightful result of turning our entire time in the shred room into a Charlie Chaplin-esque silent picture. Wild gestures and body language were used for all communication, along with expressive shrugs, winks, and grandiose gestures. I half expected someone to start shuffling and soft-shoeing during an imminent break. It was incredibly destressing. Anyone's having a lot going on, I recommend that they try out the shred room.

Dealing with these massive shred piles, it's always a little interesting. Like an archaeological expedition. What are you going to find? Everything from fingerprint cards to letters of reprimand for fraternization made it in. Fortunately we didn't have a lot of time to be curious, as it all went down faster than original veteran paperwork at the VA.

There you guys go. I'm sure you'll be begging for the political posts back any day now.

Donate If You Can

Some of you may have noticed I've added a donation button on the right side of this blog. "What does this mean? Are you selling out? Are you trying to bilk innocent webgoers into paying for your debauchery?" The simple answer is 'no'. The real answer of why is a little bit more complicated.

Everyone's happy about Obama, myself included. But the real fact is that no longer how many times his campaign staff sits down with IVAW, he is not about to end the war tomorrow. IVAW still has work to do, and so do I.

I don't know if I've talked about it here before or not, but in addition to being a member of IVAW, I also head the GI Outreach Committee, which is a smaller subgroup that focuses only on reaching out to existing active duty, national guard, and reserve servicemembers. It also focuses on helping to get IVAW active duty, national guard, and reserve troops organizer training, and any help they may happen to need.

Now that the tide is beginning to turn, many people are resting on their laurels. They're slowing their donations, and waiting for Obama to fix everything. We, particularly the servicemember-organizers of Iraq Veterans Against the War, refuse to wait for anything. We are going out to help bring about the world we want to see, and bring our points of unity to a reality. There are still troops dying in Iraq. There are still veterans being inadequately taken care of at home. Something still needs to be done.

With that in mind, we are continuing forward, and have a very ambitious project taking place this winter. It will mean servicemember-organizers flying all over the country to help organize their fellow soldiers en masse. But, like many other things, it takes money. It takes money to get soldiers on planes, and with how little we're paid, that's not money we can easily afford on our own. And that's why, at long last, I'm asking those of you who can, those of you who feel that there is still work to do and you want to help accomplish it, to donate whatever you can towards this project.

If you can't donate but still want to help in some way, whether it's passing this word on to your email lists, helping to house or feed soldiers, or helping to produce items you want to go to soldiers being outreached, please feel free to email me at armysergeant@ivaw.org.

Thank you all for your time, your commitment, your support, and all that you have done for myself, other servicemember-organizers, and the movement as a whole.

Fuck You, "Yes Men".

You know, I'm as up for pranks as the next guy, seriously, and I love fake news just as much, in its proper place. The Onion, Jon Stewart...all of these are pretty damn cool.

What's not cool is the prank the "Yes Men" played on New York.


New York Times Special Edition Video News Release - Nov. 12, 2008 from H Schweppes on Vimeo.

It is seriously not funny. I think of that guy who's so happy watching it, and I think, how could you people, whoever you are, do it to 1.2 million people? 1.2. million papers looking exactly like a New York Times, except with the news you wish were happening? 1.2 million people, reading. Maybe some of them were soldiers (or veterans, as the Daily News took reaction from a former Marine and Iraq veteran who believed the story, for a while) Maybe some of them were families of soldiers. Maybe some of them thought for one exhilarating movement, that the people they loved would not have to run a chance of dying or being wounded anymore.

It's been done before by deluded idealists, never on such a large scale, and the sense of wrongness has been expressed much better than I could in Julia Vinograd's poem "Ginsberg", which always makes me cry when read aloud (you can hear it in my voice as I read it here).


Ginsberg

No blame. Anyone who wrote Howl and Kaddish
earned the right to make any possible mistake
for the rest of his life.
I just wish I hadn't made this mistake with him.
It was during the Vietnam war
and he was giving a great protest reading
in Washington Square Park
and nobody wanted to leave.
So Ginsberg got the idea, "I'm going to shout
"the war is over" as loud as I can," he said
"and all of you run over the city
in different directions
yelling the war is over, shout it in offices,
shops, everywhere and when enough people
believe the war is over
why, not even the politicians
will be able to keep it going."
I thought it was a great idea at the time
a truly poetic idea.
So when Ginsberg yelled I ran down the street
and leaned in the doorway
of the sort of respectable down on its luck cafeteria
where librarians and minor clerks have lunch
and I yelled "the war is over."
And a little old lady looked up
from her cottage cheese and fruit salad.
She was so ordinary she would have been invisible
except for the terrible light
filling her face as she whispered
"My son. My son is coming home."
I got myself out of there and was sick in some bushes.
That was the first time I believed there was a war.

Stars and Stripes, We're Back On

Those of you who have known me for a while know that I tend to have a bit of a love-hate relationship with the Stars and Stripes, the Army's unofficial-official military newspaper. Sometimes I love what they say and the way they try to avoid censorship. Sometimes I hate the way they have been apologists for the Bush Administration long past the time even the Military Times ceased.

This week is one of the weeks that I love them again. Why, you ask? Well, they did in fact publish a letter of mine, and it's finally made it to the online edition so I can link it.

The important excerpt, of course, is:

...But what I was sad to see is that this enormous piece was entirely about South Korean protests. What about American protests? When a major American protest happens, even when soldiers and veterans are involved, we definitely don’t hear about it in Stars and Stripes. We don’t even really hear about the veteran protesters, such as Sgt. Nick Morgan, of Iraq Veterans Against the War, who suffered a cheekbone broken in three places from being trampled by a police horse recently at Hofstra University (mentioned in the Army Times, but not our daily paper). Why aren’t these protester-veterans profiled in a two-page spread, instead of three South Koreans?...

I'm also particularly proud of the Stars and Stripes for the courageous stance they took against attempted military censorship during their coverage of the election. As Stripes said, the memorandum is clear: that they are entitled to gain access to common areas to report. Yet for some reason, the Pentagon had an issue with this. One wonders just precisely why. Fortunately, Stripes took their prior orders literally, and still sent their reporters out, and they wrote a very nice piece. It might not be how I would have written it, but still very nice.

Stars and Stripes is also notable for publishing stories about the Winter Soldier II hearings, Matthis Chiroux and other's IRR refusals, and I am told IVAW's presence at the Democratic National Convention, though I haven't seen the article itself. They've also published a few letters from myself and other IVAW members over the past years.

Armistice Day / Veterans Day

Veterans Day. To many, it marks sales. To some, it marks a time for parades. Only too few remember now what it is and what it has been.

In the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the most brutal war the world had ever seen came to an end. A war so brutal and all encompassing that it was simply called "The World War". No one thought that there would ever be another. I've looked at my great-grandfather's census card, and he lists his status as a veteran, and simply "World War". No one then thought there would be the need to pencil in a Roman numeral after it.

Over 20 million people died in that war. I don't think our minds can adequately understand how many people that is. Roughly two and a half times the population of New York City is how I remember it. Imagine that every voice in that city was silenced, the place full only of corpses. It is not possible. I do not think any of us, no matter how long we live, will ever be able to imagine a place of that much death. I hope not, anyway.

Everyone sees the poppies everywhere, the VFW with them in their hands. Or maybe just everyone near military posts. But even the military too often forget why.
It's because of Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, who wrote this on a piece of paper, on the back of a friend during a lull in the bombing. Like so many, he did not survive to see the end of the war.


In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.



It was so ugly that it was called "The War To End All Wars". The war that was going to make us all talk to each other, end petty tyrannies and expansions and evil, end the idea that millions of people need to die because somebody shot the archduke Ferdinand.

Of course, it failed.
We know now that it failed, but the world will never dance and roar as loud as they did then, when they thought they had defeated it forever. Armistice Day was set as a day to remember this peace that would last.

Then the next war came, and it was devoted simply to veterans. The world had grown older, and knew that there would be many more wars to come. There were no superlatives after World War Two. Even now, we anticipate another one.

Today, I remember veterans and soldiers who gave themselves for something they believe in. But I also remember the ugliness of war-not just today, but what happens after. And I encourage everyone to remember those who have given everything not just today, not just in heroics, but every day.

To that end, I also give you "The Last of the Light Brigade", by Rudyard Kipling.

There were thirty million English who talked of England's might,
There were twenty broken troopers who lacked a bed for the night.
They had neither food nor money, they had neither service nor trade;
They were only shiftless soldiers, the last of the Light Brigade.

They felt that life was fleeting; they knew not that art was long,
That though they were dying of famine, they lived in deathless song.
They asked for a little money to keep the wolf from the door;
And the thirty million English sent twenty pounds and four !

They laid their heads together that were scarred and lined and grey;
Keen were the Russian sabres, but want was keener than they;
And an old Troop-Sergeant muttered, "Let us go to the man who writes
The things on Balaclava the kiddies at school recites."

They went without bands or colours, a regiment ten-file strong,
To look for the Master-singer who had crowned them all in his song;
And, waiting his servant's order, by the garden gate they stayed,
A desolate little cluster, the last of the Light Brigade.

They strove to stand to attention, to straighen the toil-bowed back;
They drilled on an empty stomach, the loose-knit files fell slack;
With stooping of weary shoulders, in garments tattered and frayed,
They shambled into his presence, the last of the Light Brigade.

The old Troop-Sergeant was spokesman, and "Beggin' your pardon," he said,
"You wrote o' the Light Brigade, sir. Here's all that isn't dead.
An' it's all come true what you wrote, sir, regardin' the mouth of hell;
For we're all of us nigh to the workhouse, an' we thought we'd call an' tell.

"No, thank you, we don't want food, sir; but couldn't you take an' write
A sort of 'to be continued' and 'see next page' o' the fight?
We think that someone has blundered, an' couldn't you tell 'em how?
You wrote we were heroes once, sir. Please, write we are starving now."

The poor little army departed, limping and lean and forlorn.
And the heart of the Master-singer grew hot with "the scorn of scorn."
And he wrote for them wonderful verses that swept the land like flame,
Till the fatted souls of the English were scourged with the thing called Shame.

O thirty million English that babble of England's might,
Behold there are twenty heroes who lack their food to-night;
Our children's children are lisping to "honour the charge they made - "
And we leave to the streets and the workhouse the charge of the Light Brigade!

PTSD Is Not An Excuse

I've thought a lot about this, and have wanted to say something about this for a long time, but I was never really angry enough to break past the filmy barrier that's been preventing us from saying things about this for a long time. Do I care for my brothers who have PTSD? Absolutely. Do I understand that PTSD is debilitating? Absolutely. I have it myself and it's a really hard thing to live with. Can it even be disabling? Yes. If you've seen some of the people I have, you'd absolutely understand that.

But it is NOT A FUCKING EXCUSE.

I will admit here that I struggle with my anger every day. Every single day. I am number one for walking out on the job right now, because my leadership understands that walking out and cooling down is much more productive than yelling or hitting something. But once you know that you have PTSD, I think you have a responsibility as well to try to temper it. You try as hard as you possibly can to avoid situations that you know are going to tempt you. For example: I used to love going out by myself to strange bars and drinking with new friends. I don't do it anymore, after the time when I got myself involved in someone else's fight and spent the next hour limping, bleeding, and talking my way out of trouble with the MPs. Do I wish I had the control to be able to do it? Yes, you're damn right I do. But I acknowledge that it's a risk factor, and so I don't go out drinking unless I'm accompanied by someone I trust to get me out of Dodge if trouble looks like it's rising.

I'm sick and tired of people who claim that their PTSD is the excuse for them indulging in all sorts of bad behavior. It's an explanation, but it's not an excuse. If you had the opportunity to mitigate or avoid the situation but decided to stick it out anyway because you knew you could get away with it by claiming PTSD? You are not a victim, you are an asshole.

I'll put myself on blast here, and explain that my PTSD is 'noncombat', in that it does not directly relate to official combat with an official enemy. Instead it is domestic violence and sexual assault related, in that the combat involved me unarmed, facing an armed enemy who also happened to be my husband at the time. I still, to this day, am affected by it. Every day, I am quick to lose my temper, and god help me if you abuse women in my presence. I once got into a fistfight with a man a head and a half taller and two feet wider than myself over it. When someone deserves it, I am happy, genuinely happy, to wade into the fray even if I am going to take some serious damage. But when someone doesn't deserve it, I hold back.




I've had to deal with a lot of other people with PTSD in the line of work I involve myself in. Dealing with veterans, you see a lot of it. But what I also see, and I wish I didn't, is a pattern of using it as an excuse. Using combat PTSD as an excuse for why someone beats their wife, or raped a woman. Why they attempted to attack someone half their size for no apparent reason. Why it's okay to rip kids off bikes if you think they're doing something like you saw once in Iraq.


It's not fucking okay.
It is not fucking okay.
It is NOT FUCKING OKAY.

If you feel like you need to beat your wife? Maybe it's time to go in to counseling. Tell your wife what's going on. Start leaving the house when you start getting angry.

If you feel like you're incapable of getting physical without forcing your way to sex at the end because dammit, you somehow deserve to get what you want? You need to be away from women for a while. Seriously.

And here's another important one: if you want to get people to tiptoe lightly around your mental health issues, you need to tiptoe lightly around theirs. If you want people not to make loud noises around you, you need to listen to a woman's request that you give her a room with a lock on it. If you want people to try not to provoke your temper? You need to try not to provoke other people's, and be adult enough to walk away when you are.

I respect those whose sufferings in combat have caused them great pain that they are not able to fully recover from. But their mental health issues are not one bit more holy or sacrosanct than anyone else's. We all need to be respected, we all need to be treated as human and as brothers. /Especially/ as soldiers and veterans, and especially within veterans groups.

Images here are from the very excellent Men Can Stop Rape campaign, that my SARC showed me to.

Obama, Part I

I can remember my first sight of the man. I had never heard of him. I was sitting in the Legal Assistance office in Yongsan, Korea, preparing for my divorce. In the room, the Democratic National Convention was playing on a single corner TV screen. Small, tinny, the volume wavering. Yet I listened to this man I had never heard of speak, and I was touched.

"That we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door."

It didn't apply to me at the time. It applies to me now. I know that what I am doing is right. I know that it is just and legal. But I fear, where I never did before, a sudden knock on the door. I know others who fear that same knock. And I know that it is wrong, and I am glad and grateful to have a President coming who may remember this, and remember us who believe that dissenting is in fact to be protected.

When we send our young men and women into harm’s way, we have a solemn obligation not to fudge the numbers or shade the truth about why they’re going, to care for their families while they’re gone, to tend to the soldiers upon their return, and to never ever go to war without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of the world.

Yes. Oh, yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Back then I had not grown into my strong opposition to the Iraq occupation, but even then I knew that our troops were not being treated fairly in exchange for what they were giving. That they were being sent out unprotected, unfinanced, unloved by the giants that set their actions in motion but would never risk themselves or their children. I can never know what started the process, but perhaps if the seed was already planted, this speech may have helped me on my way.

If there’s an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties.

I grew up in a New York City so tolerant that I did not learn racism still existed until I joined the Army. I could not conceive of a world where people would be prejudiced against based on their race and their heritage. Where their rights would be taken away. This echoed more than most.

Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America.

The pundits, the pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too:

We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States.

We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the Red States.

There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq.

And this is what helped to give my heart hope during a difficult time. That things were not all black or all white. That somebody, somebody out there understood my own pain and difficulties of feeling stretched in the middle, as a fiscal conservative and social liberal. I was not all red or all blue and felt that I could not be alone. That the world could not be so divided into evil and good and I unable to tell which side was which except by looking to which party Bush was sitting in.

I hope dearly that our new president-elect will remember this. Will remember the speech that gave me and others hope. The speech that made me say in the room "Why isn't /that/ guy running for President?" And someone else say, "Someday."

Now it is that someday, and it has come a lot sooner than I expected.

America lived up to and beyond a thousand times my hope for it. It surpassed my already large expectations and dreams.

Now I only hope that he will not get shot, as Colin Powell's wife feared when talk was of him running for office.

Broken bones? Take a tylenol and drink water

Photos are credited to Bill Perry, who's also the Philly VSO-full pictures can be found here.

For those who were unaware, the police at the Hofstra debate action, in response to the civilian crowd surging forward, wheeled their horses, knocking Sergeant Nick Morgan to the ground, upon which one of the horses trampled him, leaving hoofprints on his ribs and also breaking his cheekbone in three places. He was very clearly on the sidewalk at the time he was first hit by the horse, as can be seen in various YouTube videos.


Man down.


Nick Morgan after initial medical treatment-motrin and a water. Maybe they wanted him to feel at home, like he was back in the Army.


Nick is doing a bit better-he has been seen in a VA hospital, and apparently the Philadelphia VA is a class act, far better than the civilian hospital he was first seen in. The Army Times story about the veterans arrested has also mentioned it here. All the best to Nick. Anyone wants to email me with wishes of support or wishes for a swift recovery to him, feel free to email me at sgtivaw@gmail.com and I will forward it on.

I'll let Nick tell you about his progress in his own words.

From Nick Morgan,

I have spent several hours at the VA in Philadelphia and will be having surgery on Thursday, Oct. 23rd to stop my eye from sinking into my sinus cavity. The lower orbital (cheekbone) on the right side of my face is broken in three places. My nose may be fractured but will heal by itself since it is not out of place. I also have scrapes, bruises, and significant pain in my ribs (the x-rays were negative).

Every day someone tells me how much better my face looks. The stitches are still in and look like they are ready to come out. The swelling has almost subsided but there is still a fair amount of blood around my eye. My vision is a little blurry sometimes but it should get better. I don’t have feeling in a portion of my upper lip, nose, and upper right set of teeth. The surgeons said the feeling might come back depending on what type of nerve damage occurred. It’s getting much easier to eat. I just have to make sure to stay away from crunchy things and to take small bites, as my mouth still won’t open completely. Sleeping isn’t exactly easy because I can only sleep on my back due to my injuries…but other than all that, life is good!

The surgery will be fairly straightforward (from what I can gather). They will go under my eyelid and possibly above my gums to insert a degradable reinforcement for my cheekbone. They will obviously be monitoring my eye closely for quite some time. I will do my best to keep everyone posted upon recovering from surgery. Again, thanks to everyone for your concern and support!

The March at the DNC

This post has been written in bits and pieces, and is so damn late as to be nearly irrelevant. But TSO called me out, so here it is. This will be periodically updated with videos, which is what the holdup was last time.




It’s (at the time) three days later, and it’s still hard for me to write about the march. It was such an amazing and emotional experience that I still can barely talk about it aloud calmly-and writing is just as bad.

Even the morning was incredible-watching everyone get up and shave and put their uniform on, one after the other, choked me up. I’ve always felt that my fellow IVAW members were in many ways my soldiers, but having it made more explicitly clear literally blew my mind. Walking around and brushing lint off Class As, straightening someone’s tie, pulling strings off someone else’s uniform…it was just like any other unit I’ve been in getting ready for inspection. Looking at Josh Earl in his dress blues, or Jeff Key and Liam Madden in their Marine dress uniforms, seeing them all smile and laugh and get ready…seeing the number of IVAW members who shaved entire beards off to put their dress uniforms on again…Hari Khalsa, who went from a scruffy comedian to a wise-cracking NCO again….everyone, too many to name. IVAW /was/ my unit, and I wished like hell I could have been with them in my own dress uniform. It pained me to be wearing civilian clothes and old black boots from my BDU days-the only part of an old uniform I could legally wear, which would help with the marching-and also with helping me march with one foot a mess of blisters from police liason the other day.

We rolled out in shifts to the Rage Against the Machine show, and I have to say that the consideration that the band gave us was amazing. Watching them salute the IVAW members in uniform from the stage, hearing the audience shouting for the troops to come home and seeing the wild, enthusiastic applause for IVAW and their points of unity was incredible. (Not to mention my amusement as the crowd chanted 'USA' for the IVAW members for probably the first time ever.)

I had given over my role as police liason to Robynn and Geoff Millard, as I was going to be marching and involved in the action. We had a good passdown and changeover, and were pleased to be met by Lieutenant Porter again, as well as the Chief of Police and Vice Chief of Police for Denver. The other two were stopping through, but had a good productive conversation with our liasons. Although we did not have a prior permit, they said that while they would prefer that we kept to the sidewalk, if there were too many people, they would block off a lane of traffic for us. We were also following a route previously suggested by them, for ease of flow and minimum traffic disruption.
The call to fall in was given, and we began to march out. I initially started the cadence calling, and I swelled almost to bursting at it. To call cadence that I had written for a platoon full of people that I loved was beyond intense.



Eventually my voice gave out and I had to turn it over to another of my brothers-in-arms, and contented myself with sounding off as loudly as possible so that the streets echoed with our sound.

There were some issues to marching in cadence with civilians following behind, though. I saw elsewhere on the internet that one of the civlians thought we were negotiating each time we stopped, but really, we were waiting for the civilians to catch up. The ones near the front of the formation were keeping up okay, but the ones near the middle and back were doing the accordion thing that happens at battalion runs, and my fellow IVAW members didn’t want to leave them behind. Marching is the way it is because the timing makes it a fairly efficient way to move troops at a good pace. Civilians, not so much. At one point we tried to 'rout step crawl', but troops, in uniform or out, don't make very good slow walkers, so we went back to marching and pausing.

Another thing occurred that I would not have expected-we had the devil of a time getting the media to respect formation integrity. So used, during our time in the military, to everyone honoring a formation, not going in front of a formation or through a formation, and giving it clear space on the sides, it had not occurred to us that the media and general civilians might not realize it was disrespectful. Some of them, who shall remain nameless, got quite upset about it, one of them even physically assaulting our media coordinator, Francesca LoBasso.

The support of the people of Denver, and the police themselves, was incredible. They lined the streets for us, parents bringing their children and people coming out on their balconies. For an unpermitted march, it was more like a parade, with even the police having somewhat of a festive atmosphere. Of course, they probably thought we were planning to go into the “Freedom Cage”-and yes, that really was its name. They even sent a golf-cart style vehicle ahead of us flashing ‘Welcome to Denver’.

(Below follows the more recent portion)
We had previously decided that no way, no how, were veterans and servicemembers who had served their country, many of them in combat, going to be forced into a 'Freedom Cage'. What purpose supposedly defending freedom abroad if there's no freedom here at home? Jeff Key says it better than I can in the below video.



Yet, as we marched, we found ourselves steered towards an elaborate cattle chute, designed to keep us out of the way, hidden from the delegates. In true herding fashion, there were no police at the front of the march that we could possibly have had any sort of confrontation with. I have to give the police of Denver their due. It was a brilliant move. Had they been dealing with any other protest group whatsoever, it would have worked. We would have been stopped, stalled, robbed of our energy, and eventually dispersed.

But military formations and commands were created for this. We simply passed the word back through the civilians that IVAW would be coming back through, and they parted like the red sea-allowing a simple about-face to place us in perfect position to march back through our following crowds, and find another point, closer to the Pepsi Center, and far better for negotiations.

We faced off at the gate. There were lines of riot police, riot police on cherry pickers, riot police armed with rubber bullets and tear gas. As we slowly began to move the formation forward, a few steps closer at a time, I have to say that there was a point when I fully expected to be shot. It's not that we were a threat to the police force, and we had already explained that when the arrestable IVAW members reached the front they fully were prepared to cooperate with police and go quietly without struggle. But I am nothing if not able to put myself in someone else's shoes, and I could easily put myself in the shoes of the Denver police at that moment. We were relatively new in that city to massive, disciplined actions. There was a military formation of highly disciplined troops who were not breaking formation, not shouting and yelling and showing lack of coordination, but taking orders from our platoon leader. They had a good relationship with us from the other day, but still-if I were a police officer, I would not want to confront a company size element of troops (if you include the nonarrestable contingent, who historically is known for switching to arrestable when seeing other IVAW members go down). I especially would not want to confront a company size element who managed to get a protest crowd of over 5,000-10,000 (depending on different crowd estimates) to follow direction. They had no way of knowing what the mob was there for.

For local media video, and also to see more IVAW thanking the police, this is a good video.



Deep credit once again goes to the liasons, both on our side and on the police side. But even more credit goes to Jason Hurd and Kris Goldsmith, who took the megaphone and addressed the police themselves. As we in formation saluted the police, Jason Hurd called out to them as fellows who had taken an oath to protect, as the fellow veterans that many of them were. The Denver PD, we learned the previous day, had a large contingent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. We addressed them as the brothers they were, as seen below, and explained that we did not want to hurt them, and would not resist even if they decided that their orders meant they had to hurt us. That many of us had been the men with the guns, the men facing a crowd, but that we had an easier task than they did. We had never been asked to act against American citizens. We had never been asked to act against brothers.



We knew the police did not want to arrest us-nor did they want our lines to meet. They had worked with us the previous day and knew who we were, and respected us. But we also knew that they had orders, and their orders (and the orders likely given by the Secret Service) required them to keep us back from any possibility of reaching inside.

Impartial observers reported that five veteran-police officers had to remove themselves from the line due to beginning to tear up and one actually crying so badly that he gave his riot control weapon to another police officer and walked off the line without asking for permission first. We were all brothers that day, and no one, no one, wanted to hurt each other.

Fortunately, when we were maybe five or ten feet away from the actual police line, the Obama campaign sent out orders to the police to allow two of our representatives inside, where they were met with the veterans affairs liason for the campaign, supposedly to talk about getting our letter read to the delegates.

Initially, we believed that it was a victory, and that Obama had agreed to this. Someone even shouted that he had agreed to endorse our three points of unity. This later proved to be bad intelligence, but at the time, we truly believed that we had won. That the person most likely (at least given polls) to be president of the United States had listened to us, and would continue our goals into policy. That the burden of what we had done and still had to do might possibly be lifted. That there was a chance-just a chance-that this struggle so many of us have devoted so much of our lives to might be over.

I am not ashamed to admit that as the order was given to fall out, I cried as I hugged more people than I ever had in a single day before, as the crowd of civilians behind us chanted "Yes we can". I was whirled up by brother after brother and was awash with more intense joy than I had felt in years. The belief that my brothers would be coming home. That the world would slowly begin to be put right again. That the military would begin to change back to what it was when soldiers took care of each other.

We fell out onto the grass, exhausted. Many of us had gone without sleep, and had marched in the blazing hot sun for quite some time. The slowness of the crowd meant that we were out for hours in the heat, and the water resupply had given out as soon as the cattlechute got tighter. Many of us had eaten very little or nothing all day. We collapsed in peace, in that exhausted peace that comes with having done your work well and completely. We told the crowd we had achieved victory, and they mingled with us for some time before leaving. Food Not Bombs took a quick count of our numbers and headed off, later to return with the most amazing chili I had tasted in quite some time. Hunger is always the best sauce. They came out at night when they didn't have to, just to feed us. We felt one with the city, one with the police. We mingled with them all, laughed with them, shook their hands and talked about our lives. Some of them tried to recruit us to the Denver police department. Some of us tried to recruit them to IVAW. Everyone was in good spirits. It's always a good day when you don't have to shoot anyone. It's always a good day when you don't have to be shot or arrested. It's always a good day when you can find common ground.

In the end, the letter was not read to the delegates. As a veteran tribute was taking place inside, veterans were essentially ignored by many delegates outside. However, it did make it to the veteran liason, who read it and promised to deliver it to Obama. I have no idea if he did or not. But still, it was an incredible action. I only wish more could go like that.

Totally For TSO: The Campaign Gets Ugly

Two posts in a row, what do you know? This one is more bringing the funny. I didn't write it, but apparently this thing has been floating around the internet. It's the political campaign, brought down to the level of...a roleplaying campaign. I don't even get all the references, but I know someone who will. Cough cough.

Full thing can be found here, and it's pretty hilarious. Yes, it makes fun of McCain (as WELL as others) and he is a veteran. Like I said, I didn't write it. It's still funny.

A couple excerpts, though you should really go read the whole thing, especially if you are a gamer...

GM: OK, the bugbear attacks you. What do you do?

OBAMA: I send one of my 672 henchmen after it.

MCCAIN: OK, seriously. Why does he have so many henchmen? I'm a level 72 ranger and he's only a level 8 paladin.

OBAMA: Well, if you'd bought the Grassroots Organizing and Oratory/Colgate Smile proficiencies you could min max it so that you...

MCCAIN: Why is he even IN this campaign? I thought this was supposed to be a high level party.

OBAMA: Well, maybe some people got tired of the grim and squinty "Matterhorn, son of Marathon" shtick you keep doing. Dude, could you be any less original?

MCCAIN: Oh my god, I did not leave my left nut in a tiger cage in the Tomb of Horrors to spend my Friday nights mopping up after the new kid.

OBAMA: "My friends, I am a totally unoriginal grizzled character class stereotype. I should lead the party because I have more testicular damage than that one."

My favorite was probably the one underneath...

RON PAUL: I brought my Planescape character!

OBAMA: Dude, we're playing Forgotten Realms.

RON PAUL: I rift in from Sigil! I'm a Chaotic Neutral Tiefling Barbarian/Monk/Rogue!

MCCAIN: DUDE, that is not even LEGAL.

Really, this whole visualization makes everything make sense.

GM: You guys, seriously, if you don't knock it off with the bickering I'm going to start docking XP.

MCCAIN: You know what? Fuck it. I'm suspending the campaign.

GM: You can't do that! Only I can suspend the campaign! I didn't suspend it for the 1988 Mountain Dew shortage and I'm not going to suspend it now.

Coins and exhaustion

In other news, I still haven't finished my promised DNC post, expect it maybe...this weekend, maybe.

However, I did get the Installation Command Sergeant Major's coin for taking initiative on something. I wonder if he'll regret that after some time on the Google to find out that I'm an IVAW member?

The VFW post commander is tracking me down like a ninja. He called me out on the fact that I never came to a meeting, and got me to promise I'd be at the one next week. He also wants me to stop being a poor bastard and getting the yearly memberships when the lifetime membership is such a better deal. He did not buy that it was only a better deal if I planned on surviving the next twenty years.

End result of this: I think I'm getting a lifetime membership and hoping he will never use his fearsome mind powers for evil. But it sounds like a good post.

I would cheerfully trade this coin in for some real sleep, though.

Love it and never shut up.

Yes, I realize my posting has been slim. Give it time, I'll come back. In the meantime, here's a counter to the "love it or leave it" crowd. It's a quote from Barbara Kingsolver's Jabberwocky.

Once upon a time, a passing stranger sent me into exile. I was downtown in front of the Federal Building with a small crowd assembled to protest war in the Persian Gulf; he was in a black Ford pickup. As the truck roared by he leaned most of his upper body out the window to give me a better view of his finger, and he screamed "Hey, bitch, love it or leave it!"
So I left.
[...]
As the time drew near, my feet balked. I dreaded leaving my kind new place [Spain] to return to [excerpted] ...The place I was told to love or leave.

I found I could do neither. Not wholeheartedly. But like the boy who fought the Jabberwock in Through the Looking Glass, I took my vorpal sword in hand. For the sake of the people who love me and the sight of the mountains that move my soul, I would come galumphing back, to face the tyranny of words without meaning and monsters beyond my kin.

I came back because leaving was selfish. A country can be flawed as a marriage or a family or a person is flawed, but "Love it or leave it" is a coward's slogan. There's more honor in "Love it and get it right." Love it, love it. Love it and never shut up.

The March at the DNC

This post has been written in bits and pieces, and is so damn late as to be nearly irrelevant. But TSO called me out, so here it is. This will be periodically updated with videos, which is what the holdup was last time.




It’s (at the time) three days later, and it’s still hard for me to write about the march. It was such an amazing and emotional experience that I still can barely talk about it aloud calmly-and writing is just as bad.

Even the morning was incredible-watching everyone get up and shave and put their uniform on, one after the other, choked me up. I’ve always felt that my fellow IVAW members were in many ways my soldiers, but having it made more explicitly clear literally blew my mind. Walking around and brushing lint off Class As, straightening someone’s tie, pulling strings off someone else’s uniform…it was just like any other unit I’ve been in getting ready for inspection. Looking at Josh Earl in his dress blues, or Jeff Key and Liam Madden in their Marine dress uniforms, seeing them all smile and laugh and get ready…seeing the number of IVAW members who shaved entire beards off to put their dress uniforms on again…Hari Khalsa, who went from a scruffy comedian to a wise-cracking NCO again….everyone, too many to name. IVAW /was/ my unit, and I wished like hell I could have been with them in my own dress uniform. It pained me to be wearing civilian clothes and old black boots from my BDU days-the only part of an old uniform I could legally wear, which would help with the marching-and also with helping me march with one foot a mess of blisters from police liason the other day.

We rolled out in shifts to the Rage Against the Machine show, and I have to say that the consideration that the band gave us was amazing. Watching them salute the IVAW members in uniform from the stage, hearing the audience shouting for the troops to come home and seeing the wild, enthusiastic applause for IVAW and their points of unity was incredible. (Not to mention my amusement as the crowd chanted 'USA' for the IVAW members for probably the first time ever.)

I had given over my role as police liason to Robynn and Geoff Millard, as I was going to be marching and involved in the action. We had a good passdown and changeover, and were pleased to be met by Lieutenant Porter again, as well as the Chief of Police and Vice Chief of Police for Denver. The other two were stopping through, but had a good productive conversation with our liasons. Although we did not have a prior permit, they said that while they would prefer that we kept to the sidewalk, if there were too many people, they would block off a lane of traffic for us. We were also following a route previously suggested by them, for ease of flow and minimum traffic disruption.
The call to fall in was given, and we began to march out. I initially started the cadence calling, and I swelled almost to bursting at it. To call cadence that I had written for a platoon full of people that I loved was beyond intense.



Eventually my voice gave out and I had to turn it over to another of my brothers-in-arms, and contented myself with sounding off as loudly as possible so that the streets echoed with our sound.

There were some issues to marching in cadence with civilians following behind, though. I saw elsewhere on the internet that one of the civlians thought we were negotiating each time we stopped, but really, we were waiting for the civilians to catch up. The ones near the front of the formation were keeping up okay, but the ones near the middle and back were doing the accordion thing that happens at battalion runs, and my fellow IVAW members didn’t want to leave them behind. Marching is the way it is because the timing makes it a fairly efficient way to move troops at a good pace. Civilians, not so much. At one point we tried to 'rout step crawl', but troops, in uniform or out, don't make very good slow walkers, so we went back to marching and pausing.

Another thing occurred that I would not have expected-we had the devil of a time getting the media to respect formation integrity. So used, during our time in the military, to everyone honoring a formation, not going in front of a formation or through a formation, and giving it clear space on the sides, it had not occurred to us that the media and general civilians might not realize it was disrespectful. Some of them, who shall remain nameless, got quite upset about it, one of them even physically assaulting our media coordinator, Francesca LoBasso.

The support of the people of Denver, and the police themselves, was incredible. They lined the streets for us, parents bringing their children and people coming out on their balconies. For an unpermitted march, it was more like a parade, with even the police having somewhat of a festive atmosphere. Of course, they probably thought we were planning to go into the “Freedom Cage”-and yes, that really was its name. They even sent a golf-cart style vehicle ahead of us flashing ‘Welcome to Denver’.

(Below follows the more recent portion)
We had previously decided that no way, no how, were veterans and servicemembers who had served their country, many of them in combat, going to be forced into a 'Freedom Cage'. What purpose supposedly defending freedom abroad if there's no freedom here at home? Jeff Key says it better than I can in the below video.



Yet, as we marched, we found ourselves steered towards an elaborate cattle chute, designed to keep us out of the way, hidden from the delegates. In true herding fashion, there were no police at the front of the march that we could possibly have had any sort of confrontation with. I have to give the police of Denver their due. It was a brilliant move. Had they been dealing with any other protest group whatsoever, it would have worked. We would have been stopped, stalled, robbed of our energy, and eventually dispersed.

But military formations and commands were created for this. We simply passed the word back through the civilians that IVAW would be coming back through, and they parted like the red sea-allowing a simple about-face to place us in perfect position to march back through our following crowds, and find another point, closer to the Pepsi Center, and far better for negotiations.

We faced off at the gate. There were lines of riot police, riot police on cherry pickers, riot police armed with rubber bullets and tear gas. As we slowly began to move the formation forward, a few steps closer at a time, I have to say that there was a point when I fully expected to be shot. It's not that we were a threat to the police force, and we had already explained that when the arrestable IVAW members reached the front they fully were prepared to cooperate with police and go quietly without struggle. But I am nothing if not able to put myself in someone else's shoes, and I could easily put myself in the shoes of the Denver police at that moment. We were relatively new in that city to massive, disciplined actions. There was a military formation of highly disciplined troops who were not breaking formation, not shouting and yelling and showing lack of coordination, but taking orders from our platoon leader. They had a good relationship with us from the other day, but still-if I were a police officer, I would not want to confront a company size element of troops (if you include the nonarrestable contingent, who historically is known for switching to arrestable when seeing other IVAW members go down). I especially would not want to confront a company size element who managed to get a protest crowd of over 5,000-10,000 (depending on different crowd estimates) to follow direction. They had no way of knowing what the mob was there for.

For local media video, and also to see more IVAW thanking the police, this is a good video.



Deep credit once again goes to the liasons, both on our side and on the police side. But even more credit goes to Jason Hurd and Kris Goldsmith, who took the megaphone and addressed the police themselves. As we in formation saluted the police, Jason Hurd called out to them as fellows who had taken an oath to protect, as the fellow veterans that many of them were. The Denver PD, we learned the previous day, had a large contingent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. We addressed them as the brothers they were, as seen below, and explained that we did not want to hurt them, and would not resist even if they decided that their orders meant they had to hurt us. That many of us had been the men with the guns, the men facing a crowd, but that we had an easier task than they did. We had never been asked to act against American citizens. We had never been asked to act against brothers.



We knew the police did not want to arrest us-nor did they want our lines to meet. They had worked with us the previous day and knew who we were, and respected us. But we also knew that they had orders, and their orders (and the orders likely given by the Secret Service) required them to keep us back from any possibility of reaching inside.

Impartial observers reported that five veteran-police officers had to remove themselves from the line due to beginning to tear up and one actually crying so badly that he gave his riot control weapon to another police officer and walked off the line without asking for permission first. We were all brothers that day, and no one, no one, wanted to hurt each other.

Fortunately, when we were maybe five or ten feet away from the actual police line, the Obama campaign sent out orders to the police to allow two of our representatives inside, where they were met with the veterans affairs liason for the campaign, supposedly to talk about getting our letter read to the delegates.

Initially, we believed that it was a victory, and that Obama had agreed to this. Someone even shouted that he had agreed to endorse our three points of unity. This later proved to be bad intelligence, but at the time, we truly believed that we had won. That the person most likely (at least given polls) to be president of the United States had listened to us, and would continue our goals into policy. That the burden of what we had done and still had to do might possibly be lifted. That there was a chance-just a chance-that this struggle so many of us have devoted so much of our lives to might be over.

I am not ashamed to admit that as the order was given to fall out, I cried as I hugged more people than I ever had in a single day before, as the crowd of civilians behind us chanted "Yes we can". I was whirled up by brother after brother and was awash with more intense joy than I had felt in years. The belief that my brothers would be coming home. That the world would slowly begin to be put right again. That the military would begin to change back to what it was when soldiers took care of each other.

We fell out onto the grass, exhausted. Many of us had gone without sleep, and had marched in the blazing hot sun for quite some time. The slowness of the crowd meant that we were out for hours in the heat, and the water resupply had given out as soon as the cattlechute got tighter. Many of us had eaten very little or nothing all day. We collapsed in peace, in that exhausted peace that comes with having done your work well and completely. We told the crowd we had achieved victory, and they mingled with us for some time before leaving. Food Not Bombs took a quick count of our numbers and headed off, later to return with the most amazing chili I had tasted in quite some time. Hunger is always the best sauce. They came out at night when they didn't have to, just to feed us. We felt one with the city, one with the police. We mingled with them all, laughed with them, shook their hands and talked about our lives. Some of them tried to recruit us to the Denver police department. Some of us tried to recruit them to IVAW. Everyone was in good spirits. It's always a good day when you don't have to shoot anyone. It's always a good day when you don't have to be shot or arrested. It's always a good day when you can find common ground.

In the end, the letter was not read to the delegates. As a veteran tribute was taking place inside, veterans were essentially ignored by many delegates outside. However, it did make it to the veteran liason, who read it and promised to deliver it to Obama. I have no idea if he did or not. But still, it was an incredible action. I only wish more could go like that.