Veterans for Common Sense

US veterans’ invisible wounds   By Richard Allen Greene, BBC News, August 16, 2005 

Nearly 2,000 US troops have been killed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, and tens of thousands wounded. But many have found themselves dealing with psychological – as well as physical – trauma. In the second of a five-part series, BBC News talks to soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and related symptoms.

Steve MacMaster can’t sleep without medication: “If people knew what I was thinking, they would not want to associate with me,” he says.

Aaron Jones does not feel comfortable without a gun around: “I lived in Iraq for almost a year with a gun on me all the time or right next to my bed.”

Kathy’s boyfriend – who did not want to be named – had to stop watching the news: “When he sees people going to Iraq, or coming home, he can get really upset.

“Whatever you say, he’ll find something in it to disagree with. So we don’t watch the news.”

All three veterans of the US occupation of Iraq are having nightmares about what they saw and did there – and they are among tens of thousands of US troops suffering from psychological trauma after coming home.

Death on the road

Sgt MacMaster, 42, is haunted by his memories of commanding a transport unit.

He was in charge of 40 soldiers driving fuel tankers between Nasiriya and Baghdad – a day-long trip that “was like a bunch of safe forts with no-man’s-land in the middle and everybody taking potshots at you”.

For the safety of his own troops, he had been ordered not to stop moving.

“At the beginning of the war I was told: ‘Don’t stop for anybody – if they get in the way, run them over.'”

And he had not been in the country long before he saw a lorry run over a little girl in the road begging for food.

“I had seen dead Iraqis before, but they were fighters. These were people who were getting hit in an innocent way.”

He also saw soldiers under his command suffer horrific injuries.

One fell asleep driving a fully loaded 16,000kg (35,000lb) fuel truck. It crashed and rolled over, but the driver survived.

“Her face had been smashed in. I couldn’t get communications to my helicopters so I decided to take this girl in my humvee and blitzed up to Baghdad as fast as possible.”

The stress of the mission started getting to him.

“I couldn’t sleep or eat. I had butterflies in my stomach attacking me.”

Sgt MacMaster’s superior noticed the change and sent him to a psychologist, who sent him on to a military hospital where he was diagnosed with PTSD and depression.

Worrying trends

A lot of Iraq veterans are hearing that diagnosis these days.

A study at the US Army’s Walter Reed hospital in Washington, DC, found that up to 17{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} of Iraq veterans – about one in six – suffered depression, anxiety or PTSD.

About 425,000 US troops have served in Iraq since the invasion in March 2003, meaning some 70,000 could be experiencing psychological trauma.

Some early indicators are worrying.  The divorce rate among US army officers has tripled in the past three years.  The National Coalition for Homeless Veterans says that in 2004 its affiliates helped 67 veterans of Iraq or Afghanistan – only a year or two into those conflicts.

That set off alarm bells at the charity, since experts say it took traumatised Vietnam veterans an average 12-15 years to end up in shelters.

“Homeless service providers are deeply concerned about the inevitable rising tide of combat veterans who will soon be requesting their support,” the coalition warned.

The number of veterans coming home from Iraq, it added, “is unlike anything the nation has experienced since the end of the Vietnam war”.

Vet Centers – community outreach counselling centres set up by the US Department of Veterans’ Affairs – have seen nearly 19,000 Iraq or Afghanistan veterans to date, says Dr Al Batres, the head of the VA’s readjustment counselling service.

‘Intrusive and disturbing’

Tim Beebe, regional director of the New England Vet Centers, says the numbers are increasing month by month.

And his counsellors say they see the same symptoms over and over again: Sleeplessness, anger, irritability, anxiety, depression.

“PTSD can be intrusive – you can be out with your family and suddenly you’re thinking about an event in Iraq. It becomes disturbing to the veteran, difficult to understand,” Mr Beebe says.

“It’s not something the veteran can will away or adapt to. And it can be chronic and lifelong if not treated.”

But – although pre- and post-deployment mental health screening is becoming standard in the US military – many veterans do not seek treatment.

Some simply have no professional services nearby.

Self-reliance

Aaron Jones says many veterans think they can simply “suck it up and drive on”, as the military has taught them to do.

Kathy’s boyfriend – a 14-year Army veteran who did two tours in Iraq and has known friends who were killed there since he came home – is one of them, she says.

He doesn’t even talk to his veteran friends about his experiences, she says.

“He told me they have a rule that they don’t talk about it – they go out to have fun, and if they talk about Iraq, they don’t have fun,” she says.

“I’m the only one he talks to. I’ve heard the same miserable stories time and again and I don’t know what to say. He doesn’t want to be consoled.”

Even some of those who have had help continue to struggle with trauma.

Steve MacMaster would like to stop taking medication for his condition but fears the consequences.

“I don’t want to go back to the way I was in Iraq, where I became reckless and thought the only way to end it was to take a bullet – and started hoping for the bullet.”

On Wednesday, BBC News investigates the Iraqi experience.

The Iraqi parliament delayed a session Monday on whether to approve a new constitution hours before a deadline as faction leaders failed in last-minute talks to agree on a federated state and other divisive issues.

The two-hour delay came after some Iraqi politicians suggested that parliament should extend the deadline for approving the charter while others said it could be approved over Sunni objections as last-minute talks failed to produce agreement on a federated state and other divisive issues.

The 275-member National Assembly had been scheduled to convene at 6 p.m. (10 a.m. EDT) to consider the draft but moments ahead of the time, the meeting room in the heavily guarded Green Zone was absent of legislators.

Shiite member Mohammed Baqir al-Bahadli said members had been advised that the new starting time was 8 p.m.

Kurdish parliament member Mahmoud Othman said meetings were still under way on the outstanding issues and so far “no final agreements have been reached.”

Tariq al-Hashimi, the general secretary of Iraq’s biggest Sunni political group, the Iraqi Islamic party, told Al-Jazeera television that the minority’s demands were not the only obstacles blocking progress.

Instead, he said Shiites and Kurds also had “points of disagreement” and it might be better to delay a decision. He didn’t elaborate.

Al-Hashimi said his party did not believe in the “sanctity” of the interim constitution which mandated Monday as the deadline for the constitution to be approved by parliament.

An extension of Monday’s deadline would require approval of two-thirds of parliament and the president and his two deputies. U.S. officials have pressured Iraqis to stick to Monday’s deadline.

The Iraqis have been under strong pressure from the United States to complete the charter on time and keep on track a political process the Americans hope will lure Sunnis away from the insurgency so U.S. and other foreign troops can begin to go home next year.

Iraqi leaders had insisted the draft constitution would be presented to parliament on Monday.

“It will be today. It will be a historic day in the history of Iraq,” Iraqi National Security Adviser Mouwaffak al-Rubaie told CNN just over an hour before the delay was announced.

Government spokesman Laith Kubba also said the document would be presented on time.

“Every group knows what they will lose if they don’t reach an agreement,” Kubba told state-run Iraqiya television.

Some Shiite and Kurdish leaders had signaled they were prepared to submit the draft to parliament Monday evening _ even if they had to do so over Sunni Arab objections.

But that risked a backlash among Sunni Arabs, who form the core of the insurgency, which could undermine the American goal of using the constitution to lure away Sunnis from the insurgency.

With stakes so high, public positions among the factions were changing by the hour.

A lawmaker from the biggest Shiite party, Jalaladin al-Shagir, said political leaders were leaning toward extending the deadline for up to a month.

Another option expressed was to ignore Sunni objections, submit the document to parliament as planned and try to win over the Sunni public before an Oct. 15 referendum on the charter.

“I personally support postponing” parliamentary approval until Sept. 15, Sunni Arab legislator Haseeb Aref said. “I don’t expect them to hand the draft today because there is no unanimity.”

Sunni Arabs have asked that the issue of federalism be put off until next year. Shiites and Kurds, the two other major groups in the country, are pushing for autonomous regions in the southern and northern parts of Iraq, but Sunnis fear the proposal could split Iraq.

Sunnis also oppose other proposals endorsed by the Shiites and Kurds, including proposals for a special status for the Shiite clerical leadership and a formula for distributing oil wealth and dual citizenship.

But Shiites and Kurds dominate the 275-member National Assembly _ as well as the constitutional committee _ and could ram through the charter over Sunni Arab objects. Other options include amending the interim constitution to extend the deadline or dissolving parliament.

Sunnis _ who boycotted the Jan. 30 vote for an interim parliament _ could defeat the constitution in the national referendum. If two-thirds of the voters in three provinces vote against the constitution, it would be defeated. Sunni Arabs form the majority in at least four provinces.

Sunni clerics have urged followers to vote against any constitution that could lead to the breakup of the country

American officials applied pressure to resolve differences on that and other issues before Monday’s deadline _ despite the risks of alienating the Sunnis.

“The Iraqis tell me that they can finish it and they will finish it tomorrow,” U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said Sunday in a televised interview.

Khalilzad said “a lot of American blood and American treasure has been spent here” _ a point that he had made “abundantly clear to my Iraqi interlocutors.”

Violence continued Monday. In Khalis, 50 miles north of Baghdad, gunmen killed three people in separate shootings, including a municipal council member and his driver, police said Monday. Four others were wounded.

Police said gunmen killed three Iraqi soldiers and wounded three others at a checkpoint in Buhriz, 35 miles north of Baghdad.

In west Baghdad, an insurgent ambush killed one Iraqi soldier and injured another, police Capt. Talib Thamir said. A mortar struck the rear courtyard of the Interior Ministry on Monday, wounding five troops and three civilians, police Lt. Col. Fouad Assad said.

In Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, the body of a government food program worker was found, police said. In the nearby village of Khirnabat, police said Monday a roadside bomb had killed one civilian the day before.

Bush administration officials are signaling a possible exit strategy by playing down expectations for a flourishing democracy in Iraq, a leading Democratic lawmaker says.

“They have squandered about every opportunity to get it right,” Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Sunday. “The bottom line is, they are significantly lowering expectations.”

Biden’s comments, on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” came as Iraqi leaders worked to complete a new constitution before Monday’s deadline for parliament to approve the charter.

Biden said he has seen no evidence the Sunni-led insurgency in Iraq is losing steam as a political force _ an assertion made recently by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The Washington Post reported Sunday that the administration is scaling back some expectations for Iraq, such as the transformation of the country into a model new democracy.

Biden and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said it is premature for the United States to begin plans for withdrawing troops from Iraq.

“The day that I can land at the airport in Baghdad and ride in an unarmed car down the highway to the Green Zone is the day that I’ll start considering withdrawals from Iraq,” said McCain, referring to the heavily fortified area where U.S. and Iraqi government headquarters are located.

“We not only don’t need to withdraw, we need more troops there,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.”

The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said it was possible that the United States would put more troops on the ground in Iraq ahead of another round of elections there in December.

He also predicted that Iraqis would complete a constitution by Monday’s deadline.

“The Iraqis tell me that they can finish it and they will finish it tomorrow,” Khalilzad said during a string of appearances on Sunday TV talk shows. “There are options, obviously, should they need it, but at this point, my information is _ and I’ve just come from a meeting with the Iraqi leaders _that they intend to finish it tomorrow.”

McCain said all Iraqis have a vested interest in the outcome of the draft negotiations.

“I think it’s very important that it not be a perfect constitution, but it certainly be one that protects the rights of all minorities and all ethnic groups in Iraq,” he said.

But in Baghdad, leaders of Iraq’s various factions considered extending Monday’s deadline as officials struggled to agree on a federated state and resolve a host of other issues.

Early Monday, Shiite and Kurdish leaders signaled they were prepared to submit the draft to parliament Monday evening _ even if they had to do so over Sunni Arab objections. That risked a backlash among Sunni Arabs, who form the core of the insurgency, which could undermine the American goal of using the constitution to lure Sunnis away from the insurgency.

To battle the insurgents, Khalilzad said Baghdad needs to do more to encourage neighboring Iran and Syria to prevent foreign terrorists from crossing into Iraq.

“The neighbors can make it harder. It can take longer. But success is inevitable,” Khalilzad said. “This country has the resources to become a very rich and powerful country. It behooves the neighbors of Iraq to help.”

Since the war started in March 2003, more than 1,800 members of the U.S. military have died. The United States has 138,000 troops in Iraq, and military officials had recently discussed “fairly substantial reductions” in forces early next year, if the situation on the ground stabilized.

But Bush last week dismissed talk of troop cuts or increases as “speculation and rumors.”

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said the administration needs a plan.

“Some of the generals have said we can withdraw some of the troops … We have others saying we’re not going to leave. These people do not know what they are doing,” Dean said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

In a departure from past policies, newspapers around the country, with the U.S. death toll in Iraq again soaring, increasingly are reporting the antiwar sentiments of family members of the deceased in their coverage of funerals. The latest example comes from the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader on Sunday.

It concerns the funeral of Lance Cpl. Chase Johnson Comley. The story notes that “in a departure from the norm in Kentucky — one of the reddest of red states — some of Comley’s relatives, including a few sitting in the front pews, have spoken out strongly against the Bush administration and the war that took the 21-year-old Marine’s life.”

Comley’s grandmother, 80-year-old Geraldine Comley of Versailles, described herself as a former Republican stalwart who is “on a rampage” against the president and the war.

“When someone gets up and says ‘My son died for our freedom,’ or I get a sympathy card that says that, I can hardly bear it,” Geraldine Comley said. She added that she would like nothing better than to join Cindy Sheehan, who has been holding a protest outside President Bush’s ranch in Texas.

Her daughter, Missy Comley Beattie, also was critical of Bush and the war in a column she wrote for Friday’s Herald-Leader.

“I’ve never seen my father cry, but I’ve heard him cry this week,” she said in an interview. “And he will look at the picture of Chase that’s on their hearth and say ‘George Bush killed my grandson.'”

2005 Marine Corps Times Marine of the Year

Sgt. Daniel Cotnoir
MARINE CORPS MORTUARY AFFAIRS UNIT

Assignment:Small-arms repairman
with Ordnance Contact Team 1, Ordnance
Maintenance Company, 4th Maintenance Battalion,
Devens, Mass. Cotnoir joined the Marine Corps in 1999 and
was promoted meritoriously to sergeant during his 2004
deployment to Iraq. In addition to his recent job in mortuary
affairs, he is a Marine Corps martial arts instructor.

Personal:   Age 32. He lives in
Lawrence, Mass., with his wife
Kate and two daughters,
Ashley, 11, and Morgan, 6.

Shortly after Sgt. Daniel Cotnoir was mobilized for a deployment to Iraq, the Reserve small-arms repairman was instead assigned to do a job no Marine would ever want – collecting the remains of fellow Marines killed in action.
  The job of a mortuary affairs specialist can be gruesome and emotionally traumatic, involving searching for body parts after an explosion or combing through a young Marine’s wallet and finding photos of the family he left behind.
  For his work, Cotnoir was selected as the 2005 Marine Corps Times Marine of the Year, an annual award recognizing an “everyday hero” who exemplifies outstanding professionalism, concern for other service members and community service.
  Cotnoir is an armorer by trade; his assignment to mortuary affairs stems from his civilian occupation – he’s a funeral home director in Lawrence, Mass., a hardscrabble, working- class town 30 minutes north of Boston.
  Cotnoir has been recognized by his superiors as an outstanding Marine who treated with the utmost respect and sensitivity the job of getting deceased Marines home. But even for a funeral home director, the memories of the job still weigh heavy on the heart.
  “Because I do it in the civilian world, everyone says it’s easy,” he said. “It’s not. It’s hard. The stories I’ve gained from my deployment aren’t the kind of stories you share. No one gets to die peacefully in their sleep over there.”
  Upstairs from the Racicot Funeral Home, Cotnoir sits in the kitchen of his apartment . There, in a thick Massachusetts accent, he recalls his deployment to Camp Taqaddum, Iraq, where he and his unit of 20 men, most of them junior Marines, handled the bodies of 180 fallen Marines.
  “It’s a lot harder to talk about the job now than it was at the time to actually do it,” he said, pausing occasionally to choke back emotion. Caring for the bodies of fellow Marines is much tougher than civilians, he said, because of the camaraderie and brotherhood of the Marine Corps.
  As hard as it was to see so many young Marines killed, the job brought Cotnoir pride in knowing that the dead were not being left behind and that families would have closure.
  Cotnoir regularly cleaned and recompose the bloodied bodies and facial features of Marines killed in combat so that their buddies could say goodbye. It’s important that the last bloody image on the battlefield not be their last, he said. Cotnoir’s journey began at Camp Pendleton, Calif., where he was assigned to help train Marines in mortuary affairs. Previously, the Corps typically relied on Army units for this work. Cotnoir helped pioneer a new mortuary affairs military occupational specialty for the Marine Corps by training 40 Marines in mortuary and remains-recovery skills.
  After arriving in Iraq, Cotnoir’s unit was on constant call to retrieve fallen Marines. This often required combing large blast areas with multiple deaths for personal affects.
  Back home, Cotnoir’s involvement in the Corps and in his local community is evident when you walk past the pool table in his family’s cavernous living room, where cue balls give way to piles of papers and manila folders filed with information about various philanthropies.
  “You’ve got to do your part,” he said. “You just can’t live in the community and not give back to it.”
  The table has grown into Cotnoir’s organizing area for his work on a yearly Marine Corps golf tournament that he and a fellow Marine started a few years ago. The tournament raises thousands of dollars each year for the Toys for Tots program and other unit activities.
  Cotnoir also volunteers for military funeral details around Massachusetts a couple of times a month and is on the board of directors for Holy Family Hospital’s Men’s Guild, which raises money for a local hospital.
  Back in Devens, Mass., where Cotnoir drills, his superiors say he is a dedicated Marine with an outstanding work ethic. He’s a natural leader who motivates junior Marines to get things done, said Chief Warrant Officer 4 Edward Williamsc.
  “They respect him,” he said “He’s just an all-around example of an excellent Marine.”

Sema Olson was in the living room watching television when the phone rang. It was the Department of the Army calling. A voice asked if she’d heard from her son in the past 24 hours.

Ms. Olson tried to ward off the panic. “Is he still alive?” she asked.

After verifying her identity, the man on the phone assured her that her son, Bobby Rosendahl, who was stationed in Iraq, was still alive. But he’d been badly wounded.

With that Saturday night phone call, life as Ms. Olson had known it came to an end. Her family’s long, long period of overwhelming sacrifice was under way.

Bobby Rosendahl, a 24-year-old Army corporal (and avid golfer) from Tacoma, Wash., was literally blown into the air last March 12 when an improvised explosive device detonated beneath his Stryker armored vehicle. He remembers landing on his back, with fuel spilling all around him and insurgents firing at him from the roof of a mosque.

Ms. Olson, during an interview in Washington, D.C., where Corporal Rosendahl is being treated at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, quietly cataloged her son’s wounds:

“Both of his heels and ankles were crushed. He had a compound fracture of his femur in two places. Three-quarters of his kneecap was missing. His thigh was blown away. He had many, many open wounds, which all have closed except four right now.”

She paused, sighed, then went on: “His left leg was amputated three weeks after he arrived here. He’s not willing to give up his right leg. He’s hoping to save it. All he wants to do is golf again. But we don’t know. He’s had 36 surgeries so far.”

When you talk to close relatives of men and women who have been wounded in the war, it’s impossible not to notice the strain that is always evident in their faces. Their immediate concern is with the wounded soldier or marine. But just behind that immediate concern, in most cases, is the frightening awareness that they have to try and rebuild a way of life that was also blown apart when their loved one was wounded.

Ms. Olson, who is 45 and divorced, gave up everything – her work, her rented townhouse, her car – and moved from Tacoma to a hotel on the grounds of Walter Reed to be with her son and assist in his recovery.

“He was still in a coma when I got here,” she said. “He didn’t have his eyes open, and he was hooked up to all the machines. When he did open his eyes a couple of days later, he didn’t respond. His eyes didn’t follow me. That was a scary moment. But the following day his eyes started following me.”

Corporal Rosendahl has improved a great deal since those days and recently has been allowed to go with his mother on brief excursions away from the hospital. “It’s difficult for him,” Ms. Olson said. “But in those first weeks here he couldn’t move a finger. So this gives me so much hope.”

Ms. Olson is a paralegal who did work for several lawyers in Tacoma. She also worked as a claims analyst for the city’s transit system. With that work gone, she is now living on the $48 per diem she receives from the Army for food and lodging, along with money that she has reluctantly been drawing from her son’s Army pay, and assistance she is receiving from another son, Keith, who is 27.

She has also received help from charitable organizations that assist military families.

“My son is the most important thing,” she said, “and I knew that if I was going to be with him, I wouldn’t be able to meet my financial obligations.”

So she gave up the townhouse and “turned in” a Honda Accord that she had purchased just a year earlier. “Voluntary repossession,” she said.

There is nothing unusual about Ms. Olson’s situation. Families forced to absorb the blow of a loved one getting wounded frequently watch other pillars of their lives topple like dominoes. What is unusual with regard to this war is the absence of a sense of shared sacrifice. While families like Ms. Olson’s are losing almost everything, most of us are making no sacrifice at all.

Ms. Olson said she is neither angry nor bitter about her son’s plight or the misfortune that has hit her family. “I feel blessed that Bobby’s still alive,” she said. “To dwell on why it happened, or why it happened to him – well, I can’t waste my time on that. I have to look forward.”

She said she plans to find work in D.C., and “hopefully, get a place close to the hospital,” where she’ll stay until her son “is ready to go on with his life.”

Iraq war: tragedy of errors.  Honorable Marine died in dishonorable war By Missy Comley Beattie, Lexington Herald Leader, August 12, 2005 He is number 1,828, 1,829 or 1,830. We don’t know for sure, because so many died last week.

Marine Lance Cpl. Chase Johnson Comley died when his vehicle was hit head on by a suicide bomber. His death admits his family to a club no one wants to join: the grieving, questioning families who have heard the dreaded ring of the doorbell followed by a messenger’s words, “We regretfully inform you that your son …”

You realize that nothing you’ve thought, done or felt has prepared you for this reality. The feeling is so much worse than a broken heart. It is an evisceration.

As I write, Chase is being flown to Dover Air Force Base. His 6-foot-4 body is in a coffin draped with the American flag. He loved his family, his country, his Sayre classmates and his life, but we don’t think he loved his mission in Iraq.

When he was recruited, he told us he would be deployed to Japan. He called every week when he wasn’t in the field to tell us he was counting the days until his return. He tried to sound upbeat, probably for our benefit, but his father could detect in Chase’s voice more than a hint of futility and will never say, “my son died doing what he loved.”

For those of you who still trust the Bush administration — and your percentage diminishes every day — let me tell you that my nephew Chase Johnson Comley did not die to preserve your freedoms. He was not presented flowers by grateful Iraqis, welcoming him as their liberator.

He died fighting a senseless war for oil and contracts, ensuring the increased wealth of President Bush and his administration’s friends.

He died long after Bush, in his testosterone-charged, theatrical, soldier-for-a-day role, announced on an aircraft carrier beneath a “Mission Accomplished” banner that major combat was over.

He died in a country erupting into civil war and turned into a hellhole by Bush, a place where democracy has no chance of prevailing, a country that will become a theocracy like Saudi Arabia.

Have we won the hearts and the minds of the Iraqi people? Apparently not.

Have we spent more than half a trillion dollars — an amount that continues to rise — in a war that King Abdullah advised Bush against because it would disrupt the Middle East? Apparently so.

Consider what the money spent on this could have done for health care, our children’s education or a true humanitarian intervention in Sudan. And then think about Bush’s inauguration. Picture the lavish parties, the couture gown worn by Laura Bush. And imagine the cost of the security for the event.

And then think about Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld when he visits our troops. Picture his heavily armored vehicle, a machine impregnable to almost anything the insurgents toss in its path, while our troops are not provided sufficient armor to survive an improvised explosive device.

Think of the mismanagement of this entire war effort. Consider what we’ve lost. Too much. Think of what we’ve gained. Nothing.

And think of someone who says, “We will not cut and run,” but who did just that years ago when he was called.

Think about a man who speaks about a culture of life when the words fit a wedge issue such as abortion or the right to die when medical effort has failed.

Then think about this war, Bush’s not-so-intelligently designed culture of death.

Think, too, about naming a campaign “Shock and Awe” as if it’s a movie and, therefore, unreal. And then think that this, perhaps. is one of the problems.

For many Americans, the war is an abstraction. But it is not an abstraction for the innocent Iraqis whose lives have been devastated by our smart bombs. And it certainly is not an abstraction for those of us who have heard the words that change lives forever.

So think of my family’s grief — grief that will never end. Think of all the families. Think of the wounded, the maimed, the psychologically scarred.

And then consider: The preservation of our freedom rests not on U.S. imperialism but on actively changing foreign policies that are conquest-oriented and that dehumanize our own young who become fodder for endless war as well as people in other countries who are so geographically distant that they become abstract.

The answer is not Bush’s mantra: “They’re jealous of our freedoms.”

And, finally, think about flowers: The flowers for Chase Comley will be presented not by grateful Iraqis but by loved ones honoring him as he’s lowered to his grave and buried in our hearts.

Missy Comley Beattie of New York is the aunt of Marine Lance Cpl. Chase J. Comley of Lexington who was killed in Iraq last weekend.

Washington Post Hit For Sponsorship Of Pentagon’s ‘Freedom’ March

By Joe Strupp, Editor and Publisher, August 12, 2005 3:30 PM ET

NEW YORKThe Washington Post has no plans to withdraw its co-sponsorship of a controversial Sept. 11 memorial walk being organized by the Department of Defense, according to Publisher Bo Jones. But, he said the paper would pull out if the event turns out to be some kind of pro-war or political march.

“This was part of the memorial of the 9/11 victims and an effort for veterans past and present and that is it,” Jones said about the “Freedom Walk” slated for Sept. 11. “This has nothing to do with politics or the war or support of any political position.”

Still, Jones added that the paper would withdraw support, which consists of providing public service advertising space in the paper, if the event turns partisan. “If I turns out to be a political event, we would disassociate ourselves from it,” he said.

The gathering will culminate in a concert by country star Clint Black, known for a pro-war song “Iraq and I Roll,” which declares, “We can’t ignore the devil, he’ll keep coming back for more.” (See more lyrics below.)

Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie, Jr. declined to comment on the paper’s involvement, other than to say, “it does not affect our coverage.”

But Rick Weiss, a Post science reporter and co-chair of the Washington Post unit of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild, noted the hypocrisy of the paper’s involvement, since it bars reporters from participating in partisan events. “It is dismaying, to say the least, that I can be fired for participating in a peace march while my employer feels free to co-sponsor an event that so blatantly beats the drum of war,” Weiss stated.

Weiss stressed that the guild had not taken a position on the issue, but planned to consider it during a leadership meeting on Monday.

John Pike, who has been a defense analyst in Washington for 25 years and runs GlobalSecurity.org, told Knight Ridder, referring to the Pentagon rally, “I’ve never heard of such a thing.” Others worried that it would re-kindle attempts to link 9/11 to the war in Iraq.

The march, which also is receiving sponsorship help from two Washington D.C. radio stations and a television station, has drawn opposition from liberal blogs and some anti-war groups, who contend it amounts to a pro-war demonstration. Others have specifically pointed to the Post’s involvement, claiming that the newspaper should not be part of a potentially political walk.

“This is a terrible thing for The Washington Post,” said Bill Dobbs, spokesman for United for Peace and Justice. “It calls into question the media’s credibility.”

Post spokesman Eric Grant echoed the publisher’s view, claiming the paper’s interest was strictly non-partisan. “The Post’s interest in the event is consistent with our past support of causes relating to the victims of September 11 and honoring veterans of
wars past and present,” he said in a statement. “The walk was never presented to us as a rally to support the war and we would be very disappointed if it took that approach.”

Clint Black’s song, “Iraq and I Roll,” also includes these lyrics:

NOW YOU CAN COME ALONG
OR YOU CAN STAY BEHIND
OR YOU CAN GET OUT OF THE WAY
BUT OUR TROOPS TAKE OUT THE GARBAGE
FOR THE GOOD OLD U.S.A.

YOU CAN WAVE YOUR SIGNS IN PROTEST
AGAINST AMERICA TAKING STANDS
THE STANDS AMERICA’S TAKEN
ARE THE REASON THAT YOU CAN

SOME SEE THIS IN BLACK AND WHITE
OTHERS ONLY GRAY
WE’RE NOT BEGGING FOR A FIGHT
NO MATTER WHAT THEY SAY

WE HAVE THE RESOLUTION
THAT SHOULD PUT’EM ALL TO SHAME
BUT IT’S A DIFFERENT KIND OF DEADLINE
WHEN I’M CALLED IN THE GAME

I PRAY FOR PEACE, PREPARE FOR WAR
AND I NEVER WILL FORGET
THERE’S NO PRICE TOO HIGH FOR FREEDOM
SO BE CAREFUL WHERE YOU TREAD

IT MIGHT BE A SMART BOMB
THEY FIND STUPID PEOPLE TOO
AND IF YOU STAND WITH THE LIKES OF SADDAM
ONE JUST MIGHT FIND YOU

I’VE GOT INFRARED, I’VE GOT GPS AND I’VE GOT THAT GOOD OLD FASHIONED LEAD
THERE’S NO PRICE TOO HIGH FOR FREEDOM
SO BE CAREFUL WHERE YOU TREAD

Joe Strupp (jstrupp@editorandpublisher.com) is a senior editor at E&P

Sept. 11 Party a Travesty

By Joshua Huck, University of Texas at Austin, August 11, 2005

Checking the news this morning, I happened to read an article which raised the hairs on the back of my neck. Incensed and incredulous, I scanned each line with steadily rising disgust. Rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and poking myself with a fork I had handy, I thought, “surely this is a joke.”

Unfortunately, I was wrong.

In a scene that seems to have been taken directly out of Trey Parker’s and Matt Stone’s political satire “Team America,” The New York Daily News reported that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld made a rather surprising announcement on Tuesday. To “commemorate” the fourth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon is planning both a country music concert on the National Mall featuring Clint Black and an “America Supports You Freedom Walk.”

Clint Black, as Salon.com notes, is the voice behind the jingoistic “I Raq and Roll,” a song that connects Saddam Hussein to Sept. 11, tucked in between couplets of jingoistic chest-beating.

Intended to boost support for America’s troops in Iraq (and transparently enough, the Bush administration’s unpopular policies), the planned festivities should instead boost America’s anger against a blatant attempt to manipulate our opinions through our emotions. In order to reinforce the false, but aggravatingly popular belief that Saddam Hussein and the Iraq War are somehow linked to that morning in September, the Bush administration is exploiting both the tragedy of thousands of innocent deaths here at home, and our country’s capacity to empathize with our fallen comrades abroad.

Because Bush and company have repeatedly failed to justify our massive intervention in the Middle East, and refused to acknowledge our current problems in that region and lack of preparation going in, we must be subjected to this vicious propaganda.

Some relatives of Sept. 11 victims have already sounded off on this travesty, relaying their outrage on behalf of the memories of their departed loved ones. Iraq War veterans have expressed their anger to the press upon hearing of the Pentagon’s ill-conceived Sept. 11 birthday party.

As far as I’m concerned, Rumsfield’s anniversary bash is no different than the weasels that took advantage of Sept. 11 to hawk their emotionally exploitative memorabilia to make a quick buck off a national tragedy. Whether behind a podium in Virginia or on a street corner across from Ground Zero, this is an egregious and unforgivable offense to the heart and soul of our nation.

Are our leaders so detached and deluded to think that this will stand with the average American? Maybe, due to national trauma or ennui, our nation can be swept along in ignorance and led to comfortably believe what will keep us stable and happy.

At some point, however, we have to wake up to the smoke in the room and ring the fire alarm. The propagation of misinformation under the guise of patriotism and homage should be catalyst enough.

Our troops deserve our unfaltering respect and support. Sept. 11 is a sacred area of our national psyche that, like a burial ground, should be regarded with the utmost reverence and not trod upon by political opportunists.

I’d like to suggest alternative event. Perhaps a candlelight vigil on the National Mall, a brief address by President Bush (hold the politics, please) and a national moment of prolonged silence. If you really want to support the troops, join an adopt-a-soldier network and comfort our boys with something tangible. A yellow ribbon bumper sticker the size of a Clint Black concert can’t hold a candle to a batch of cookies, some fresh socks and an encouraging note from a complete stranger.

For the good of the country, anything but Rumsfield and the Pentagon’s Orwell-in-a-cowboy-hat Sept. 11 tailgate party.

Huck is an anthropology junior.

‘Support our troops’ — bring them home alive

Plain Talk By Al Neuharth, USA TODAY Founder, August 11, 2005

They’re burying young Marine reservists in Ohio this week. Fourteen of them, ages 19 and up, were killed last week when their amphibious landing vehicle was blown up by a roadside bomb in Iraq.

President Bush won’t be at any of the Ohio funerals. He has not attended any funeral for any of the 1,840 servicemen and women killed in Iraq, although he has met with some groups of families who lost loved ones.

Bush simply called this latest tragedy a “grim reminder” that we are at war. It also should remind anyone who knows anything about war that lightly-armored amphibious vehicles never were meant to transport troops on bomb-laden roads. They were designed for sandy beaches.

They’re being misused because, nearly 2½ years after we invaded Iraq, we still don’t have enough heavily armored transport vehicles. Some soldiers themselves make “hillbilly armor” out of sand bags and scrap metal.

“Support our troops” has been an appropriate rallying cry for every war president. Nearly all civilians nearly always respond, supporting not just troops but also the commander in chief. Now, that’s changing. Results of a nationwide poll this week by USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup:

•54{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} say Bush’s war in Iraq was a mistake.

•33{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} say we should withdraw all troops from there.

“Support our troops” has become a sad, empty slogan for Bush.

Public support for the troops still is there, with candy, cookies and yellow ribbons. But government support sadly is lacking. No effective overall war plan. Inadequate or outdated equipment. No exit strategy.

That’s why the best way to support our troops in Iraq is to insist that Bush bring them all home. Alive. Sooner rather than later.