Veterans for Common Sense

Veterans outraged over ousting Smith from committee
By KATHLEEN CANNON, Burlington County Times

http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/112-01072005-428437.html

TRENTON – Burlington County veterans are outraged that House Republicans stripped U.S. Rep. Chris Smith of the chairmanship of the Veterans Affairs Committee.

At the behest of GOP leaders, Republican House members voted Wednesday to oust Smith, R-4th of Robbinsville, from the committee he chaired for four years and served on for 24. They blamed a series of budget and philosophical clashes with Smith.

“This is terrible. I’ve known him for 25 years. A man of higher integrity you’ll never find,” said Ed Kelley of Mount Laurel, a member of the New Jersey Veterans’ Services Council.

Smith, the dean of the New Jersey delegation, sought higher levels of funding for veterans services than the Bush Administration desired. He also butted heads with conservative Republicans over labor and environmental issues.

Veterans groups came to his defense Wednesday, peppering House Speaker Dennis Hastert with letters seeking Smith’s retention as committee chairman.

“This is absolutely devastating to the veteran community,” said Sam Podietz, Burlington County veterans services officer. “To throw him out the door is just a slap in the face to all veterans.”

Smith departed last night on a trip to tsunami-devastated South Asia and could not be reached for comment yesterday to address an Internet report that unnamed New Jersey Republicans were pushing him to run for governor.

Smith’s congressional demotion demonstrates an independent and ethical streak that would serve the state well, the unnamed backers told the Web site PoliticsNJ.com.

The chairmen of the Burlington County and Mercer County Republicans organizations both said they knew nothing about the report, nor could they identify Smith backers who may be behind it.

Phil Angarone Jr., Republican Party chairman for Mercer County, said Smith told him earlier yesterday that he was not interested in running for governor.

Mike Warner, chairman of the Burlington County GOP, is also a retired colonel and past post commander at Fort Dix. Speaking as a veteran, Warner called Smith “a very strong advocate for veterans. He’s been the catalyst for a lot of good things in the veteran community.”

Warner said he does not believe House conservatives are singling out moderate Republican members of the New Jersey delegation. Two years ago, U.S. Rep. Jim Saxton, R-3rd of Mount Holly, was denied a full chairmanship. Four years ago, former U.S. Rep. Marge Roukema, R-5th of Bergen County also was denied.

State Assemblyman Jack Conners, D-7th of Pennsauken, chairman of the Assembly veterans committee, isn’t so sure.

“The vets loved him. He’s just been so good to them over the years, and for some reason there is a Republican bias for this part of the country,” he said.

Smith’s colleagues in the New Jersey congressional delegation, Republican and Democrat alike, praised the ex-chairman’s leadership.

Saxton put out a statement calling Smith a “tireless advocate.”

U.S. Rep. Frank LoBiondo, R-2nd of Vineland, said he was disappointed in his party but pledged to work with the new committee chairman, U.S. Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., a Gulf War veteran.

A Democratic congressman was more strident in his criticism of the GOP.

“What this really means is that political leadership is solely focused on whipping everyone into line and is hostile to veteran concerns,” said U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews, D-1st of Haddon Heights. “Chris does not fit that mold.”

Veterans’ groups decry Smith ouster

http://www.app.com/app/story/0,21625,1167616,00.html

By KIRK MOORE and LEDYARD KING, GANNETT NEWS SERVICE, Asbury Park Press

The ouster of Rep. Christopher H. Smith, R-N.J., from the House Veterans Affairs Committee on Thursday was met with stunned anger by some veterans and other supporters who see the Republican’s departure as a loss.

House Republican leaders voted Wednesday night to replace Smith, R-N.J., as chairman and on Thursday went further, taking away his seat on the committee where he has served since 1981. He was replaced as chairman in favor of Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind. — a 46-year-old Persian Gulf War veteran and Army Reserve colonel — largely because he had riled his party and the Bush administration by loudly pushing for more federal aid to veterans.

“I’ve been in the business for 20 years, and he was the best,” said John Dorrity of Dover Township, an Army veteran of Vietnam and director of the Ocean County Veterans Service Bureau. “And I’m not saying that because he’s from our district. He advanced the veterans’ agenda at a national level.”

In a telephone interview Thursday, Dorrity was joined by other officials of the National Association of County Veterans Service Officers, who were meeting in Corpus Christi, Texas, in expressing anger and alarm at Smith’s sudden fall.

“Look at the aging veteran population. They need more health care, more help,” said Ann Knowles, veterans director for Sampson County, N.C. “Why would you cut back veterans benefits when we’re sending people to war?”

Smith’s departure from the chairmanship and the committee is definitely a loss, said William J. Devereaux, a Vietnam veteran and director of veterans programs for the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.

“I can’t see it being good for veterans. Not to disparage Mr. Buyer, but I know what I have with Chris,” Devereaux said. “He’s been blind to party politics and always did the right thing for veterans.”

John Furgess, national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, said he sees the change in the committee chairmanship as a foreboding sign.

“The ouster of Rep. Chris Smith was clearly a politically driven decision, not one based on performance,” said Furgess said in a statement. “Instead of a message of strength and continuity being sent, what’s being communicated loud and clear across the country is that your job’s in jeopardy if you put principles before politics.

“We will miss his leadership,” he said.

Smith also received moral support from Democratic members of the New Jersey congressional delegation.

“He put the needs of veterans before party politics, something the House Republican leadership is increasingly unwilling to accept,” Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J., said in a statement. “This action is unfortunate news to the millions of veterans who lobbied hard on Chris’ behalf to keep his post.”

“There is simply no room for moderates in today’s Republican party,” Pallone said. “Chris deserved better treatment.”

Smith spent 24 years on the committee, which shapes federal policy on health care, pensions and other programs designed to help the nation’s 26 million veterans. Since he became chairman in 2001, he had drafted 13 laws and shepherded several others improving benefits for veterans.

“When I finally got the chairmanship . . . we went over every aspect of what is broken and what needs to be fixed. And what concerns me is, I wasn’t done,” Smith told reporters Thursday. “I have a whole number of things I still wanted to do.”

One of those was to increase the amount a family survivor gets from $250,000 to $500,000. Smith said he still plans to pursue that legislation, though he conceded it will be much more difficult without a seat on the panel.

Long known for his strong anti-abortion stance and support of human rights causes overseas, Smith has been allied with GOP social conservatives on those fronts. Yet theories in Washington maintain that Smith might be getting punished for bucking the party line on social and labor issues im-portant to his blue-collar voters.

He was the first Republican to back the creation of the Sept. 11 commission over the objections of President Bush and other Republican leaders. And he voted against his party nearly 23 percent of the time in 2004, fourth-highest among Republican House members, according to Congressional Quarterly.

The immediate cause of Smith’s expulsion, though, seems to have been his outspoken opposition to restraints on spending for veterans, especially in the past year of the Iraq war, said Gerry P. Little, a Republican Ocean County freeholder. The county’s Veterans Service Bureau serves a population of 68,000 former military men and women, the largest in New Jersey.

“I don’t think this reflects well on our Republican Party and our House leadership in Speaker (Dennis) Hastert,” Little said.

Under rules adopted in 1995, Hastert, R-Ill., has the power to remove committee chairmen he deems to be incompetent or disloyal.

Smith headed the committee for four years and, under Republican rules, should have had two more to go. It’s the first time since Republicans won control of the House in 1994 that a sitting chairman has been ousted.

“That’s amazing. Blocking someone from a chairmanship is unusual. But taking them off a committee altogether . . . that’s like a double eclipse,” said Ross K. Baker, a political science professor at Rutgers University and longtime observer of congressional politics.

It’s indicative of the iron-fist party discipline that has taken root in Congress since Republicans swept into power with the 1994 election, Baker said.

Smith’s stance on veterans programs is “out of line with the president’s desire for fiscal austerity,” Baker said. “They knew Smith would stand up for veterans spending, so now he’s paying the price.”

Oppose the draft? It’s already here

While most pollsters would agree that there is almost no discernable support for reinstating the military draft, why should the public support the military’s policy of forcing exhausted those who already have fulfilled their contractual obligation to serve into an open-ended term of indentured — potentially fatal — military servitude?

Yet that is exactly what is happening to people such as Oregon Army National Guardsman Sgt. Emiliano Santiago, 27, of Pasco, Wash.

Last Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Owen M. Panner denied Santiago’s motion for a preliminary injunction against having to report again for active duty, less than a week before Santiago is scheduled to ship to Fort Sill, Okla. A soldier with D Company of the Oregon Guard’s 113th Aviation Battalion in Pendleton, he is and his unit are expected to be deployed to Afghanistan in February.

Santiago argued that he already had completed his contracted term in 2002, but Panner’s ruling means that he will have to go. And he is only one of thousands who are finding themselves back in uniform despite having honorably completed the service they signed on for.

This is possible because of an executive order President Bush enacted after 9-11 that authorized the Pentagon to involuntarily extend military personnel on active duty “for not more than 24 consecutive months.”

But the military has gone further in Santiago’s case. He originally signed for an eight-year tour with the Guard in 1996, but as a result of the “stop-loss” back-door draft, his service has been extended to December 2031, when he would be 54.

Judge Panner said he was ruling that Santiago had to go back because the military would be more harmed than Santiago if he allowed Santiago to leave. He correctly assumed that the thousands of others also forced to stay would file similar court challenges, complicating the United States’ military actions in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

President Bush said repeatedly during his re-election campaign that there would be no military draft in his second term. But if a soldier who has completed his term of service and returned to civilian life is forced back onto the battlefield, how is that anything other than a draft, forcing involuntary servitude?

We haven’t had a draft in this country since Richard Nixon abolished it in 1973. And we haven’t had involuntary servitude since Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation made it illegal as of Jan. 1, 1863, freeing “all persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of a state, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” The Emancipation Proclamation clearly stated that “the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.”

Who knew that President Bush would overturn the acts of two past Republican presidents in deciding that, under his term, the military means not being able to declare with confidence, “I’m a civilian again.”

Emotional toll can weigh heavy on a soldier’s mind

“Hateful.”

That’s the word Lois Edwards uses to describe her husband’s behavior when he returned home from Iraq.

A member of the Franklin-based 210th Military Police, Specialist Corey Edwards spent a total of seven months in Iraq with his unit, returning last June.

“When he came back, to be honest, he was hateful – very hateful,” Lois said. “Everybody kept telling him that he was being hateful, but he couldn’t see it.”

Corey, a Marine during the Gulf War in 1990 and ’91, says his most recent experience in Iraq was more grueling in some ways. It left him dealing with emotional turmoil months later, a common side-effect of combat, one that is every bit as prevalent as torn flesh and amputated limbs.

His Humvee got hit by a roadside bomb April 5, 2004. He suffered some hearing loss and was banged up, but he returned to Iraq to finish his tour.

When he came home to Western North Carolina, Edwards was always looking over his shoulder, always brusque, on edge and ornery.

“He couldn’t understand why he should be here,” Lois Edwards said. “He thought he should’ve been blown up that day. It really messed with his mind, bad.”

Corey found the emotional toll of combat nearly ruined his marriage.

“I’ll be honest, I was on the verge of eruption,” he said. “I had to open up, to basically try to get some control over what was happening to me.”

He knows he still has a ways to go, but he feels like he’s gotten control over his life again. His wife has been his “best friend” and a great listener through it all.

It’s absolutely crucial to get those feelings out, says John Cowart, a licensed clinical social worker at the VA Medical Center in east Asheville who has worked on the post- traumatic stress disorder clinical team for 24 years.

“Men coming home from war always experience some problems reentering life with their families and communities,” Cowart said. “The main problem they all feel is that they just don’t fit in.”

The type of combat in Iraq is particularly insidious, Cowart says, because “basically you never know when it’s going to happen. You’re constantly keyed up, and that’s a recipe for PTSD.”

Edwards says soldiers in Iraq know what their mission is.

“But when you go out on your mission, you don’t know who your enemy is,” he said. “The guy standing next to the road could be your enemy. The prime example is when we got hit by the roadside bomb. At that time there were a bunch of schoolkids off to the side of the road about 30 meters, and there was one man amongst them. I swear up and down he had some type of detonator radio or cell phone. It’s just those kind of things that stick with you.”

Those with PTSD often are emotionally distant, and they avoid thoughts, feelings or conversations that lead to remembering the trauma. Often they have recurring, intrusive recollections of what happened, sometimes called “flashbacks.” Some also engage in “hyper-vigilance” – always being on alert.

Treatment can be effective, but “there’s no magic pill,” Cowart says. He points out that Iraq veterans are receiving more counseling upon returning from combat than any previous generation of soldiers.

But many will still have adjustment problems – and the likelihood of problems increases with the number of times soldiers are exposed to intense combat situations. For those with PTSD, group therapy is the standard treatment, and some anti-anxiety medicines or anti-depressants can be effective.

The idea is for veterans to develop “adaptive coping skills,” essentially realizing that the trauma will always be part of their lives but understanding that they can live productively with it. Cowart says family members can play a key role, but veterans often need to talk to others with similar war experiences.

Cowart cautions that the disorder “is often a delayed reaction” that can surface many years or even decades after combat. He urges veterans to get help, to find someone to talk to.

Corey and Lois Edwards know how right he is.

“It doesn’t matter who you talk to – a friend, a spouse – anyone who will let you bend their ear for awhile, it helps,” Corey Edwards said. “My wife, she’s been great. We’ve talked and talked and talked about it, and it seems the more I get off of my shoulders, the more I can lighten up.”

Contact Boyle at 232-5847 or JBoyle@CITIZEN-TIMES.com

Iraqi officers, police members killed so far total 1300-Naqib ?  

http://www.kuna.net.kw/English/print.asp?DSNO={cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d}20694138

Democrat Wins by 130 in Latest Washington Count

SEATTLE, Dec. 23 – With all the votes tallied after a recount in the roller coaster race for governor, Christine O. Gregoire, the Democrat who trailed in the campaign and in a previous recount, won by 130 votes as battered Republicans demanded more vote counting and vowed to use every legal weapon to reverse the extraordinary turnaround.

The Republican candidate, Dino Rossi, 45, won the Nov. 2 election in the initial count by 261 votes and a machine recount by 42 votes. But a statewide hand recount completed Thursday gave Ms. Gregoire, 57, a microscopic but notable lead out of the 2.9 million votes cast, according to official results released Thursday. Newly counted ballots from King County, a heavily Democratic area that includes Seattle, turned the 10-vote lead Ms. Gregoire held before the latest official results into a commanding but narrow edge.

“This is the biggest display of democracy that I have ever seen,” Ms. Gregoire, the state attorney general, said at a televised news conference Thursday evening at the State Capitol in Olympia, which was ringed by Republican protestors shouting “count all the votes!”

“The election is over,” she said. “I hope we can move forward, unite our state and address the problems we are facing.”

But an end was anything but certain, as Republicans made it clear that they did not consider the results a legitimate victory for Ms. Gregoire and said they were already considering contesting the election.

Mr. Rossi, in a written statement issued Thursday night, said, “I know many Washingtonians are hoping this will end soon, but I’m also sure that people across this state want a clean election and a legitimate governor-elect. At this point, we have neither.”

Taking a page from their counterparts in Florida in 2000, state Republicans quickly alleged that the votes of soldiers stationed overseas were among hundreds of rejected votes for Mr. Rossi, a former state senator, and should now be counted.

They argued that since the State Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed erroneously rejected and newly discovered votes in King County to be counted, the rejected ballots of soldiers who may have missed deadlines because of their duties should be re-examined as well.

“If you can change the rules for the chairman of the King County Council,” said Chris Vance, chairman of the state Republican Party, referring to Larry Phillips, a Democratic councilman whose vote was among the 735 ballots reviewed in King County on Thursday, “then you can change the rules for a marine wounded in Falluja.”

Mr. Vance said one of the rejected votes for Mr. Rossi was cast by a marine wounded in Falluja whose absentee ballot was received late.

Republicans said they knew of the soldiers’ uncounted ballots by hearing from their families that ballots were either not received by them on time or did not make it back to Washington in time from overseas.

Still, Democrats were claiming victory and not hiding their delight.

“We believe that Chris Gregoire is going to be the next governor,” said Kirstin Brost, spokeswoman for the Washington State Democratic Party. “We believe she is the governor-elect, and we are looking forward to her taking office.”

Republican officials, accompanied by five veterans waving American flags, went into a meeting of the King County Canvassing Board on Thursday and lobbied the board to consider almost 100 rejected ballots for Mr. Rossi in King County.

The board refused to review those votes and 100 others submitted by the Democrats, but Republicans fanned out across the state Thursday lobbying dozens of counties to go back and consider previously rejected ballots. With the election results now certified by all 39 counties and no more recounts legally allowed, legal experts and officials with the Washington secretary of state’s office said state election law would not permit the counties to reconsider any ballots now. But Republicans were steadfast on Thursday and pointed to Thurston County, which had reviewed and counted one ballot after certifying results, saying that action allowed them to ask the other counties to do the same.

In a statement issued Thursday evening Mr. Vance said that several counties agreed on Thursday to “seriously consider” re-examining votes and that he had asked for a delay in the final certification. “We believe Dino Rossi is the legitimate governor-elect of the State of Washington,” he said. “And we will continue fighting to protect his election.”

Thurston County officials said they had interpreted state election law to mean that they could re-evaluate votes until the secretary of state certified the results submitted by the counties; the results of the recount completed on Thursday are expected to be certified on Dec. 30.

But others, including officials in the secretary of state’s office, said the law made it clear that all ballots must be reviewed and counted before a county certifies its results.

The secretary of state, Sam Reed, a Republican, told county auditors on Thursday that counting ballots could not continue after the results were certified and that any challenges should be pursued through the courts, officials in his office said. With King County’s election results announced on Thursday, all 39 counties have now certified their results.

“In our viewpoint, we have elected a governor,” said Trova Hutchins, a spokeswoman for Mr. Reed.

Meanwhile, Republicans said they were also weighing other legal options, which could include contesting the election in court, asking the United States Supreme Court to review the decision on the King County ballots made by the State Supreme Court or asking the State Legislature to order a whole new vote.

Homeless Veterans: Soldiers Go From Fighting in Iraq to Fighting A New War At Home

Two soldiers who recently returned from Iraq talk about how they faced another battle after they returned home. Nicole Goodwin, 24, only found a permanent place to live after she was profiled in the New York Times. 25-year-old Herold Noel is still looking for a place to live for his family. He talks to Democracy Now! in his first broadcast interview. [includes rush transcript]

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld remains under fire from multiple sides of the political spectrum in this country. Most significantly, several leading Republican lawmakers like Senators John McCain, Chuck Hagle and Trent Lott have voiced their opposition to Rumsfeld remaining for another term in the Bush cabinet. This week, the calls for his resignation gained more momentum after Rumsfeld admitted that he had not been personally signing letters of condolence to families of soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Instead, Rumsfeld used a rubber-stamp type machine to automatically place his signature on the letters.

Rumsfeld already was under the gun for remarks he made in response to questions from US soldiers in Kuwait on the inadequate amount of armor on their vehicles in Iraq and other shortages facing soldiers serving in the occupation. On Wednesday at the Pentagon press briefing, Rumsfeld tried to deflect criticism that he has neglected US soldiers.

• Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld speaking yesterday at the Pentagon. As the controvery continues over Rumsfeld”s future, it is not only soldiers now deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan who face serious problems. For many soldiers, another battle begins once they return to so-called civilian life in this country after leaving the war zone.

It has become one of the most shameful realities in this country. The number of veterans who return home to the US and end up living on the streets or in homeless shelters. According to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, nearly 300,000 veterans are homeless on any given night, and almost half of those are Vietnam vets.

Now, with the occupation of Iraq and some 150,000 troops deployed there and thousands more who have returned, a new generation of soldiers are facing the same realities experienced by their colleagues who fought in Vietnam and in other conflicts. Some of them are suffering from the effects of depleted uranium; others from posttraumatic stress disorder or mental illness sparked by their time in the zone of combat. Others find they have no place to live. Today, we are going to look at the stories of two veterans of the occupation of Iraq who came home to discover how some of the soldiers publicly celebrated by the Bush administration are forced to live.

Nicole Goodwin, former homeless veteran who retured from Iraq earlier this year. She now works with Operation Truth and lobbies on behalf of other Iraq war veterans.

• Herold Noel, former Army specialist who recently returned from Iraq. He is now without a home.

AMY GOODMAN: On Wednesday at the Pentagon press briefing, Rumsfeld tried to deflect criticism that he’s neglected U.S. soldiers.

DONALD RUMSFELD: I, and I know others, stay awake at night with concern for those at risk, with hope for their lives, for their success, and I want those who matter most the men and women in uniform and their families, to know that. And I want them to know that we consider them, the soldiers, the sailors, the airmen, and the marines, to be America’s true treasure, and I thank them and I thank their families.”

AMY GOODMAN: That is Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld speaking at the Pentagon. As the controversy continues over Donald Rumsfeld’s future, it’s not only soldiers now deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan who face serious problems. For many soldiers, another battle begins once they return to so-called civilian life in this country after leaving the war zone.

JUAN GONZALEZ: It has become one of the most shameful realities in this country, the number of veterans who return home to the U.S. and end up living on the streets or in homeless shelters. According to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, nearly 300,000 veterans are homeless on any given night, almost half of them Vietnam vets.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, with the occupation of Iraq and some 150,000 troops deployed there, and thousands more who have returned, a new generation of soldiers are facing the same realities experienced by their colleagues who fought in Vietnam and other conflicts. Some of them are suffering from the effects of depleted uranium, others from post- traumatic stress disorder, a mental illness sparked by their time in the zone of combat. Others find they have no place to live. Today we look at the story of Herold Noel, who is joining us in our studio right now, came home to discover how some of the soldiers are publicly — who are publicly celebrated by the Bush administration are forced to live. Herold Noel is a former army specialist who recently returned from Iraq. Welcome to Democracy Now!.

HEROLD NOEL: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: Herold, when did you get back?

HEROLD NOEL: I got back August of 2003.

AMY GOODMAN: And that means that you’ve been home for more than a year?

HEROLD NOEL: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Where are you living?

HEROLD NOEL: I’m living everywhere. Wherever I can find a place to stay, where I can lay my head, that’s where I stay. I don’t have a current address or nothing like that. But my family is now staying with my — my wife and my children are staying with her sister-in-law, my sister.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Now, could you tell us — you — the unit that you were in and when you first got to Iraq and maybe a little bit of your — of the experiences that you had over there?

HEROLD NOEL: In Iraq, when we first went into Iraq, from the beginning, it was — I knew it was a — a battle we could take. You understand? It was going to be a quick go-in- come-out, ’cause the weapons they had was — was not equal to ours. You understand? Their weapons were primitive, so we found it was an easy war. But there was just a lot of slaughter and death. That’s all.

JUAN GONZALEZ: You were telling us earlier that you weren’t even aware really that you were going to war.

HEROLD NOEL: No, no. I wasn’t aware. I thought when we went to — When we were going to Iraq, first we were stationed in Kuwait for training, as they say. So, when we went to training, we didn’t know what was going to happen, if we were just going to come back home or what until they told us we were going to war. And then we found ourselves sitting at the borderline of Kuwait and Iraq.

AMY GOODMAN: Your family members sending you newspapers saying you were going to war, yet you were being told you were just training. What do you mean when you say slaughter, it was a slaughter?

HEROLD NOEL: It was a slaughter because the people — It was like fighting guns with — with arrows. You understand? ‘Cause those people over there, they had weapons, but their weapons wasn’t — You understand? Even the AK’s they had wasn’t accurate. ‘Cause there be soldiers standing not, I could say, not even miles away like, close to the soldier shooting, and it wouldn’t hit a soldier. And they — and they just get taken out. Children would be on the streets getting caught in the crossfire. I see children get run by tanks.

AMY GOODMAN: Run over?

HEROLD NOEL: Run over by tanks. And — and it’s just sad.

AMY GOODMAN: You were in Fallujah?

HEROLD NOEL: Yes. I was in Fallujah.

JUAN GONZALEZ: You served with what unit?

HEROLD NOEL: Three seven Cav., in Fort Stewart.

AMY GOODMAN: Fort Stewart, Georgia?

HEROLD NOEL: Yeah, Fort Stewart, Georgia.

AMY GOODMAN: And what were the other soldiers saying? What were your conversations?

HEROLD NOEL: Our conversations was basically — you understand: How we going to be looked at when we get back home? Are we going to be looked at as heroes or as people that were just, you know, fighting for Bush. You understand? And we thought we were going to come back as heroes, ’cause we thought we were helping people over there, and — But that wasn’t the case. You understand? ‘Cause we seen the oil spilling through the streets. And we knew what we was fighting for, ’cause people say it’s for 9/11 and weapons of mass destruction, which we didn’t see, ’cause we went into nuclear plants and stuff like that, and we didn’t see no such thing. So, we didn’t know what we were fighting for. All we know, we were fighting for the peace of the people in Iraq. And so, we had to keep our mind on that we fighting for the peace in Iraq.

JUAN GONZALEZ: How long did it take you and the soldiers in your unit to realize how unwelcome you were there?

HEROLD NOEL: The minute we hit Iraq, we knew we wasn’t welcome. ‘Cause we were getting ambushed every day. We had even kids shooting AK’s at us. We had about — even twelve-year-olds, eleven-year-olds shooting AK’s at us, rushing our trucks, trying to get food of the trucks. It was — it’s hard for me to talk about it.

AMY GOODMAN: You have kids yourself?

HEROLD NOEL: Yes, I have kids myself.

AMY GOODMAN: How many?

HEROLD NOEL: I have three kids. My twins are five and my youngest one — son is one.

AMY GOODMAN: When you were in Iraq, did you use your weapon?

HEROLD NOEL: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Did you kill people?

HEROLD NOEL: It’s hard — yes. Yes, I did. It’s hard for me to collect that, ’cause once — once you take a life, you understand, you lose a piece of yourself. You understand? You don’t know what’s going to happen you. You take a life, or you could expect for your life to be taken next. And that’s how I was living in Iraq. Sometimes the soldiers they don’t even care no more. ‘Cause they took so much lives, you understand, they were just sitting around waiting for their life to be taken. ‘Cause bombs would go off right next to us, we wouldn’t even jump. You understand? If they hit us, they hit us, if it don’t, it don’t. ‘Cause we didn’t care no more. ‘Cause we went weeks and months, sometimes months, without sleeping and — until we just finally said: “You know what? I’m gonna to sleep tonight. If I don’t wake up, it was just my time to go.” ‘Cause we took a life. You understand? And everybody just had the thought: Well, since we took a life, our life is next. That’s how everybody was living.

JUAN GONZALEZ: What happened when you came back?

HEROLD NOEL: When I came back, it — it was rough. When I came back I stayed in — ‘Cause they extended me six months. What happened, they extended me six months. I tried to stay in Georgia for a while, to see if I could make it, ’cause I, you know, I was told the — the war in Iraq — I mean, being living in New York was going to be rough. So I came to New York ’cause I didn’t have no means of transportation in Georgia. I didn’t have no — no way to get back and forth to work. So, I came to New York to see — You know, that’s where I was born and raised. So I just said, let me come back to New York and see if I can find a job. ‘Cause where I stayed in Georgia, it was a military town. You understand? Everybody — you understand? You in the military, so nobody’s going to look down on you. So I — I was thinking, well, let me come to New York where I can get away from this military stuff and get on my feet. But that’s not the way is ended. I ended up on the street and nowhere to go.

AMY GOODMAN: Herold Noel, a former army specialist. Came back home is homeless now. We’re also joined by Nicole Goodwin. She came home from Iraq. It’s great to have you with us.

NICOLE GOODWIN: Good morning, everyone.

AMY GOODMAN: I’m glad you could make it.

NICOLE GOODWIN: Hello.

AMY GOODMAN: Nicole also found herself in a similar situation. But Nicole, before you went to Iraq, you had a baby less than two months before you left. Is that right?

NICOLE GOODWIN: Yes, I was — When the war was declared, I was still pregnant, and my unit had been called up already, and they were ready for transport; so, about the time I reunited with them, most of my unit had already deployed. And I was forced to make a decision between my duty and service and being a provider for my child and — you know, I decided that my duty would help me do that, because I think that without the military protecting the American freedom, that we — our children won’t have a future in the United States or abroad. So, I had to come to a very quick decision. Most people expected, you know, a great shock, but when you’re in the military service, you are aware that you could get called up any time. And I was very aware of that, and I had made the conscious decision. I wasn’t forced.I mean, I had areas to leave, but I decided that, you know, I was a soldier and I was going to serve and I wanted to contribute to the world my daughter lived in.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And who took care of your daughter while you were gone?

NICOLE GOODWIN: I had her with some close friends in California. The situation back in New York really didn’t allow for me to try to keep her there.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you went to Iraq, came home, and what happened? How did you end up in the streets with your daughter?

NICOLE GOODWIN: It wasn’t necessarily the streets, because there are two types of homelessness. There’s the streets where most people see the homeless, they live — they occupy the subways and the city streets, and then there’s the system. And the system is actually worse than living on the streets. Most people are rejected from the system, and the only alternative is the streets. So, you know, when I had come home, the transition was very rough. It wasn’t — you know, easy. My household wasn’t as stable as most households. You know, I wasn’t welcomed with open arms. And here I was with a baby. And, you know, it went from staying with my mother, to staying at friends’, to just in the system within a matter of four months. And, you know, most people think that, you know, the timespan from returning home, that it can happen, you know, it could take years to become homeless. And, you know, that’s — that is obviously not true. It took me a matter of months. Some people it takes a matter of weeks. Some days it could take a matter of days — Sometimes it could take a matter of days. So, I think the biggest myth that people believe about home — veterans is that we come home and we have this stable, occupied space that is always waiting for us, and that’s not true.

JUAN GONZALEZ: But let me ask you — the military when they recruit people, always trumpet all of the benefits and that the military provides. You know, opportunity for college education, for training, that they’ll provide you for skills. Did you get any support or any — Does the military in any way assist veterans who have left service?

NICOLE GOODWIN: It’s not that the military — First of all, the military doesn’t assist. It’s the Department of Veterans Affairs.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Veterans affairs.

NICOLE GOODWIN: And that’s a big myth. People think — Most people, the public, they believe that the military has, you know, authorization on what happens to soldiers who leave the service, and that’s not true. Once you leave the service, you’re under Veterans Affairs. You are now a veteran. You’re not a soldier anymore. I think the biggest problem with that is the fact that there’s a segregation once you leave, and the transition time is cut short and — You know, people believe that there’s help there, and, yes, there are benefits. I’m not going to say there wasn’t. I do have a G.I. Bil. But if I don’t have a house to live in, I can’t get a job. If I can’t get a job, I can’t go back to school. ‘Cause I have a child to support. Most people coming out of the military, we go in single. We come out with children. So, there are benefits there, but the benefits haven’t been brought up to the — to this now time span that we have, you know. I mean, most of our benefits deal with Vietnam vets, and it took them, you know, twenty, thirty years to get what we have now. But, it’s not taking care of us in the sense of proaction and preventing this from happening.

AMY GOODMAN: Nicole and Herold, I want to thank you very much for being with us. This program has come to an end, but on Monday, we’ll run part two of this interview that we’ll continue after the program. To talk with Herold about what it meant to come home and be with his wife and children, and the conflicts he faced there. And to talk with Nicole about what it meant to actually get a home after she was profiled in The New York Times and what a difference that made, and what she has decided to dedicate her life to. There’s also a profile in the new issue The Indypendent, the newspaper of the New York Indy Media Center, you can go to indymedia.org, independent.org, or just go to our website democracynow.org and we will link to that article. It is called, “Invisible Soldier.” Again, Herold Noel and Nicole Goodwin, thanks so much for being us with.