(photo - on the Panel - Elizabeth Falzone - GSFSO/ MFSO - WA chapter and Rich Moniak - MFSO - Alaska chapter listen to two days of testimony)
(photo - Stacy Bannerma, wife of returning Iraq veteran - WA Natl Guard, gives testimony)
(photo Lietta Ruger, MFSO- WA, in support Lt. Ehren Watada, June 2006, Tacoma, WA)
(photo - Lietta Ruger, Judy Linehan, Jenny Keesey - from MFSO - WA chapter, June 2006, Tacoma, WA)
(photo - Judy Linehan, MFSO - WA at support rally for Lt. Watada, June 2006, Tacoma, WA)
photo - Sue Niederer, MFSO. Her son U.S. Army 2nd Lt.Seth Dvorin, 24 yrs old was killed in Iraq Feb 3, 2004.
photo - Nancy Lessin, MFSO Co-Founder 
photo - Lietta Ruger, MFSO - WA 
photo - Stacy Bannerman, MFSO - WA
Now Playing: Arthur Ruger
Topic: Members Speak Out
I thought that back when the broadcast debate about whether or not Iraq was another VietNam was interesting but too focused on literal comparison.
For me the legacy of VietNam was the massive expansion of the idea of dissent as a patriotic act.
Further, VietNam legitimized a permanent change in society in the sense that a larger segment remains willing to question the motives and speak out against the administration with considerable less risk of being isolated and marginalized by pseudo-patriotic politics.
In our experience of speaking out, the most consistent disagreement with our point of view is not the political disagreement of our contemporaries, but that of the generation older than ours that remembers World War II more than it remembers VietNam.
Arthur Ruger
