Thousands march in streets of Seattle; message Support our Troops; Stop funding Iraq war
Topic: Members Speak Out

 

 Washington state chapter of Military Families Speak Out among other thousands participate in Seattle march/rally October 27, 2007.  Seattle was one of eleven cities nationwide participating in UFPJ coordinated protest to encourage Congress to vote against funding the Iraq war. 

 (photo courtesy of Dina, artisan and contributing editor at Washblog shows Joe Colgan and David; Washington;  holding the Military Families Speak Out banner. See more photos at Washblog.) 

 

Thousands in Seattle march against Iraq war  article in Seattle PI 

Under a brilliant blue sky Saturday, thousands of people sang, chanted and marched through the streets of Seattle, one of 11 cities nationwide participating in a coordinated protest against the war in Iraq.

"Veterans need to take the lead on this," said Chanan Suarez-Diaz, president of the Seattle chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War. "This has been a war for oil, for profits and for corporations. It's time for the occupation to end and veterans should be at the head of the movement to end it."

The 25-year-old Suarez-Diaz was wounded by shrapnel from a rocket-propelled grenade while serving in Aramadi, Iraq, as a member of a U.S. Navy medical team supporting the Marines. Joining the young man at the protest was David Meeds, 74, of Monroe, also a navy veteran.

"I served in the Korean War," said the white-haired Meeds, holding a sign saying: "War is Not the Answer." Meeds said he has been demonstrating weekly, at a strip mall in Monroe, against the war in Iraq since before it began because he views it as contrary to American values and principles. He said he was heartened by the Seattle protest, seeing that more young people are becoming active and speaking out against the war.

read more here

(photo, courtesy of Dina, artisan and contributing editor at Washblog, shows woman with 'Military Mom for Peace' sign.   See more photos  at Washblog. ) 

 

MILITARY AND GOLD STAR FAMILIES TO PARTICIPATE IN NATIONWIDE IRAQ WAR PROTESTS ON OCTOBER 27
 

Military and Gold Star families from across the nation will participate in regional demonstrations opposing the war in Iraq on October 27th, organized by United for Peace and Justice. These families whose loved ones are or have been on the frontlines of this war will be calling on Congress to vote against the upcoming appropriation that would allow the war in Iraq to continue.

 

 posted by Lietta Ruger

Military Families Speak Out at weekly Seattle Federal Building Vigil
Topic: Members Speak Out

 

Photo shows memorial with multitude of orange poppies banners naming Washington state soldiers killed in Iraq.

 

Weekly vigil on Tuesdays in front of Seattle Federal Building.

Every Tuesday - 11:00 AM through 1:00 PM

On 2nd Avenue between Madison and Marion Streets, 
downtown Seattle, Washington

 

Military Families Speak Out members Joe Colgan, also Gold Star father of Lt. Benjamin Colgan who was killed in Baghdad,Iraq Nov 2003, invites you to join him in his weekly vigils on Tuesdays at Seattle Federal Building.  

Help convey message to our U.S. Senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray to exercise their power of the Congressional purse strings to De-Fund the war in Iraq, Bring the Troops Home Now, and take care of them when they get home. 

Fellow Military Families Speak Out members join Joe Colgan in the weekly Tuesday vigils, and we invite you to stop by and speak with them.

 

 

 Special thanks to David Kannas, member of Military Families Speak Out - Washington state chapter for the photos and reports. 

(posted by Lietta Ruger) 

 

NPR Interview; Anti-War Moms Press on Without Cindy Sheehan
Topic: Members Speak Out

Doris Kent, of Military Families Speak Out - Washington state chapter among three Gold Star Mothers interviewed on NPR at the news of Cindy Sheehan's departure. Email received from Doris Kent;

 

 

NPR Interview; Anti-War Moms Press on Without Cindy Sheehan

NPR Program - Tell Me More, May 31, 2007

 Cindy Sheehan — one of the country's most prominent anti-war activists — is withdrawing. She announced this week that she is stepping away from the limelight and her role as the "face" of the anti-war movement. It is a role she assumed after her son, Casey Sheehan, died while serving in Iraq in 2004.

In an online statement, Sheehan says she has come to the "devastating" conclusion that her son did, indeed, die for nothing. Her post-activist plans are to reclaim her health and take care of her surviving children.

Other mothers who have lost children in Iraq are still speaking out against the war; listen to

 Doris Kent,  Bellingham, WA, whose son, Cpl. Jonathan Santos, was killed in October 2004;

Celeste Zapalla, Philadelphia, PA, whose son, Sgt. Sherwood Baker, was killed in combat in 2004; and

Elaine Johnson, South Carolina resident whose son, Army Spc. Darius Jennings, was one of 17 U.S. troops killed when a helicopter was shot down by Iraqi insurgents Nov. 2, 2004.  

Hear more from Elaine, Doris and Celeste - click on the link to the NPR interview, then click on Listen at NPR website. 

 

(posted by Lietta Ruger)

a memorial edition for the News Tribune featuring all of those young men and women who have lost their lives in Iraq.
Now Playing: Letter to The Olympian from MFSO member, Jessie
Topic: Members Speak Out
  Dear Editor,

 I am a member of MFSO (Military Families Speak Out).  My neighbor just left for his 3rd tour in Iraq a few weeks ago.  While my neighbor and I are not exceptionally close, I did take the opportunity to telephone him before he left and thanked him for his service to our country even though I am thoroughly against this war, I fully support him and will pray for his safe return for his wife and family's sake.  He is now  stationed just north of Bagdad.

 Today's news reports that we have just lost another 9 U. S. soldiers.  Given your proximity to the Ft. Lewis army base, I ask whether your newspaper keeps a list of those Ft. Lewis soldiers who have lost their lives in Iraq?  Given the fact that President Bush calls for a national day of mourning for the Virginia Tech mass shooting and then consider our soldiers whose lives are sacrificed each and every day as this war rages on.  Yet they are just a mere ticker tape mention on CNN.  I suggest a memorial edition for the Olympian that features all of those young men and women who have lost their lives in Iraq.  Make their lives more meaningful than a mere tickertape mention on CNN. Please consider this.
-Jessie

Now Playing: New WA MFSO Chapter Member David Kannas
Topic: Members Speak Out

[Ed note: Received this via email. David recently joined up with MFSO and our Chapter. As I understand it he is out of Seattle. - Arthur]  

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                         IN SILENCE, NO BREATHING
                              

 

Now Playing: Jesse Archibald
Topic: Members Speak Out

not demonstrating the courage to stand up and stop the war the only realistic way Congress can

 

Dear MFSO Members,

 Today I called Nancy Pelosi and left a message with her staff member who answered the phone in her Washington D.C. office.  I was inspired to call by an e-mail from another peace activist group, CODE PINK.  The e-mail echoed my own feelings.    

 

In November, voters sent a resounding message to Congress about our feelings about this war.  We voted to have the Democrats take control so we could end this senseless war where we military families are the ones suffering the losses and casualties more than any other Americans.  

I told the staff member that I was deeply disappointed that Nancy Pelosi was not demonstrating the courage to stand up and stop the war the only realistic way Congress can:    by cutting the funding for all war efforts except those funds needed to bring our troops home safely NOW.

When I called Ms. Pelosi's office, I identified myself as a MFSO member and urged her to vote against funding the war, except for those funds to bring our troops safely home immediately, not sometime next year or the year after.

 I was rather dismayed to see the below headline today:

 "Clinton Sees Some Troops Staying in Iraq if She Is Elected"

  I will not be voting for Hilary Clinton!   When will our representatives get the message?  When will they have courage to take the step of cutting off funding to end this war?

 As a MFSO member, I have a deep respect for military families and understand what it is like to have a loved one in harm's way.  Our troops on the ground have done everything they have been ordered to and have shown tremendous courage.  It is their commanders at the highest level that have failed them.  

My heart goes out to those families that have been through multiple deployments.  My family will go through another deployment starting in January 08.  I do not know how I will get through it again.  I began to cope with the last deployment be becoming active in MFSO.

 Welcome new MFSO members!   We are here for you and would love to hear your stories and will respect your privacy.

 Each and every day, I like to think that I have taken some small step to end this war, even if it only means that I picked up the telephone or wrote a letter to my state representative.  

If anyone else feels like calling Nancy Pelosi and telling her how they feel about the Democrats lack of action, here is a paragraph pasted from the CODEPINK e-mail:

 Call 202-225-0100 for her office in DC.and ask for Mike Sheehy, or call (415)-556-4862 for her San Francisco office and ask for Dan Bernal. Tell them that the Speaker should cut off all funds for the war, or at the very least allow a vote on Cong. Barbara Lee's amendment to only use the funds for a safe withdrawal of the U.S. troops by the end of the year. And don't allow Bush to attack Iran! Don't forget to also call your own Representative to tell him or her to Vote NO on the supplemental appropriations. The Congressional switchboard can be reached at 888.851.1879.

 Sincerely,
 Jessie Archibald

Now Playing: Lietta Ruger at Washblog
Topic: Members Speak Out

Now Playing: Lietta Ruger at Washblog
Topic: Members Speak Out

Iraq Messages this week - a General, A Military Mom, A Congressman, A Military Wife, A Journalist...

By Lietta Ruger at Washblog
Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 01:43:03 PM PST
Section: Washington State Topic: Legislative performance

My mind is swimming today with the differences in messages and approaches of so many earnest people endeavoring to try to end Iraq war.

• Retired Major General Paul D Eaton, Fox Island, WA, speaks from Seattle last night on Real Time with Bill Maher about conditions of Walter Reed being the 'tip of the iceberg';
  
• Representative David Obey (D- WS) recorded on video Thursday losing patience with questions from Tina Richards, mother to Cpl Cloy Richards, returning Iraq Marine veteran, twice deployed to Iraq, soon to deploy for third time. MSN, Chris Matthews interviews Tina Richards Thursday on Hardball.
  
•  Bob Woodruff, injured in IED explosion ABC journalist 'To Iraq and Back' and his wife are interviewed Friday on MSN Hardball with Chris Matthews.
  
• Two of the arrested Port of Tacoma protesters are inteviewed on Fox News Hannity and Colmes.
  
• Op-ed published this week by a Washington based military wife, Stacy Bannerman married to WA Natl Guardsman, himself a returning Iraq veteran. Stacy tells of the casualty of marriages in military families faced with multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, including her own.  

Different kinds of messages from  different military-connected people with 'skin in the game' - a phrase for being in Iraq or having loved ones in Iraq. Different routes up the same mountain. But are the roads overlapping, perhaps tangling up the effort and the message - are some routes leading to dead ends?  

-- video - HBO - Real Time, Bill Maher. Retired Major General, Paul D. Eaton, Fox Island, WA, speaks on the conditions of Walter Reed as the 'tip of the iceberg'. Paul Eaton was in charge of training the Iraqi military from 2003 to 2004. He is speaking to Bill Maher via satellite with the Space Needle and Seattle skyline in the background.  He says an interesting thing  on the Real Time show last night and I have to admit, it took me by surprise, so when Bill Maher repeated it, I knew I had heard what I thought I heard.  Quoting excerpt of end of one of his sentences

'arrival of Democratic controlled Congress, Thank God, 7 November'.

  Bill Maher responds that it is not often you hear military people say arrival of the Democrats and Thank God in the same sentence.

See retired Major General, Paul Eaton, Fox Island, WA companion piece, NY Times Op-Ed, 'Casualties of the Budget Wars' published this week. You may recall also as reported by NY Times last year in April 2006, Paul Eaton was among the six Generals calling for Rumsfeld resignation - link .

-- link video - MSN - Hardball,Chris Matthews.  Tina Richards, mother of Iraq veteran Marine son, twice deployed and will deploy third time March this year. Her encounter with Representative David Obey (D- WS). Tina was representing Grassroots Missouri on Hardball yesterday.  She is also a member of Military Families Speak Out, although it sounds like she is taking action as an independent military family on behalf of her son's upcoming third deployment to Iraq.  

-- link video -  MSN - Hardball, Chris Matthews. Bob Woodruff and his wife interviewed on Bob's recovery from Brain Trauma Injury. Bob Woodruff ABC journalist who was severely wounded Jan 2006 in IED explosion while covering Iraq. (My note - reference another Washblog story I wrote on Bob Woodruff in the special ,'To Iraq and Back' )

-- link video - Fox News - Hannity and Colmes.  Two arrested at Port of Tacoma protesting the loading and shipping of Stryker equipment destined for Iraq. See Noemie story at Washblog as she endeavors to explore the Port of Tacoma protests.  

-- An op- ed by a published auther and military wife of Washington state National Guardsman, Stacy Bannerman wrote an op-ed March 7, courageously sharing with the public the breakdown of her marriage as a direct result, she says, of war in Iraq. Link 60,000 Marriages Broken by Iraq, Including Mine, read through the comments and you can feel the tone of empathy (or lack of empathy) which military families generally encounter. Some of the comments are the usual of what we as military families have been hearing for the past four years now (and we heard it in Vietnam era too), but some of the comments are from peace/activist people who can be equally harsh in their comments. (I find this happens as well in the comments to Daily Kos stories)

She was prompted by the comments to write another op-ed, also published at Alternet March 10, 2007  link 'Volunteer Soldiers Devastated by Iraq Weren't Asking for It'.   Stacy phoned me this week to pass along a request she had received for military family to speak at a Seattle area church for 4th anniversary event.  She passed it along to me for consideration of Military Families Speak Out - WA chapter to determine if one of our member families was willing to speak.  

That led me to share some thoughts with Stacy about how I am feeling more uncomfortable with  the relationship of military families and the  peace/activist movement/communities.  As I explained to her,  I can't tell if my growing discomfort, some of what has felt like exploitive experiences, is coloring my perspective.  I am disinclined to want to participate in any of the 4th anniversary acknowledgement events being planned in Washington this month.  I'm not so sure that the message I carry is best represented within the context of the planned events. I'm not sure it doesn't feel a bit like being a willing mouthpiece puppet for messaging that does not entirely reflect my own thoughts and message.

Sometimes, I shared with her, it feels like I am pressed hard from both sides - the right wingers rhetoric, and the peace/activist movement rhetoric. She, a long time peace activist, shared with me that until she herself became a military wife, she would have had a hard time understanding the viewpoint of military culture.  It helped me to hear her say that, because it reminds me to continue to try to be patient and not grow impatient at what feels like the disconnect I sometimes feel with the peace/activist communities.  

 Of late, I'm not liking the direction of what I'm hearing from some peace/activists who point the finger at the soliders who do deploy.  It sounds a lot like the residue of Vietnam to me - blaming the soldiers for a) going,  b) for not putting down their weapons, c) for not refusing to go in the first place.   I have actually heard someone say to me  when I asked what you would have the soldiers already in Iraq do and the response was that they should put down their weapons.  "While they are in Iraq," I asked, "they should put down their weapons?"  I'd say there is a real disconnect happening that is unrealistic in this kind of discourse.

I received a phone call this week from a woman who invited me to show my oil paintings on an art show offered by Comcast TV channel in Puyallup. She came across one of my oil paintings on our MFSO chapter website .  (That is the result of the pride of my husband who felt a photo of one of my oil paintings should be part of my profile info).  As I explored this with her, confused because of the contact via MFSO website, she shared with me that her husband is a Vietnam veteran, who experienced the homecoming of having red paint poured on him and being spit upon by the peaceniks there to greet him.  

This was astonishing to me because I know there is a published book, Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam, indicating that this spitting on the returning Vietnam veterans never happened, is a myth, and can't be validated by first hand accounts.  I asked her if she knew of this book.  She did not, but she says her husband knows his own experience, and he might like to know about this book as he could offer direct first hand experience.  He was not a protesting anti-war veteran. I know many Vietnam veterans reference the 'spit upon' as symbolic and indicative of how they were welcomed home as opposed to actual first hand experience.  But as I shared with her, I well remember my own experience then, and the climate was not welcoming or conducive to my sharing that my husband was a returning veteran from Vietnam.  We expected an unwelcome response so we shut it down in public venues and talked about it only among some of our friends - friends from high school who found themselves in Vietnam at the same time.

If the leftover ideals of the 60s protesting era are being revived and used again as rhetoric and talking points among peace/activist communities and directed at soldiers and military families,  then I contend this is a disservice to those of us contending daily with this war.  I'd like to think it is the few and not the general tone of the peace/activist communities, but my experiences tell me otherwise.      

I don't know what the best course is to trying to end this war and getting our troops home, all the while ensuring they are not without the equipment they need while they are in Iraq; not to mention the medical services they will need, likely long term.  A hard-wired mantra for me is that we (America) don't abandon our troops in the field and leave them with a shortfall of funding which translates to equipment and medical care. This is very real for me.

Another hard wired mantra for me is the experience of Vietnam. I'm still learning nuances - 35 years later - of what went into that era and what brought that war to an end, even though I actually lived in that time as a military wife. It doesn't seem to be any more clear cut now than it was then.  

There are those who say it took the soldiers themselves protesting to bring it to an end (do see the dvd Sir, No Sir).  There are those who say it was the massive protests, the college students, the violence against the protesters (ie, Kent State) and that without the 'movement' in place, the soldiers would not have had the support in place to launch their own protests.  There are those who say it took politicians umpteen tries politically to bring it to a close; that the work of politics is a slow moving mechanism - taking years and years sometimes.  

As near as I can tell, the stew of ingredients that finally brought Vietnam war to a close was a combination of many social, political, economic elements.  It took a combination of ongoing public protests, increasing pressure on Congress, having the soldiers themselves refuse to continue to participate in Vietman war, the condition of the 'draft' = widely sweeping to affect all draft age males pressing them into involuntary military deployments, and the element of the 'unknown' as it was not expected that soldiers would find so many ways to refuse to participate.

What is different this time with Iraq is that this Administration - please don't forget this fact - was also there at the time of Vietnam.    Rumsfeld, Cheney, George W. Bush, Wolfowitz, Perle, all had direct experience of the political climate of Vietnam. I would say they learned how  to 'contain' the imaging, message, and narrative we are given about Iraq from what they learned about Vietnam.  I would offer as well that there continues to be the kaleidoscope of the techniques of misdirection that keeps many of us off center and sometimes without firm ground as we try to dissect what is really going on.  

Is Jack Murtha on track then?  He has a strategy of redeploying the troops out of Iraq and leaving some of the troops on the horizon.  How about his recent suggestions to ensure troops are given opportunities of full training, recuperative one year between deployments as a kind of back door approach to stemming the flow of 'volunteer' troops who are kept in combat via back door draft of stop loss extended deployments?

Is what Representative Dave Obey (D- WS)shared with Tina Richards on the mark?  Is it accurate that Democratic party cannot get the required 233 votes on their proposed non-binding Resolutions?  Is it true that even should they be able to get Resolution passed it could be vetoed by President?  Is it true that the appropriation funding is needed to provide for the already deployed troops, get them fully back home safely and provide for their medical care?  Is there a political way in which the Iraq war can be made to be an illegal war and therfore illegal to fund, as Rep. Obey seemed to suggest in the exchange with mother, Tina Richards?  

Or is it true what Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) indicates as enough funding already in the pipeline to safely bring the troops home now, and that additional funding is not necessary to get them home, rather that additional funding perpetuates and continues the war in Iraq?   That a vote now not to fund is not a vote against the troops and will not impede getting them home safely; will not abandon them in the field.

Is the Democratic party in the majority now working on a plan or several plans to actually find an effective way to end the war in Iraq, which they know is an immoral and probably an illegal war?  

What about the voices and messages, ie, General Wesley Clark, that express grave concerns about the U.S. military action expanding to Iran?

I'm not at all sure on this fourth anniversary of the Iraq war what message I want to be sending and how to best symbolize and represent that message.  
I want the politicians to do their jobs and bring this war to an end yesterday. I want to give them the space they need to do their jobs but each day  of delay represents so so many deaths. A sense of urgency presses military families as their loved ones deploy over and over again into an ill-defined mission.  When I speak of concern for our own loved ones and our troops, the focus is not limited strictly to our troops as that is too narrow - hundreds of Iraqis also are killed daily.  I think of another Washingtonian, Bert Sacks, of Seattle and his own individual courage in trying to help Iraqi children.

What of General Casy who seemed to be warning us all of the impending 'long war' against 'terrorism' in the Middle East?  When a military General says 'long war', my ears perk up and I ask myself if I am hearing the nuanced statement to the public of a General's  assessment that this will be a decades-long war.  Where will the troops come from to continue a decades long war with recruitment numbers down and fewer willing to enlist in what they have come to recognize as a questionable war?  Will the two in my family be serving deployment after deployment over the next decade?  How is this going to impact their wives and children?  

How can the former code of the military that goes down through the generations telling the new crop of soldiers and their families to 'suck it up' possibly relate to the experience of so many repeat deployments?  That is not in their experience, so how can they know to give advice of that nature?  It is the new crop that have the message in this war, and we aren't yet hearing from them.  

We hear from some, those who find peace/activist communities that give them a platform to be heard.  I rather think though that there are many more who are very perplexed, dissatisfied,confused and wanting to share their own message but not ready to swing that far away from their clan in speaking out quite so radically.  Often I ask myself, isn't there a kind of middle ground that permits one to have both conservative and liberal views - does it have to be one way or the other?  Where are those people, and where is their platform, what venues are provided for them?

Maybe it all flows together in ways I can no longer easily detect and maybe we all do get to the mountain top by different routes. Maybe there is room for all the divergent viewpoints, approaches, strategies and tactics.  Right now I'm having a hard time seeing the forest for the trees - I think - but I know my intentions are honorable.  Aren't they all - the intentions of all who take on this struggle?  

Now Playing: Arthu Ruger
Topic: Members Speak Out

Dang Fool Made Me Spill My Coffee

By Arthur Ruger
Thu Feb 02, 2006 at 07:06:23 AM PST
Section: United States Topic: Letters to the media

 

Now Playing: Lietta Ruger at Washblog
Topic: Members Speak Out

Seven (7) WA based soldiers killed in Iraq so far Jan 2007 - how many more?

By Lietta Ruger at Washblog
Tue Feb 06, 2007 at 11:24:56 AM PST
Section: Diary Topic: Legislative performance