Notes From the Road

As I write this from somewhere around 30,000 feet, I am terrified. Each time the engine changes from a steady hum to a whine and each patch of turbulence we hit, I am afraid we will fall out of the sky. My emotions run the gambit from simple anxiety to relative calm to sadness to mind numbing fear. I am bound for Seattle and the Veterans for Peace Convention. At this moment, I am acutely jealous of a good friend who was able to travel by train. I like the train, you meet interesting people, you get to walk around and as a bonus, I was never sent half-way around the world to a war based on lies on a train.

When I was younger, I loved to fly. I always insisted on the window seat and would oohh and ahhh like a small child at the scenery below me. The small cars and tiny trees were mesmerizing, especially during take-off and landing. Now I can barely stand it. The longer the flight the worse it is. Since I travel frequently, this has become a serious problem. Sometimes, I have to take anti-anxiety medication just to get on the plane. I hate taking the medicine almost as much as I hate flying; in fact I often opt to suffer through flights that are less than three hours long, like this one, the first leg to Atlanta, just to claim a small victory over my psychological injury. On longer flights, like this evening’s cross country flight to Seattle, I have to give in to the demons that have been following me since my involvement in the Iraq war and take the medicine. Longer flights take me back to the nearly twenty-four hour flights to and from Iraq. They bring back all of the uncertainty, all of the apprehension and all of the impending doom of going there and at the same time, evoke all of the sorrow, frustration and anger of the way I was betrayed by my government that I felt on the flight home.

Because I know the truth about Iraq and the very dangerous direction the Bush/Cheney Cabal have taken my country, I deal with the demons in order to spread the message of peace that is so vital to reclaiming my country. Usually, I will spend at least an hour of each flight, before taking my drugs, preparing a speech or reading the most recent news reports from Iraq and elsewhere in order to be prepared. I am usually, anxious about the upcoming event, knowing that I will have to answer questions about my experience and try to relate what it is like to come back from war. I do not consider any of the questions particularly hard, I am comfortable with my testimony; I know it’s true. What I worry about is how well I can relate that truth to an audience that does not know the horrors of which I speak. The entire experience is always an emotional roller-coaster. Today, however, I am excited to be traveling to the convention. I don’t know if I will be speaking, performing or merely one of the hundreds in attendance, but I do know that I will not have to work hard to relate to the people I will meet there. I know they understand me. I will see old friends like Elliot Adams and Stan Goff, both combat veterans of the Vietnam War, who have helped me through the many rough spots in the last year. I am even more excited that I will be reunited with many of my brother and sister Iraq Vets. My friend Camillo Mejia who went to jail rather than return to Iraq will be there, as will Garrett Ragenhagen and Joe Hill whom I met at last year’s convention. I know that I will meet new members and develop new relationships with veterans from all eras. But the best part of it all is that all of these people and I understand each other. Together we will learn about important topics to continue our work such as nonviolence, coping with PTSD, community organizing and so much more.

I am even more elated that on Saturday, my brothers from Iraq Veterans Against the War will gather to elect an official governing body and move into the next phase of our organizational development. After the convention on Sunday, I will join my brothers and sisters at the Canadian Border to rally with War Resisters who have fled to Canada rather than participate in the immoral and illegal occupation. I have wanted to meet the war resisters for a long time and am proud to stand in solidarity with them. I so often wish I had had the courage to stand up for my principles when my orders to Iraq came.

I am certain that on Monday, I will go home rejuvenated and ready to continue the struggle toward peace and justice. The only thing that could be better is if I didn’t have to take an airplane to do it.

Why I'm A Prairie Dog

On the morning of November 23, 2005 I was sitting on a bench in the McLennan County Jail. I had been arrested with eleven of my fellow activists an hour or so earlier for protesting outside the Bush Ranch in Crawford Texas. We would later be called the Prairie Chapel 12, individually prairie dogs and at that moment we were listening to a Justice of the Peace read us our rights. As I heard him say “you have the right to remain silent,” it was suddenly clear to me that as Americans, all of us can remain silent about anything, but I ended up on the bench exercising my right and duty not to remain silent.
For me, the road to Crawford began over three years ago. In February 2003, I was a career military man, a new father, and devoted husband. My government had been waging a public relations campaign against the country of Iraq for several months and now war was imminent. I kissed my wife and daughter good bye and boarded a bus to go get on an airplane bound for Iraq. I refer to this event as the end of my other life. I was going to Iraq because George Bush said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, ties to the Al Qai’da terrorists who attacked our country on September 11 2001, and Iraq was a threat to national and global security. To keep my nation and the world safe I was willing to risk my life and everything I had on the premise that my government would not ask me to risk my life in vain. I was wrong. None of it was true. In fact, now there is overwhelming evidence that our government knew well before I went to Iraq that there was no tangible evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that the alleged meeting between Mohamed Atta and Iraqi intelligence officers never happened. In short, our government knew that the government of Saddam Hussein was not a credible threat to U.S. national security. The war in Iraq has in reality weakened national and global security by creating a hotbed for terrorism and a target for would be terrorist to attack.
In May 2003, I returned to the United States. Many would say I returned home, but one does not fight in Iraq and get to come home again. I was plagued by nightmares, crushing guilt, depression, anger and horror at what I had been forced to do. I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and discharged in March of 2005. My marriage ended shortly thereafter. My life will never be the same again. The hardest part of it all, is that the reasons I joined the military are virtues and I still hold them today. I joined the Navy because I believed that freedom was at risk. I believed that as a member of the global community, I should attempt to serve something greater than myself. I joined the Navy to “support and defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” I hold all of those ideals as dearly today as I did then. But today it is clear that freedom is truly at risk from individuals inside our government who seek to destroy the Constitution and all that it stands for. I thought I was defending freedom, but in reality soldiers do not fight for freedom, soldiers fight for governments and have to hope that freedom will somehow survive the ordeal.
In August, I went to Crawford Texas with the mother of a fallen soldier to ask the president a simple question: for what noble cause have so many in our military sacrificed their lives? Predictably, Bush refused to meet with us and after we left McLennan County passed an ordinance that outlawed “residing in a bar ditch.” The law defined reside as eating, sleeping, erecting a structure, storing trash or erecting a port-a-potty in a ditch as well as parking in the ditch within 16 miles of the Bush Ranch. If the county enforced this law indiscriminately, they would have to arrest hunters for sleeping in their trucks, road crews for erecting port-a-potties at work sites, county inmates on trash detail, and even sheriff’s deputies for eating lunch in their squad cars at break time. No, it is obvious that this law seeks to encourage all of us to exercise our right to remain silent and let our government blindly destroy the world in which we live.
The judge is right, I have the right to remain silent, but with 160,000 of my brothers and sisters in arms are still in harm’s way and thousands more struggling with the aftermath of service in an unjust and immoral war, I have an obligation not to remain silent. I am outraged about what our country has done in the name of freedom and democracy. The war in Iraq weakened our national security by giving “terrorists” of the world reasons to hate us. We have destroyed the country of Iraq, killed 2,223 American, over 100,000 Iraqis, and spent over 170 billion dollars with no end in sight. For me to remain silent about that makes me culpable in the crime. I know there may be consequences, but I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees.

Speaking Truth To Power

On July 15, I had the privilege of testifying before the first International Truth Commission on poverty in the United States. More than 500 people gathered in the Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio at Lincoln Park to hear the testimony of nearly fifty panelists. The commissioners were accomplished members of the national and international human rights movements and included independent UN experts, Union Leadership, and clergy. Likewise, the panelists were also from locations around the United States. We heard from immigrant workers from California and Florida, farmers from Kansas, victims of Hurricane Katrina from the gulf coast and many others. The stories told by panelists were truly heart breaking. I spent the day amidst disadvantaged and poor people who only want the things many Americans take for granted: a job that pays a living wage, a solid education, healthcare, and the opportunity live a comfortable life. Unfortunately, for millions, the American Dream is just that: a dream. One woman told of a dear friend who died of an aneurism while waiting for the state to decide if she was qualified to receive state healthcare benefits. Another man told of losing his family farm when big conglomerates took over his community. “Farming is big business in Kansas. Farmers are an endangered species,” he said. Another testified about a family that had their natural gas turned off because of non-payment during the coldest winter months. That family was one of two that burned to death within a single month due to fires started by kerosene heaters. We also heard of youths who chose militarism over prison when they could find no other path out of the desperation in which they lived their lives. Each story was heartbreaking and highlighted the disparity between the American Dream and the American Reality. .

The most emotional moment of the Commission for me came after the Right to a Living Wage Panel. The war came home when I held a woman who had just testified about her son’s service in the Marine Corps. Her son, like me could find no other way into a college classroom except through the battlefields of Iraq. Her description of him reminded me of myself when I joined the navy. He was Young, well intentioned, frustrated by his chances of going to college or finding a good job. He chose to gamble his life as a marine on the battlefield of Iraq in order to fund his college education. He lost that gamble. I cried as I held his mother in my arms, because I know that but for the grace of God, her son could have been cradling my mother in his arms. I cried because his death in Iraq is meaningless. It’s meaningless because the war is not being fought for our national security. The death of this poor immigrant boy is meaningless because his life was laid not on the alter of freedom, but on the alter of corporate greed and the military industrial complex. In an action that is no consolation at all, he was posthumously awarded American Citizenship.

The experience was heartbreaking because of the utter desperation of those in attendance. In one of the wealthiest nations in the world, no one should have to work three jobs just to provide for their family. No one should have to take the path of the drug addict to escape the horror of their life and no one should have to sacrifice their humanity on a battle field for the bottom line of Halliburton and Bechtel for a college education and a steady job. Yet, the commission was filled with these stories and so much more. This was only a small sampling of the testimonies shared at this historic event. However, I left filled with hope. The Truth Commission is a vital first step in reclaiming America. Average citizens with seemingly little power have begun to gather together to change this country. I was reminded of the old saying, “Never doubt the power of a few thoughtful, caring people to change the world. For no one else ever has.” One of the things that I learned in the military is that if you put one foot in front of the other, you eventually get where you need to go. The road ahead is long, but we will keep marching together and together we will change this world.