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Veterans

Vets Return To Standing Rock To Form Human Shield Against Police

February 12, 2017 Sam Levin, www.theguardian.com , , ,
By Sam Levin for The Guardian. US veterans are returning to Standing Rock and pledging to shield indigenous activists from attacks by a militarized police force, another sign that the fight against the Dakota Access pipeline is far from over. Army veterans from across the country have arrived in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, or are currently en route after the news that Donald Trump’s administration has allowed the oil corporation to finish drilling across the Missouri river. The growing group of military veterans could make it harder for police and government officials to try to remove hundreds of activists who remain camped near the construction site and, some hope, could limit use of excessive force by law enforcement during demonstrations. “We are prepared to put our bodies between Native elders and a privatized military force,” said Elizabeth Williams, a 34-year-old air force veteran, who arrived at Standing Rock with a group of vets late on Friday.

Why I Answered The Call For Veterans To Go To Standing Rock

December 31, 2016 Kevin Basl, www.otherwords.org ,
By Kevin Basl for Other Words - At Standing Rock, for the first time, I felt like I was finally serving the people. I lay among friends, huddled and cold in our sleeping bags. We listened to the lashing wind and the drums and prayer chants coming from the sacred fire, and we reflected on why we, four Iraq War veterans, were here. Police floodlights shone from the drill site of the Dakota Access Pipeline, scheduled to cross under the Missouri River, the water source for millions of people. Members of the Standing Rock Sioux, concerned not only about polluted water but also the desecration of sacred sites, began resisting the pipeline in 2014. In mid-2016, finally...

Why They Went: The Inside Story Of The Standing Rock Veterans

December 21, 2016 Adam Linehan, www.taskandpurpose.com ,
By Adam Linehan for Task Purpose - On the morning of Dec. 5, Wesley Clark Jr., the leader of a loosely formed protest group, Veterans Stand for Standing Rock, woke up to the buzz of his cell phone in a hotel room in the Prairie Knights Casino and Resort in Cannon Ball, North Dakota. It was 6:30 a.m. The caller had some troubling news. Just before dawn, one of the veterans down in the protest camp, where members of the group had bedded down for the night, had apparently disappeared. He was last seen walking in the direction of the Missouri River. There was a suicide note. So we do have his name, social security number, and emergency contact info?” Clark said into the phone, his voice hoarse after just a few hours of sleep.

Powerful Veterans Group Pushes Trump On Marijuana Rescheduling

December 19, 2016 Tom Angell, www.marijuana.com , ,
By Tom Angell for Marijuana - The nation’s largest military veterans organization is pushing President-elect Donald Trump to reschedule marijuana after he takes office early next year. Top officials from the American Legion, which passed a resolution endorsing the reclassification of cannabis under federal law earlier this year, sat down with Trump’s transition team last week to discuss key priorities for the more than 2 million military veterans the organization represents, including marijuana policy reform. The group “initiated a call-to-action on fairly new Legion priorities...

Chronicle Of Veterans At Standing Rock

December 11, 2016 Susan Abulhawa, www.veteranstoday.com , , ,
By Susan Abulhawa, via Ian Greenhalgh of Veterans Today. North Dakota - At Standing Rock, so much was not what it seemed from the distance of news headlines and reports. Up close, one could see the ideological tension in romanticized groups where some are driven by moral imperatives and others by personal glory. A hidden truth about the rank and file of the U.S. military was also laid bare. There are many untold contradictions behind the drama that unfolded at Standing Rock. Although this remains a people’s struggle against the capitalist interests of a corporate military state, there are moral inconsistencies that bear telling.

Forgiveness Ceremony Unites Veterans And Natives At Standing Rock Casino

December 7, 2016 Jenna Amatul, www.huffingtonpost.com , ,
By Jenna Amatul for The Huffington Post - Many of us, me particularly, are from the units that have hurt you over the many years. We came. We fought you. We took your land. We signed treaties that we broke. We stole minerals from your sacred hills. We blasted the faces of our presidents onto your sacred mountain. When we took still more land and then we took your children and then we tried to make your language and we tried to eliminate your language that God gave you, and the Creator gave you. We didn’t respect you, we polluted your Earth, we’ve hurt you in so many ways but we’ve come to say that we are sorry. We are at your service and we beg for your forgiveness.

Veterans Arrive at Standing Rock To Act As ‘Human Shields’

December 4, 2016 Nika Knight, www.commondreams.org , ,
By Nika Knight for Common Dreams. As tensions grow in North Dakota, with multiple eviction orders facing the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in their battle against the Dakota Access Pipeline, U.S. military veterans on Friday began arriving at the Oceti Sakowin protest camp. The 2,000 veterans, which include Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), plan to act as an unarmed militia and peaceful human shields to protect the Indigenous activists from police brutality. "I signed up to serve my country and my people and I did that overseas," Indigenous U.S. Navy veteran Brandee Paisano told the CBC. "I didn't think I'd have to do it here, on this land, so here I am. This is what I need to be doing." The "deployment" is officially planned for December 4-7, but veterans who have arrived early have already taken their stand in front of the militarized police blockade stopping traffic into and out of the camp

‘Where Evil Resides’

November 25, 2016 Adam Linehan, www.taskandpurpose.com , , , ,
By Adam Linehan for Task and Purpose. On Dec. 4, if everything goes according to plan, hundreds of veterans will muster at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota. The mission: To stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. “Most civilians who’ve never served in a uniform are gutless worms who’ve never been in a fight in their life,” Wes Clark Jr. declares. “So if we don’t stop it, who will?” Clark Jr. is one of the most vociferous opponents of the Dakota Access Pipeline, a controversial 1,170-mile project that, if and when it is completed, will shuttle an estimated 470,000 barrels of crude oil every day from North Dakota to Illinois. “It’s immoral, and wrong, and dangerous to us all,” Clark Jr. adds.

Dr. Orange: The Secret Nemesis Of Sick Vets

November 22, 2016 Charles Ornstein, www.propublica.org , ,
By Charles Ornstein for Pro Publica - A Pentagon consultant was recommending that Air Force officials quickly and discreetly chop up and melt down a fleet of C-123 aircraft that had once sprayed the toxic herbicide Agent Orange across Vietnam. The consultant also suggested how to downplay the risk if journalists started asking questions: “The longer this issue remains unresolved, the greater the likelihood of outside press reporting on yet another ‘Agent Orange Controversy.’”

#VeteransForKaepernick Stand Up For His Right To Sit Down

September 1, 2016 Lindsay Gibbs, www.thinkprogress.org , ,
By Lindsay Gibbs for Think Progress - In the days since San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the national anthem as a way to protest the oppression of people of color in the United States, journalists, fans, and NFL players both past and present have expressed their outrage. Most of their criticism focuses in on the disrespect that Kaepernick was supposedly showing the flag and the U.S. military members who have fought and died for our freedom.

Tomgram: ‘I Didn’t Serve, I Was Used’

August 28, 2016 Tom Dispatch and Ann Jones, www.tomdispatch.com , , ,
By Tom Dispatch and Ann Jones. Today, citizens of the United States directly bear the burden of more than 150 years of warfare. As of May 2016, the VA was still paying benefits to one dependent of a Civil War (1861-1865) veteran, 88 dependents of Spanish-American War (1898-1902) veterans, nine dependents of veterans of the military campaign along the Mexican border early in the twentieth century, thousands of dependents of World War I (1917-1918) veterans, hundreds of thousands of World War II (1941-1945) veterans and dependents, hundreds of thousands of Korean War (1950-1953) veterans and dependents, around 1.8 million Vietnam War-era (1964-1975) veterans and dependents, and millions of veterans and dependents of the Gulf War (1990-1991) and of the ongoing War on Terror campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere (2001 to the present).

Veterans Group Wants To End MCAS Miramar Air Show

August 20, 2016 Debbi Baker, www.sandiegouniontribune.com , ,
By Debbi Baker for The San Diego Union Tribune - There is a debate playing out in the pages of the Union-Tribune Thursday morning over the MCAS Miramar Air Show which will roar into and over San Diego skies next month. A local veterans group says the annual aviation extravaganza glorifies war and the machinery used to kill, maim and destroy, and it is calling for the show to end. Marine Corps officials, however, argue the three-day event showcases what it takes to lead the nation and the world.

“The Khans’ Grief Is Being Used by A Party That Is Treacherous”

August 6, 2016 Brendan James, www.slate.com ,
By Brendan James for Slate - One after another, reporters and pundits, hacks and flacks all began circulating George W. Bush’s response from more than a decade ago to the protest of a dead soldier’s parent. It was a lesson in manners for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who had just attacked Khizr and Ghazala Khan, themselves the parents of a dead soldier, for having denounced the candidate as an unpatriotic bigot at the Democratic National Convention. “Compare Trump to Bush addressing Cindy Sheehan,” tweeted a Daily Beast editor, echoing dozens of others.

VA Employees, Veterans, Fight Hospital Closures

July 2, 2016 Staff, www.afge.org , , ,
By Staff of AFGE - They march. They chant. They hold signs that read "Keep the promise to our vets" and "VA cares about vets." Veterans and VA employees are furious that Congress is considering shutting down VA hospitals – their community – and sending them to for-profit private hospitals that don't have what it takes to treat their unique needs born out of war. To put a spotlight on this terrible betrayal of veteran's trust, they're holding dozens of rallies outside VA hospitals across America to protest plans to sell veterans' health care to the lowest bidder and shut down VA medical centers.

Veteran’s Apology To People Of Vietnam, Cambodia And Laos

May 31, 2016 Staff, www.mendocoastcurrent.wordpress.com ,
By Staff of Mendo Coast Current - There will never be a day when the Vietnam War is not on my mind. It was one of the worst mistakes America has ever made. Vietnam was fought for big money interests and promoted under the guise of nationalism. The war should have taught us a humbling lesson, but we let it slip away. Peace has become the enemy of corporate-run America. Our nation is accustomed to viewing life through the crosshairs of a rifle scope. We are a society in search of constant battle.
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