Black Lightning

Iraq War Veterans Recall Horrors

From a civilian perspective, it can be so hard to imagine the horrors experienced in war as simply the daily routine of soldiers; nonetheless, these atrocities appear to be the truth of their experience, time and again. Unimaginable horror becomes daily routine.



ARTICLE

Thanks to WantToKnow.info for linking to this article. This article is the Boston Globe's report on the IVAW "Winter Soldier" weekend dori linked to in her reply to the "Hotel Tacloban" thread.



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I am seeing more and more about the 'Winter Soldier' gathering--except on corporate media. Not a word there.

At least information is getting out. These soldiers have to live with what they did forever. Even they don't seem to be able to believe they actually were capable of doing these things.

Most say they want to stave off teens who believe the best way to get an education is to join the military. What the Winter Soldiers say is that the education they got was NOT in the best interest of themselves or the country they were sent to 'liberate'. It seems they saved the best of their courage for when they came home to face war mongers who are proud of trashing other countries.

They have my respect for that.

Right on!

I've often wondered if there wasn't such a starvation in this country of opportunities for education, and opportunities to serve -- what would happen to military recruiting then? I bet there's an unwritten book out there that could draw a connection between the military agenda and the deficiencies of education in this country.

Thanks for bringing these winter soldiers to my attention, dori!

You're welcome. These are such haunting faces with sad, sad turns in their own lives. But it is only those who have compassion who have to live with this horror forever. Some come home thrilled to have been part of 'saving America'.

It is sickening.



I have the terrible feeling you are right. Terrible because that points out that this is all deliberate, and we destroy as a country anyone and anything no matter where or what. That includes our own citizens.

Is this the fate of human nature? Is there any way to improve on accepted values? Or do we just have someone here and someone there who sees this is dreadfully wrong...

It sounds like we need to take a lesson from global warming and push this country to a "tipping point." A psychological tipping point. A draft might be a good start. But of course the problem is much deeper -- the lack of recognition of how this whole scenario is "dreadfully wrong." There's a new movie supposed to be coming out, called "Stop Loss," about a decorated soldier who protests when they try to redeploy him to Iraq, and suddenly the hero becomes a villain in the eyes of the establishment. (The preview was on All Things Considered yesterday.) It is amazing the extent to which the government is trying to avoid a draft.

Boy, if I could just get on national television everyday, I bet I could freak some people out enough to change this country!

I don't think anything short of the draft will even register. People have become so self-centered they will ignore anything that doesn't make them personally uncomfortable. This idea so many have that life owes them whatever they want is not only disgusting, it is detrimental to our society.

The draft was what eventually stopped the Vietnam war, but it took a very long time. Can we hope if a draft were started people would wake up any sooner now?



The only thing people will accept as wrong is that we are not 'winning'. Iraqis? Just animals. Our military who come home psychologically damaged? Wimps and crybabies.

What is wrong is that we have too many people tightly clinging to really bad values! I have no idea how one remedies that.