Sir! No Sir! Exposing and Debunking Military Lies from Vietnam to Iraq

From GI Special 6B17: I Know Why Maricela Guzman Doesn’t Sing:“Maybe That’s How Our Government Views Our Veterans; Like An Envelope Of Receipts We Keep To Prove What We Purchased And Then, After Seven Years, We Can Throw Them Away”

September 18th, 2007 By April Fitzsimmons [Sgt. USAF (1985-1989)], Madashellclub.net. April Fitzsimmons welcomes your comments. You can email her at [email protected].

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Maricela Guzman enlisted in the Navy at 21.
In basic training, while she was on night watch, making her rounds, a man pushed her into a dark corner and raped her. She was so stunned she didn’t know what to do.
She waited until the next day and when she tried to report it, she didn’t follow the correct procedure to request permission to speak. She was so nervous that she said nothing.
Up until then she had high hopes of being a singer in the Navy choir. She was a soprano and even in basic training they had her pegged to sing. But after her rape, Maricela stopped singing.
She didn’t speak another word about the incident. She moved on as fast as she could. Stationed in Italy, she threw herself into her work trying to forget what happened.
She excelled at everything, and became Seaman of the Year for her command.
At one point she got counseling but didn’t bring up the rape. Her supervisor told her that if she continued therapy, she ran the risk of losing her clearance and her job. She stopped therapy and was honorably discharged just before the US invaded Iraq.
Not talking about her attack came at a great price: one divorce, one suicide attempt and multiple nervous breakdowns.
After hearing Maricela’s story, I vowed that I would protect her like a little sister.
When I spoke an Anti War rally in 2005 I brought her along.
“Come on stage and say something. You can even say it in Spanish.”
She was shy and said only a few words. But at the next rally she said a few more and the next thing I knew, she was speaking in schools, to congressmen and on panels.
My heart filled with pride as I saw layers of sadness and depression lift with the process of being in action and speaking her truth.
She organized an all-girls Veterans retreat and shared about her attack. As a result, other women opened up about their attacks.
At one point I noticed she was missing from the group and went outside to find her.
She was sitting under a tree at a picnic table, knitting and crying.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m just triggered. All these girl’s stories, it brings up a lot of my pain. But, I’ve decided, I’m going to file my claim for PTSD. I’m going to ask for help,” she said, her hands moving the yarn down the fat wooden needle.
“You’re so brave to come forward. Will your parents help you with the process?
“No. They don’t know about my attack. I couldn’t tell them. I was a virgin when it happened and in my culture …”
Her voice trailed off and she returned to her knitting.
On top of attending college full time, speaking at schools and on Vet panels, she filled out the VA Claim.
On July 25, 2007 the VA denied Maricela Guzman’s claim for PTSD.
They said she showed no “stressors” after the attack. If she really had suffered, they said, she would never have become a top-notch sailor.
“What criteria do they use to make their decision? What evidence do they have to say, if you do well after a traumatic event it means you aren’t suffering? The first thing they tell you in basic is to suck it up and pull yourself up by your bootstraps!” I shouted into the phone.
“Don’t get so mad April,” she said. “A lot of vets told me that this is what happens: they turn you down a couple times and then they approve you.”
I knew about the one’s they’d turned down. Many of them had hung themselves with a garden hose, or put a shiny bullet through their bright skulls or simply faded into the shadows forever.
After talking to Maricela and combing the VA claim, I saw that she did miss one appointment that perhaps would have beefed up her paperwork. The notice for the appointment was sent to her old address during her divorce and her ex never forwarded the paperwork.
The claim says that Maricela does not have PTSD. PTSD usually only occurs after combat, a natural disaster or a sexual assault.
By saying that Maricela doesn’t have PTSD, the VA is subtly saying the attack never happened.
A recent USA Today article reported that 29% of all women are sexually assaulted while on active duty. And those are just the stats of women who have reported their assaults. Maricela is not counted in that statistic nor is anyone else who is still suffering in silence.
I’ve read many accounts of our returning veterans, whose family and friends have reached out to the VA for help and said, “I know that my son, husband, sister or wife is going to kill himself or herself. I know they are suffering from PTSD. You’ve got to do something.”
According to the VA, they can only help the veteran.
“Have them call us,” the VA says.
Maricela Guzman called and what she got in return was a rejection letter with an electronic signature by “M. Kwok” and a 1-800 number to call with questions.
I wish M. Kwok had picked up the phone and called Maricela to follow up on her claim.
I wish M. Kwok had met with her to look in her eyes to understand the severity of her condition.
I wish this decision had been handled more personally rather than shuffling her claim around like it was just another tax return.
But maybe that’s how our government views our veterans; like an envelope of receipts we keep to prove what we purchased and then, after seven years, we can throw them away.
M. Kwok’s number at the VA is 1-800-827-1000. Please call and ask about Maricela Guzman’s claim #346/rc/dr

Where's The Outrage 77 - A Land Fit For Heroes? Homeless vets in America

Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), talks about Bill O'Reilly's incorrect statements regarding homeless veterans on Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

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Where's The Outrage 76 - "It's why I lost my leg, so it sucks."

This article was opriginally published at military.com, February 22, 2008

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"It's why I lost my leg, so it sucks."<\/p>

The assessment, from a 22-year-old Marine toughing out physical therapy on two prosthetic limbs, is laconic, matter-of-fact. Sgt. David Emery lost one leg in February 2007 when a suicide bomber assaulted the checkpoint near Haditha, Iraq, where he and fellow Marines stood guard. Military surgeons were forced to remove his remaining leg when it became infected with acinetobacter baumannii-a strain of highly resistant bacteria that since U.S. forces began fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan has threatened the lives, limbs, and organs of hundreds wounded in combat.
"They could have saved it," says Emery. "They had a rod in it, but then the bacteria was in too bad and my white blood cell count was up to 89,000-and they told my mom on a Friday that they had to take it."
Emery's mother recalls that the hazard was not confined to her son's limbs.
"He ended up getting it in his stomach," says Connie Emery, "and they tried to close his stomach back up, but when they did, the stitches ended up pulling away because the infection was taking over."
An Army infectious disease physician says the germ has spread rapidly since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began. "Prior to the war, we were seeing one to two cases of acinetobacter infection per year," remembers Lt. Col. Kimberly Moran, deputy director for tropical public health at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland.
"Now that's much different. We've had hundreds of positive cultures over the last four years."
And the toll has been serious, observes Army Col. Glenn Wortmann, acting chief of infectious disease at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. "Of the infectious disease problems that have come out of the conflict," notes Dr. Wortmann, "it is the most important complication we've seen."
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Most striking about the problem is that men and women wounded in combat have acquired the bacteria in the very hospitals where aggressive surgery has, in many cases, saved their lives. "The outbreak," acknowledges a Defense Department fact sheet, "appears to have started during the care of patients (both U.S. military and non-U.S.) in the combat support hospitals of Iraq and Afghanistan."
"They go to what's called 'far forward' surgical outfits where the main concern is keeping them alive," explains Dr. Rox Anderson of Harvard Medical School, "and in the process there's not a hundred percent of the [anti-contamination] controls. Despite a great effort by the military medical people, there's a high risk of infection anyway."
Once established at frontline surgical sites, the bacteria began "traveling with patients or on patients," says Dr. Moran, "from Iraq all the way back to Walter Reed, with stops along the way through the evacuation chain and getting into our hospitals." There, she adds, "it was spread from patient to patient through various means, just being on surfaces and having one person come in a room after another person has left."
Most evidence of the bacteria has been confirmed at military hospitals in Germany, the Washington, D.C., area, and Texas -- though cases have also been confirmed on board the hospital ship USNS Comfort and at Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii.
(As Proceedings went to press, the Baltimore Sun reported an outbreak of acinetobacter baumannii infections at the University of Maryland Medical Center.)
The persistence of the outbreak has pushed it to momentous proportions. "I believe this is the largest in-hospital acinetobacter outbreak in history," asserts Dr. Timothy Endy, a retired Army colonel now teaching infectious disease medicine at the State University of New York, Upstate Medical University. Endy battled the bacteria while attending to patients at Walter Reed.
Researchers say they don't know exactly how acinetobacter baumannii first made its way into frontline treatment facilities. Early suspicions pointed to the possibility that the germs, mixed with soil, were blown deep into penetrating wounds. Some physicians speculated that bacteria residing in the combat zone had settled onto the skin of service members-lying dormant until open wounds allowed the bugs to create havoc. Small-sample testing, however, has indicated little or no evidence of problem-causing acinetobacter in Iraqi soil. And the only Iraq or Afghanistan veterans so far showing signs of acinetobacter colonization on their skin are those who have spent time in casualty treatment centers.
Moreover, say scientists, nothing in the character of the outbreak would indicate that it originated as a result of intentional biological attack.
The bug's dangerous effects were first noticed just weeks into the March 2003 assault on Iraq. During April of that year, then-Lt. Cdr. Kyle Petersen, a Navy physician treating battle casualties on board the Comfort, observed a number of not-easily-explained patient deaths. He contacted fellow infectious disease specialists via online message boards, describing his American and Iraqi patients' symptoms-and, when they were eventually available, their lab results. The interaction helped rapidly identify the problem and initiated testing of frontline medical facilities.
"There were bacteria," recalls Moran, "acinetobacter bacteria, on hospital surfaces like in operating rooms, on ventilator machines, or on light surfaces or environmental control units."
At first glance, acinetobacter baumannii does not seem particularly fiendish. It is neither intensely virulent nor remarkably energetic. Its name, in fact, derives from the Greek word akinetos, meaning "unable to move." But, as hundreds of those wounded in combat have learned, it exhibits one particularly troubling genius. Noteworthy even among better-known, more-feared microorganisms, it is able to steal resistance capabilities from other bacteria with which it comes into contact.
In addition to agonizing over what treatment to use, physicians worry about when they should bring medications to bear. This is particularly difficult since tests to prove infection take days. So a doctor may have to wait up to 72 hours to learn if bacteria have colonized on a patient's skin or, more dangerously, insinuated themselves into a wound.
"Is my patient infected, or just colonized?" asks Petersen, recalling the dilemma faced when suspecting that acinetobacter is threatening a patient. "If [the person's skin] is colonized and I over-treat him, I could damage his kidneys. If he's infected, and I ignore that and say he's colonized, he could die."
"The infection, if it goes on," notes Anderson, "sometimes will lead to amputation, so these are tough choices."
Defense Department records-provided in response to a December 2007 query from Proceedings-indicate that from March 2003 to March 2005 acinetobacter infections attacked more than 250 patients at U.S. military healthcare facilities. As of June 2006, the same documents say, seven deaths had been linked to acinetobacter-related complications. The records did not contain figures for the bacteria's impact during the remainder of 2006 and 2007.
While the majority of those fighting acinetobacter infection in military hospitals have been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, up to a third have not -- infants and the elderly among those apparently acquiring the bacteria in armed forces healthcare centers.
Those hit hardest are typically the weakest of the weak. In the case of men and women hurt on the battlefield, observes Anderson, those with "complex wounds, combination of burns, blast injury, and lacerations."
Of the seven people the Defense Department acknowledges to have died because of acinetobacter-related complications, five were non-active duty patients being treated in the same hospital as infected service members-patients already weakened by such problems as organ failure, immune system deficiency, or multiple traumatic wounds.
Two key issues seem behind the persistence of the outbreak. A number of infectious disease specialists point to difficulties in completely ridding hospital environments of acinetobacter. Doing so, they say, requires more stringent cleaning than that typically sufficient to kill other bacteria. Additionally, several express concern that policies on antibiotic use differ at commands and hospitals along the casualty evacuation chain.
Sometimes trying to err on the side of caution, doctors on the frontline prescribe wide-spectrum antibiotics prior to determining if a patient is actually carrying acinetobacter. In the long term, this has created problems.
"I think antibiotic use is probably driving some of this," suggests Petersen of the Comfort, "because when you keep people on prolonged antibiotics unnecessarily, it lets them be colonized with worse and worse bacteria."
In 2006, doctors at Walter Reed began successfully curbing acinetobacter infections using an antibiotic called imipenem. Soon thereafter, Endy recalls, frontline surgeons began using imipenem as a prophylactic antibiotic-infusing it into injured service members even when it was not clear the bacteria had colonized on the patients' skin or invaded their wounds. The result, he says: "We started to see increasing resistance to this antibiotic, resulting in the use of the more toxic drug, colistin."
Wortmann at Walter Reed understands the urge of frontline providers to "break out the big guns" right away, particularly when they know their facilities are contaminated with acinetobacter. But he counsels caregivers to first use antibiotics targeted toward more common bacteria, treating for acinetobacter only when tests show a patient has been colonized or infected. "When you give an antibiotic," he says, "you'll kill most of the bacteria that's on that patient, but if a bacteria either is resistant to that antibiotic or is able to rapidly become resistant to that antibiotic, then it will grow because all the other bacteria have been killed off."
Researchers in military laboratories and elsewhere are exploring better means of fighting acinetobacter. Some are examining possible uses of radiation. At Harvard, Anderson is experimenting with a dye "painted" onto open wounds then activated with light. "Even the worst strains that are resistant to multiple antibiotics," he says, "will succumb to the light-activated dye approach."
Policies on infection control and antibiotic use, meantime, remain essentially unchanged from those in place when the war began. "There are guidelines," says Wortmann, "and sort of loose oversight of the practicing patterns of the physicians, but there is no one person that says, 'Doctor Jones in Baghdad, you must do this.'"
Timothy Endy, the former Walter Reed physician, is among those who believe that, in some measure, there should be. He urges defense leaders to bring a more systematic approach to the fight-across military service lines and command structures-citing "lessons that should be learned from this outbreak but have not been implemented to my knowledge."
A key reform he feels necessary, and past due: creating the means for military services and the Department of Veterans Affairs to gather and share real-time information on antibiotic-resistant infections in medical centers.
He also recommends application of unified policies on infection control and prophylactic use of antibiotics-and advocates that the service's most senior medical officers, employing a more global view than physicians at single points along casualty evacuation routes, be afforded authority to order clinical practice guidelines for infection control.
Most important, he adds, in order for treatment rules to work more swiftly than fast-adapting bacteria, such guidelines must be "executed in the war theater without delay."
During 2004, the outbreak's worst point so far, some 30 percent of all patients returning from Iraq and Afghanistan tested positive for acinetobacter. Four years into the fight, up to 20 percent of those returning wounded still face biological onslaught by this bloodstream insurgent.
"That's what really held me back," says Marine Sergeant Emery. "That's why I was laid up in the hospital for so long.

Shutting Down the Machine Archives - Anti-war to the Corps; Marine Reservist-Protesters Face Discipline

Originally published in the Washington Post, May 31, 2007

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Going on a mock patrol can get you in real trouble with the United States Marine Corps.
In a case that raises questions about free speech, the Marines have launched investigations of three inactive reservists for wearing their uniforms during antiwar protests and allegedly making statements characterized as "disrespectful" or "disloyal."
Two of them were part of the guerrilla theater squad of 13 Iraq Veterans Against the War who roamed Capitol Hill and downtown Washington in March, clad in camouflage and carrying imaginary weapons, to mark the fourth anniversary of the Iraq war. A Washington Post story about that protest is part of the evidence gathered by Marine lawyers.
Adam Kokesh, 25, a graduate student at George Washington University, faces a hearing Monday in Kansas City, where the Marines will recommend an "other than honorable" discharge from the Individual Ready Reserve. He was previously honorably discharged from active duty after fighting in Fallujah and receiving the Combat Action Ribbon and the Navy Commendation Medal.
Upon learning he was being investigated for wearing his uniform during the mock patrol, Kokesh wrote an e-mail to the investigating officer, Maj. John Whyte. The combat veteran discussed his service and his critique of the war, and asked this officer assigned to look into his "possible violation" of wearing his uniform: "We're at war. Are you doing all you can?" He concluded with an obscene recommendation about what Whyte should go do.
This earned him the count for a "disrespectful statement."
Liam Madden, 22, who spent seven months on the ground in Iraq, last fall helped launch the Appeal for Redress, a Web site where military personnel can directly appeal to Congress to support withdrawal of troops. Madden, of Boston, is accused of wearing his camouflage shirt at an antiwar march in Washington in January.
He also is accused of making disloyal statements during a speech in February in New York, when he says he wasn't wearing his uniform.
These statements, as summarized by the Marines in legal documents: "Sgt. Madden spends several minutes explaining the 'war crimes' of the Bush administration. Sgt. Madden claims that the war in Iraq is a war 'of aggression' and one of 'empire building.' Sgt. Madden explains that the President of the United States has 'betrayed U.S. military personnel' engaged in the Iraq conflict."
The identity of the third Marine under investigation could not be immediately verified; his or her name had been blacked-out of legal documents reviewed by The Post.
Kokesh and Madden say they have a question about all this: Don't the Marines have anything better to do these days?
Papers drawn up by Marine lawyers indicate the corps sees it as a matter of enforcing clear regulations. Spokesmen for the Marines did not return telephone calls and e-mails seeking comment.
The case also raises a fundamental question of interest to the roughly 158,000 men and women in the Marines' and Army's Individual Ready Reserve: Are they civilians -- free to speak their minds -- or not?
"This case is about the Marine Corps seeking to stifle critics of the Iraq policy by officially labeling civilian acts of peaceful protest and political speech as misconduct and serious offenses," says Michael Lebowitz, Kokesh's attorney, who fought in Iraq as an Army paratrooper .
In legal documents sent to the reservists, the Marines cite well-known military regulations against wearing uniforms for political activity. Against Kokesh they say a Marine may not insult an officer. Against Madden they cite a military law that covers disloyal statements.
But, counters Lebowitz, unlike other types of reservists who have specific paid duties, Individual Ready Reservists are not paid, have no weekend drill requirements and no chain of command. Therefore, he argues, they are civilians, unless summoned back to duty. And if they are civilians, they can say pretty much what they want.
"For the military to try to punish civilians for speaking out against the war is completely outrageous, says Arthur Spitzer, legal director of American Civil Liberties Union for the National Capital Area, whom Madden has consulted but not yet retained.
It is true that civilians are subject to civilian laws against wearing military uniforms -- but that's not for the Marines to judge, the lawyers say.
Usually, reservists who wear their uniforms improperly are unaware of the rules and the matter is resolved amicably, says Col. John Sessoms, staff judge advocate for Marine Forces Reserve, the top lawyer for the reserves. "These are misdemeanor-type offenses," Sessoms says. "Once counseled, Marines usually conform. They suffer no repercussion."
The cases against Kokesh and Madden are administrative, not criminal. The main repercussion they face is the stain of the "other than honorable" designation, something they may have to explain on applications for employment or security clearance. Whether it affects their Veterans Administration benefits would be up to the VA.
Kokesh and Madden both say they are proud to have served and have nothing against the institution of the Marines. Neither plans to curb his antiwar work, despite the consequences. Kokesh just took part in another mock patrol protest -- wearing his uniform -- in New York City.
"I will not be intimidated," Kokesh says.

Where's The Outrage 72 - Returning Home Homeless

This article, by Mat Renner, was published by Truthout (as part of their on-going series Life After Iraq), February 21, 2008

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February 21, 2008 - Former Hospital Corpsman Kevin Bartolata spent four years and eight months in the military. When he decided to leave, he found himself alone and with few options. He soon became hopeless and homeless, sleeping in a park in San Francisco. Through sheer persistence and help from veterans organizations, he was able to pull himself out of his desperate situation and find his way.
This is his story.
Kevin Bartolata was eighteen and had just graduated from high school in 2000. His father, his closest role model, advised him to enlist to give his life direction and to help prepare him for adulthood.
"If you can't figure out what to do after high school, join up. At least you'll come out with money to pay for college afterwards and then you can figure out whatever you want to do. You have to find yourself a good stepping stone," Bartolata's father told him.
These words resonated with Bartolata and he acted upon them. He joined the Navy and decided to become a corpsman. Corpsmen are trained medical specialists who serve in naval hospitals, aboard ships or on the battlefield with the Marine Corps. Bartolata was told that becoming a corpsman would translate easily into a good job in the medical field when his six-year contract with the military ended.
He was stationed in Okinawa, Japan, where he worked in the US Naval Hospital. During his deployment, and just two months after the September 11, 2001, attacks, his father died prematurely at age 50. This loss was a severe blow to Bartolata and remains an open wound.
One year after the US invasion, Bartolata was deployed to Iraq. He arrived at Al-Taqaddum Air Force Base in March of 2004. He was separated from his original company and put in with a new group of unfamiliar faces.
"I ended up with a company of folks I didn't really know. There was a lack of trust because we hadn't trained together and I had all new superiors."
However, Bartolata was considered lucky. He worked within the relatively safe Air Force base while other Corpsman were embedded with Marine units in combat zones.
Bartolata and the other hospital staff felt that they owed a debt to the soldiers who were getting shot at by snipers and targeted with improvised bombs. Bartolata said that he was constantly "on," making sure that he was fully prepared at every moment to respond to the situation and to do his job to the best of his ability.
"Everyday it was like 'I need to know everything I'm supposed to know, do everything that I am supposed to be doing the right way because I'm going to help save people's lives. They're out there getting shot at and I'm in the base waiting for them to come in. And if they don't make it out, I don't want to feel like I didn't do everything I could.'"
His Surgical Shock Trauma Team received casualties directly from the battlefield. After preliminary field treatment by medics on the front lines, soldiers were brought by helicopter to the base, where Bartolata and his team would receive them and try to stabilize them. His team treated wounded soldiers from Najaf, Ramadi and Fallujah, three of the most dangerous areas for US forces in Iraq.
The triage process through which doctors would decide who was worth trying to save stuck with Bartolata. "It was really difficult to figure out the triage because it was backwards. Here in the civilian world, you would triage with the worst person going directly into surgery and the walking wounded being seen last. If we knew the person had a minimal chance of making it, we would just let them go. They would be labeled 'expected.' When we knew they were going to die, there was no reason to waste supplies. It was my job to make them comfortable. It was a logistical thing; it's how the military functions."
While the pragmatic military approach to triage might have been the only option in a combat zone, it is clear that Bartolata wishes there had been a way to try to revive every wounded soldier. His voice became more clear and took on a new intensity when he talked about performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to artificially pump oxygen to the brains of soldiers who were near death, as if he had momentarily been transported back to those critical minutes inside his Humvee, shuttling wounded from helicopters to the surgical unit.
"A lot of guys died, basically. By the time they were checking in with us, many were either killed in action or beyond repair. We were the receiving center ... we saw anywhere from two or three casualties a day, up to eight at a time. I carried that with me a lot when I got out because not everybody made it."
The experience was one that Bartolata has just recently begun confronting. He said that he took all the traumatic moments, the entire reality of the situation, and pushed it back "into a small, dark closet" in his mind. This coping mechanism allowed him to stay focused while in the war zone; however, it was a temporary fix.
Around July 2004, Bartolata was diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), an anxiety ailment common to military veterans that can manifest in different ways. Bartolata's condition resulted in insomnia and depression. However, the "military mentality" kept him from seeking treatment for nearly three years.
"It was like being labeled a shit bag in the military. If you went to the psychiatric ward, people said 'oh wow ... why couldn't I think of that? That would have gotten me out of work too.' It was viewed as a cop out."
Bartolata returned from Iraq in October 2004. After one month of leave, he was assigned to a medical surgical ward at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, California, a placement usually reserved for inexperienced corpsmen and those in training. Bartolata said the assignment felt like a "slap in the face," after his assignment in Iraq. He felt prepared for the responsibility of a leadership position where he could better share his experience and help train fellow corpsmen for deployment.
While he grew to value working with the Vietnam veterans he attended to at the facility, he was somewhat demoralized by the bad placement. "It was a step backwards. I didn't enjoy my time like I thought I would. I had clashes with the leadership." Bartolata began to look forward to leaving the Navy and rejoining the civilian world. He began moonlighting at a private hospital, working twelve-hour shifts on his days off from the naval hospital to save money and to prepare himself for his transition.
During his service, Bartolata earned enough money to put a down payment on a new Acura sports car. He had solid credit and his military paycheck covered the monthly payments.
He officially left the Navy on August 25, 2005. Six years after joining at the age of eighteen, Bartolata was excited about celebrating his upcoming twenty-fourth birthday with friends in Los Angeles. However, this celebration was tainted by the beginning of what would become a downward spiral.
Days later, his car, his prized possession, broke down on the highway. Because Bartolata had made alterations to the vehicle, the warranty was void and the dealership wanted $10,000 to replace the engine. Without his car, Bartolata could not commute to work. When he began to miss shifts, he could no longer afford car payments. The dealership repossessed the vehicle and Bartolata's credit rating was ruined.
After losing his car, Bartolata spent the next two years semi-homeless and in search of employment, sometimes staying with family members and other times on the street.
Bartolata kept his homelessness hidden, ashamed of his situation and practically hopeless for his future. A close cousin of his let him sleep at his house during the day, so Bartolata would spend the night on the streets of San Francisco. He walked around the downtown area, appearing to have a destination. But in reality he was just pretending to have somewhere to go, disguising the fact that he was homeless while killing time.
When his cousin's house was not an option, Bartolata spent time sleeping in Crocker-Amazon park in South San Francisco. "I was sleeping in the park for three to four months. I'd wear a sweatshirt, a jacket and two pairs of pants to stay warm. The sprinklers would come on at two in the morning.... I had to keep moving because if the cops saw me, they'd harass the hell out of me."
Sometimes he would ride the bus around town along with other homeless people. "The same driver drove the same late-night bus every night and it had the same passengers in wheelchairs. They'd be seat-belted in. It was the same people every night. They'd sleep in the bus because it was too cold outside. It was like 'Holy shit. I am one of these guys ... sort of.'"
Downtrodden, Bartolata sometimes contemplated committing suicide. "Many days and nights I thought about ending my own life, but could never get myself to do it. I lost my father to diabetes and I could not let him down by doing something like that."
Support from one man who served with him helped to keep him going. Paul Daniel Rodriguez, a fellow Navy corpsman from his unit, spoke with him and offered him an outlet. Rodriguez even offered to have Bartolata come to Houston to stay with him. Bartolata declined because he had no way to get there.
n the face of a bleak future, a part of Bartolata remained determined to lift himself out of this dark place. One night, he looked around at the homeless men on the bus and thought to himself, "What makes me different from these guys? I don't have a disability, I'm pretty smart. What do I need to do to make things happen?"
While using his cousin's computer to browse the internet in search of a job, a classified ad posted on Craigslist.org caught Bartolata's attention. The Veterans Administration (VA) was seeking veterans with PTSD for a research experiment. Bartolata had been participating in medical trials to earn money for sometime. He was qualified for the study, and began what would turn out to be a life-changing enterprise.
During the study, doctors at the Fort Miley VA Medical Center in San Francisco would give the test subjects a common antibiotic used to fight tuberculosis called D-Cycloserine. Then the subjects would participate in counseling sessions and discuss their traumatic experiences. The experiment was intended to measure the effect the antibiotic would have on veterans who suffer from PTSD. In other experiments, the drug helped patients talk about their fears more openly and helped them to process and come to terms with the psychological damage they had endured.
The sixteen-week sessions, combined with the support of VA staff members, helped to get Bartolata back on track. The VA put him in touch with a veterans assistance organization called Swords to Plowshares, a leading provider of emergency housing, job training, legal assistance and case management for veterans.
Swords to Plowshares got him off the street for one month by housing him in a residence hotel. Bartolata jumped at the opportunity and set out to find a job. He got a haircut, put on slacks, a tie and his Navy pea coat, and started lining up interviews.
Despite his medical training, Bartolata did not receive any official certification through the Navy. However, his skills were an asset and he was able, after three interviews, to find a job as a medical technician.
For the past six months, Bartolata has been off the street, working full time and beginning to heal his invisible wounds.
"Now that I have the basics: food, shelter, clothing, transportation, to live and sustain myself, I've been looking to dig up all that old stuff. I've been on a journey to try to find out what is hidden in my past, in the memories that I have of Iraq."
One of the most important aspects of his healing has been talking face to face with other veterans. A organization called Vets 4 Vets has been working to bring young veterans together to share their stories and to support each other.
According to Bartolata, the group setting helps combat the vicious loneliness veterans returning from war often feel. "When you get released into the civilian world, it is a different world, different rules, different everything. You get out here and you find that you don't have a purpose anymore. My purpose was to save lives. Now my purpose is undefined. Not being with military people was the hardest thing."
This Truthout interview was the first time Kevin Bartolata had shared the story of his life since leaving the Navy.
"It bothered me to talk about it initially, but having more people understand, knowing that people are being informed about what happens to veterans when they get out, I think that helps me out more in the long run," Bartolata said, adding, "at this point I don't think there is anything that I wouldn't talk about."

Where's The Outrage 71 - Suicide Increases & More PTSD in Returning Soldiers

This article, by William Weitz, was originally published in the South Florida Sun Sentinel, February 22, 2008

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Recent readings of a Department of the Army news release and an editorial in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported significant increases in the suicide rate of active duty Army soldiers. The numbers showed a 20 percent increase over the prior year, despite efforts to include "more training and education programs, the hiring of more mental health professionals, and the addition of screening programs."
While acknowledging the impact of combat stress and the multiple tours of duty faced by these soldiers, there was also a shift to focusing on other issues such as financial stressors, family discord, and employment concerns as contributing to the suicide rate for these troops.
How little we have learned!
Having worked for 30 years as a military psychologist and a VA Vet Center Team Leader, it is critical not to separate environmental stressors from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. War veterans in intense combat environments develop PTSD at exceeding high rates. In Vietnam, the estimate was generally in the 30 to 40 percent range for developing combat stress and for Iraq, given the multiple tours, the rates should be much higher.
For those with PTSD, the symptoms of sleep disturbance, hyper-alertness, depression, irritability and rage reactions, difficulty in interpersonal relationships, and problems with authority are basic to the trauma experience. Returning soldiers will tend to experience these reactions from weeks to months after exit from the combat zone. Yet, because of concerns as to security clearances, worries as to how such symptoms would impact on job applications, and basic denial as to their own personal fallibility, they do not admit to problems and they purposely evade screening measures that might indicate mental health problems.
Despite more education and training and an increase in professional staff, these troops will have the range of symptoms resulting from their combat exposure. Given the nature of these symptoms, it is logically consistent that problems would ensure in their marital relationships, in work environments, and in simply returning to a mundane pre-war lifestyles.
These troops will have major difficulties with their spouses and children, they will gain and lose jobs, financial problems will occur, and they will tend to isolate and/or experience aggressive reactions. The data is present and clear. Yes, war does change people, and it is the direct affects of combat trauma that create the increased suicide rates.
While honest attempts to assist these vets have come from VA health care facilities, Vet Centers, non-profit veterans organizations, and outreach programs, the impact of the Iraq war has yet to be experienced. It is time to recognize that one-to-one health care approaches are not sufficient. Just as we train civilians to become soldiers in an 8-week basic training program, it is time to recognize the need for a transitional program for all returning vets following combat tours. Our warriors need a process to re-enter their communities. Only this must be done with intact units under the guidance of skilled and knowledgeable health care folks who are trauma specialists, with a sense of combat.
The troops need time and a transition to our world, for the world of combat requires far different skills and behaviors. Simply tossing money at the problem or praising ourselves for the increased effort to assist is not enough!
Our country owes it to its returning combat veterans to do all we know to help them move into an effective survivor mode. Failure to do so will be predictable! Headlines of homeless problems, domestic assaults, alcohol/drug epidemics, and legal problems for combat vets will again catch the nation's attention. Vietnam anyone?

Shutting Down the Machine - An Iraq Veteran Speaks out

This video, produced by John Bruhus and John Grant was originally posted to the Brave New Films and US Labor Against the War websites.

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An Iraq combat veteran speaks out about opposing the war while in Iraq and after his discharge and what it's like being called a "coward" and a "traitor" by war supporters.
I felt compelled to do this video after so many attacks on my character, military service, and patriotism by people who never wore the uniform, and have never been to Iraq. This pro-war element in America refuses to recognize that there are in fact alternative ways to support our troops -- such as shorter deployments, and just finally getting them out of Iraq. The people who have been attacking me along with many others in the anti-war movement, in my opinion, believe the only way to support our troops is to continue to keep sending them back to Iraq, while they just stay home and sacrifice nothing. I believe everyone has a right to an opinion -- and I respect that. However, don't ask people to do something you would never have the courage to do yourself. Furthermore, they have no right to call members of the anti-war movement unpatriotic -- a lot of us are vets, who had the courage to fight for what they believe is a war of necessity.
- John Bruhns
PS. It's not a war of necessity, it is an occupation of choice.

Where's The Outrage 67 - Collateral Damage: Stress Disorder Adds to Human Toll of War

This article, by Julie Jarema, was originally published in the Columbia Free Times, February 13, 2008

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Serving in Iraq for a brief time at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, Bill Orr knows firsthand the stresses of combat.
“Our first night there, we got mortared,” says Orr, an active-duty member of the Army National Guard. “We were bombed. We were staying in the prison itself for protection, because it’s concrete with steel reinforcement. I can’t actually say who it was, but it was people that did not want us there. It may have been terrorists from another country, it may have been the Sunnis who did not want the government to come up because it kicked them, but I can tell you they did not want us there.”
As stressful as any combat situation is, when you don’t know who the enemy is — or where they might show up — the anxiety is magnified.
“Even the Iraqis that were working with may turn on you,” Orr says. “We had Iraqi police inside the prison that we were training. One brought in a pistol and gave it to one of the prisoners because it was his brother-in-law, and he wound up shooting an MP right there.”
There are 26.5 million veterans in the United States, according to the most recent Census. In South Carolina alone, there are 420,971 veterans — almost 10 percent of the state’s population. Among that group are thousands who have experienced trauma that most civilians will never see. Dealing with that trauma is something that both veterans and civilians will be grappling with for decades.
“I’m able to cope better than ever,” Orr says of his battle with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). “I haven’t had a drink in three-and-a-half years. I’ve gotten closer with my two children. I’ve learned to do things I used to like doing. Counseling has helped, a 12-step program, and finding a God that allows me to find peace in myself. [But] every once in a while, I still have the nightmares.”
As of Feb. 6, the death toll among American forces in Iraq was 3,949, according to The Associated Press. Many of the soldiers who are lucky enough to get home suffer tremendously with severe depression and PTSD more so than any other war, including Vietnam. The collateral damage of the war in Iraq isn’t just the number of civilians killed in Iraq, but also the quality of life American soldiers and their families have as civilians once they return from the war.
Orr, along with many soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, suffers from mental distress, mostly PTSD. Estimates vary as to how many soldiers have PTSD, but several studies put the figure between 17 and 25 percent.
“Real heroes don’t talk about it,” says Vietnam veteran Walt Musan about PTSD at a Jan. 29 meeting of the South Carolina Disabled Combat Veterans Group. He has PTSD, too. “If you are a career soldier, that is the end of your career if you let someone know that you have PTSD. So most people keep it secret.”
PTSD wasn’t even diagnosed as a psychiatric illness until 1980, at the urging of Vietnam vets. Known by many names — such as “shell shock” during World War II and “combat fatigue” in Vietnam — PTSD is a relatively new name for an old condition among soldiers.
Rachel Rossman, director of mental health at the Dorn VA Hospital in Columbia, says causes of PTSD include being in life-threatening situations or having a brush with death. Symptoms include hyper-arousal or being not able to relax; sweating, shaking and not being able to concentrate; re-experiencing situations in a flashback or hallucination; sleep disturbance; and avoidance symptoms such as staying away from people or feeling numb.
“PTSD is just freezing yourself in a moment,” Orr says. “You have one moment that stays and you keep reliving up to that moment. The biggest thing to get over PTSD or get help with that is to realize the moment is gone. You’ve lived through it.”
With this war — much of which is being fought in highly stressful urban environments — the military and VA hospital system are learning more and more about how to diagnose and treat PTSD. They’re also learning how expensive PTSD is to treat long-term — and some veterans say that has led to dangerous shortcuts.
Every war has its traumas and its casualties — not just the dead, but also among the living. South Carolina alone had 1,581 casualties, including dead and wounded soldiers, in World War II. Nationally, 58,193 soldiers were killed in Vietnam.
The Iraq war is different: There have been fewer deaths than in World War II and Vietnam, but higher rates of trauma and suicide among soldiers, according to the Washington Post. As many as 121 Army soldiers committed suicide in 2007, a jump of 20 percent from the year before, the Associated Press reported Feb. 1. In addition, The New York Times has reported on an increase in crimes being committed by soldiers with PTSD.
Veterans say the problems stem from the trauma they experience in combat, especially going door-to-door in urban warfare like in Iraq, and the great shame of being considered too weak or lazy to fight if they admit they have problems.
Walt Musan, a Vietnam veteran in the South Carolina Disabled Combat Veterans group that meets once a week for breakfast, says the violence of any war is tough on soldiers. “We’ve seen friends of ours get blown up in front of our faces,” Musan says.
Veterans returning from Iraq have had to face not only the after-effects of battlefield and urban warfare trauma, but also a Veterans’ Administration system poorly funded and poorly equipped to deal with it. While the VA says care is improving, others say the military is still doing less than it should for soldiers. And in spite of what level of care is available, it isn’t always taken advantage of.
“I believe it is the whole experience [that causes PTSD],” says Lester Phillips, an Army veteran from World War II, Korea and Vietnam. “Many things that happened during that time that triggered it, but it was there after World War II. Maybe I was hiding it. Mainly because people with PTSD were considered nuts.” Phillips did not get diagnosed with PTSD until after Vietnam. “In Vietnam, birds were eating out of the heads [that were blown apart], picking at the bodies. It’s very stressful when you think about it later.”
However, although there are traumatic experiences of war for any soldier, they differ from one war to another in terms of political support at home and combat conditions. In World War II, American soldiers were considered liberators of Hitler’s dictatorship and hailed as heroes when they returned. Not the same story in Vietnam, a war much of the American public was against. And although many Americans support the troops today, many Americans feel the Iraq war was started under false pretenses. And with a high level of urban warfare, where there is no frontline or safe base, combat conditions are taking a high toll.
“We’re not fighting a country,” Orr says. “There is no safe place.”
Lanette Atkins, a psychiatrist at Columbia Area Mental Health who does contract work for the VA doing disability evaluations, agrees. “The rate of PTSD is higher with this war because they go back and have repeated tours of duty. There’s no real safe area in Iraq, unlike other wars where there were base camps or frontlines. In Iraq, you’re never safe from roadside bombs, suicide bombs, incoming mortars. They don’t get rest and relaxation like they did in Vietnam. There’s no place that’s safe in the country. Terrorists don’t recognize the army. There’s not a group of people you’re fighting against; it’s not the same as in Vietnam. Kids with bombs were relatively uncommon.”
Wade Fulmer, an Army Vietnam vet who serves on the veterans’ care committee for Military Families Speak Out, says returning soldiers are in dire need of follow-up aftercare. “The VA is short of people. Because of multiple deployments within a five-year period, there is no time to readjust. By the time a family understands what is going on, it’s time to go back. The spouses and the children suffer anxiety and depression with the stresses they’re under because their loved one is in a war. They have to wonder, ‘What’s he going to be like when he gets back? What can we do to get help?’”
Fulmer says percentage-wise and numbers-wise, there are more cases of PTSD in the Iraq war than any other war in the country’s history. He is also quick to charge that with the high rates of PTSD has come an effort on the part of the government to treat PTSD on the cheap. Fulmer says the government has been diagnosing some soldiers with personality disorders instead of PTSD so it can dishonorably discharge them and avoid responsibility for their disability insurance. He also says soldiers not getting the prompt follow-up care they need are contributing to the high rate of suicides.
In an April 2007 article in The Nation, Joshua Kors looked into claims similar to Fulmer’s regarding the diagnosis of personality disorder: “A six-month investigation has uncovered multiple cases in which soldiers wounded in Iraq are suspiciously diagnosed as having a personality disorder, then prevented from collecting benefits,” Kors wrote.
According to ABC News, the Defense Department discharged more than 22,000 soldiers under a personality disorder diagnosis between 2001 and 2007.
The military maintains the discharges are warranted and necessary.
“Personality disorders that interfere with military service and are incompatible with the soldier staying in the unit, it is usually best for both the soldier and the unit for that soldier to be discharged,” Col. Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, a psychiatry consultant to the U.S. Army surgeon general, told ABC.
As opposed to PTSD, Dorn VA Director of Mental Health Rossman says, “Personality disorder is lifelong — there’s no medication. The symptoms are so disruptive that they interfere with social functioning, inability to get along on the job, self-care. Their baseline function is very poor long before they get into the military. Borderline personality disorder — they cut themselves, drive recklessly, threaten to kill themselves on a regular basis. They are people who have been in an alternative academy, Department of Juvenile Justice, never been able to adapt.”
Many veterans disagree. “I think that’s a cop-out on the part of the military because they don’t want to acknowledge PTSD and have to pay benefits for the rest of their lives,” Musan says. “Rather than acknowledging this guy’s had three tours of combat.”
“They’re misdiagnosing them,” says Raymond Ortiz, a Marine veteran from Vietnam. “Personality disorder is just describing PTSD — it’s like saying ‘I’m a garbage man’ versus saying ‘I’m a sanitary engineer.’”
Atkins has a different story to tell. “There’s definitely not enough resources,” she says. “It’s gotten where everything is based on numbers. It’s more of a numbers game than the quality of evaluations and care. I’ve gotten a $25 pay raise since 1999 and there are no other MDs doing psychiatric evaluations at the Dorn VA. They’re replaced by psychologists. The [disability] pay for evaluations is based on numbers. I might do an eight- to ten-page evaluation where they might do two pages. Then they [the veterans with PTSD] don’t get their disability or a very minimal amount.”
Atkins also criticizes the VA’s medication recommendations. “They always use the cheapest meds. Trazadone is a commonly prescribed sleep med — it’s not a good sleep med, but it’s cheap. It’s other medications, too; they’re going to use whatever is cheap.”
However, Rossman says conditions are getting better.
“The funding for VA and mental health has drastically improved,” Rossman says. “It’s a matter of trying to hire enough people like psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers.”
Rossman also says it’s not the VA’s fault when soldiers don’t get treatment: It is their own pride and fear of a mental illness stigma that keeps them from seeking help. “People think they’ll be seen as weak,” she says. “They think, ‘If I just ignore it, it’ll get better with time.’”
Orr admits it wasn’t of his own free will that he got help with PTSD.
“I got injured over there [in Iraq],” Orr says. “A couple of incidents that came up, I got injured. So they had me on a med hold out at Fort Jackson and they were helping me through therapy for my physical ailments and everything like that. As a matter of fact, when they gave us the briefing on PTSD, I went off on the psychiatrist because he was holding me up from seeing my family.”
Orr says he was irritable, angry, depressed, having excessive mood swings and drinking “like a fish.”
“I was either angry or withdrawn,” Orr says. “There was no in between. The only time it even seemed that I would let anything off was when I was at a bar drinking because there was a couple of people who were on med hold with me that knew where I was at. Nobody else knew.”
Orr says that only through the urging of an ex-girlfriend did he go into therapy. “I could be mentally abusive. My commander got me into counseling at the fort. That’s where I got diagnosed with PTSD. I saw a psychiatrist and a psychologist. I got diagnosed with PTSD in June of ’04, two months after I got back.”
Willie Fuller, a Marine veteran who served in Vietnam, says he got help only after he almost got arrested at his civilian job for assaulting a co-worker. “I was at the copy machine and the guy walked up behind me and grabbed me, playing. But, I didn’t realize he was playing and I beat him up pretty badly. They should have put me in jail, but they didn’t. I knew I needed to get some help.”
Musan says a lot of people returning from Vietnam had no idea what PTSD was. “But they began to have problems with flashbacks and other indications of the illness such as nightmares,” he says.
Larry Smalls, an Army veteran of Vietnam, says the collateral damage of combat is hard to forget.
“It’s like someone putting a gun to your head and threatening your life 365 days a year,” Smalls says.
Rossman says war experiences are very difficult to process for soldiers returning to civilian life. “In order to be safe and not get killed, you have to suspend any feelings. You have to be so focused and get rid of any kind of feelings. They have been doing that for months and months as part of the job. You’re asking people to be tough enough to go into Fallujah and kill people — the mental mindset is totally different from sharing feelings. Nobody has a clue what they went through.”
“Everybody needs to be in a support group and learn what PTSD is so they can understand it’s treatable,” she says. “A lot of people think they’re the only one and that they’re going crazy. They have to understand that they can get help.”
Orr says it was the constant fear for his life in Iraq and not being able to trust people, especially the Iraqis — as well as some specific incidents such as a violent riot — that triggered his PTSD.
“When you have 26 mortars hit your area in one night, they don’t want you there,” Orr explains of his time at Abu Ghraib. “When it gets to the point when you’re laying in your cot and you can tell how big that mortar is that’s hitting your roof and making bets whether it’s going to come through or not and kill you, you don’t care who’s doing it. When you’re walking through an open area inside of a prison with walls on it and somewhere in an apartment complex that is taller than you, they start sniping at you. You’re walking along all of the sudden the sand starts kicking up and you hear zings, you don’t care who’s doing it.”
Orr says PTSD affected him in Iraq, but he just lived with it and turned it into a joke. “It gets so bad that it doesn’t bother you anymore, you get numb,” he says. “I would lay in my bunk when mortars started coming in wondering if one was going to come through and blow me apart and I wasn’t afraid … actually, over there, it was a joke between me and my roommate because I’d woke up in the middle of the night one night screaming they’re coming down the hall and he jumped up, grabbed his M-16 and opened the door and there was nothing there. He saw me sitting up, screaming. He said, ‘You son of a bitch!’ People think it’s a weakness or you’re trying to get out of something.”
Orr and the other veterans interviewed for this article have all gotten help for PTSD, and they know well that the symptoms and nightmares are no laughing matter. But as the war in Iraq drags on to the five-year mark in March, there will be no shortage of soldiers returning with similar problems. Add in an economic downturn that will only put a tighter squeeze on employment opportunities for returning veterans and the need for treatment only increases. But because some symptoms of PTSD don’t manifest themselves until months after soldiers return from abroad — and many soldiers don’t seek help despite an initial briefing they get on PTSD when they return — it’s clear that many cases will go untreated, perhaps until a crisis brings attention to a soldier’s condition, which will sometimes be too late.
The Army has found that failed relationships, legal and financial problems and job stress are the main factors in soldiers’ suicides — and that stress increases with time served in Iraq in Afghanistan, according to the AP. Some of the veterans interviewed for this article know other soldiers who have taken their own lives or been put in jail because of not getting the right treatment, care and insurance for PTSD. And for those soldiers who have survived both combat and PTSD — they don’t deserve to be called crazy, they deserve a medal of honor because they are, indeed, real heroes.

Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan - Fundraisers and Houseparties (V)

• Sunday March 2, 3 PM: First Universalist Church, 57 Main St., Essex, MA

A fundraiser for Iraq Veterans Against the War will be held on Sunday, March 2 at 3 p.m. at the First Universalist Church, 57 Main St. in Essex.
Keynote speaker will be Andrew Bacevich, Boston University professor of History and International Studies. The featured speaker will be Iraq veteran Liam Madden.
Music will be by Pat Scanlon. A short DVD by IVAW will be shown. Light refreshments will be served.
Proceeds will support the upcoming Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan, to be held March 13-16 in Washington, DC. Recent U.S. combat veterans will testify on what is really happening in these areas.
The event is sponsored by Samantha Smith Chapter of Veterans for Peace, and the North Shore Coalition for Peace and Justice. For more information, contact: Paul Brailsford at 978-356-7671.
For information about the Winter Soldier event, visit ivaw.org/wintersoldier.

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• Saturday March 1, 12:30 PM: Black Dog Cafe and Wine Bar, 308 Prince St., Lowertown, Saint Paul

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• Thursday February 28, 6:30 - 8:30 PM: Veterans Hall, 846 Front St, Santa Cruz

A Call to Winter Soldiers with Adam Kokesh of Iraq Veterans Against the War and local artists Sandino Gomez, Joe Williams and Cordelia Clancy, and MC'd by Chris Matthews. Adam Kokesh will speak about his combat tours of Iraq while in the Marines and will present a short documentary with three veterans who will testify at the Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan hearings in Maryland this March. The hearings are based on the Winter Soldier hearings held by Viet Nam veterans in 1971 and will describe what is being done daily by the occupying forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. This event is sponsored by Veterans For Peace Corrie-Mizo Chapter 11 to raise funds for, and awareness of the 2008 Winter Soldier hearings. For more information call 831-425-5377.
Cost: $5 - $15 sliding scale

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• Thursday February 28, 6:30 - 8:30 PM: Joliet Public Library, Black Road Branch, 3395 Black Road, Joliet, IL 60431

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• Wednesday February 27, 7 - 10 PM: Cinema Theater, 957 S. Clinton Ave, Rochester, NY

A film showing and panel discussion with local Vietnam and Iraq War Veterans
"These are times that try men’s souls", wrote Thomas Paine, who turned not to sunshine patriots, but rather to winter soldiers who would stand up, even in its darkest hours, for the soul of their country.
In this spirit, hundreds of Vietnam War veterans stood up, risking everything at a 1971 Winter Soldier Investigation. This film documents personal, candid testimony of countless, amoral acts observed and committed by our soldiers, which we learn are the inexorable result of national policy.
Once again March 13-16 in Washington DC, the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) will be holding their own Winter Soldier Event.
Join us in deepening our understanding of these momentous events with a panel discussion and film showing. Suggested Donation $5-$10 This is a Fundraiser for Iraq Veterans Against the War & Rochester Against War
Sponsored by Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), Military Families Speak Out (MFSO), Rochester Against War (RAW), and Peace Action and Education Task Force of Metro Justice (PA&E)
For more information contact: [email protected]br /> -- Doug Noble, PA&E and RAW, at 585-442-3393br /> -- Mike Totten, IVAW, at 585-520-2851

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• Wednesday February 27, 7 - 11:59 PM: Knight Auditorium of the high school, 744 West Main St., Hyannis. For more information, contact CCPJ at 508-432-1718

Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter (in photo) will speak at Barnstable High School on Wednesday Feb. 27 at 7 p.m., along with comedian Jimmy Tingle, as part of a fundraiser for the Winter Soldier campaign of Iraq Veterans Against the War.
Ritter and Tingle will discuss "the corporate media's coverage of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the Bush administration's plans for the 'War on Terror,' and the need for diplomacy," according to the website of Cape Codders for Peace and Justice, the sponsoring organization.
The evening will begin with a monologue by Tingle, a presentation by Ritter, an interview of Ritter by Tingle, questions from the audience and a book signing, according to the CCPJ website. Suggested donation at the door, $10.
The event will be held in Knight Auditorium of the high school, 744 West Main St., Hyannis. For more information, contact CCPJ at 508-432-1718 or [email protected].

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• Saturday February 23, 3 - 7 PM: Dan Electro's Guitar Bar, 1031 E. 24th St. Houston, TX

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• Saturday February 23, 7 - 11:59 PM: Bucketworks, 1340 N. 6th St, Milwaukee, WI

IVAW hosts a Winter Soldier Fundraiser. Good Music, Cold Beer, Raffles and other ways to dip into your wallet.
Help America's veterans stop Bush's war.
Featured musicians: Tacia Northey, Barry Weber, Carol Williams
Sponosred by VVAW

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• Friday February 22, 8:30 PM: IVAW - Fort Hood Housewarming, 4107 Wildwood Road, Austin, TX 78722

Featuring Fort Hood veterans and family members with an appearance by Scott Ritter.
$10 suggested donation includes food and soft drinks (please bring other beverages).
Music by Bill Passalacqua.

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• Friday February 22, 7 - 2 PM: Yoga Now, 742 N. Lasalle, Chicago, IL

7:00 - Doors + Pot Luck
8:00 - Screening of “The Ground Truth
9:30 - Address and Q & A by Tyler and other IVAW members.
11 – 2 dance our collective asses off, get lifted
Contact: Chicago- IVAW
Phone: (773) 489-9580
Contact e-mail: [email protected]
Website: http://www.ivaw.org

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• Friday February 22, 6 - 9 PM: Addams-Melman House, 212 Centre Street, Bath, Maine

Maine Veterans For Peace (VFP Chapter 001) invites you to a fundraising party to benefit Winter Soldier, the public war crimes investigation being organized by Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) in Washington, D.C. from March 13-16, 2008.
At Winter Soldier U.S. veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan will give eyewitness testimony about the war crimes committed by their units at places like Haditha, Fallujah and Abu Ghraib, atrocities which are endemic to wars of occupation directed essentially against civilian populations. "Once again, " IVAW has noted, "politicians and generals are blaming 'a few bad apples' instead of examining the U.S. military policies that have destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan." Iraqi and Afghan survivors will also testify.
In order to ensure the success of Winter Soldier, IVAW must raise thousands of dollars for travel and hospitality of witnesses, and for the necessary technical support that will allow the event to be simulcast throughout the country. Maine VFP is asking you to join us to help support this historical initiative that we expect will have considerable impact in readdressing public attention to why these wars must be ended and all our troops brought home now.
Special Guest: Liam Madden will be joining us. Liam served as a Communications Electronics Specialist in the Marine Corps from January 2003 to January 2007. While enlisted he was deployed to Iraq, Kuwait, Thailand, Okinawa, Japan, and Korea. During his last year in the Marines, Sergeant Madden co-founded the Appeal for Redress, a campaign of service members demanding that congress halt the war in Iraq. Liam is currently the president of the Boston chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War, and is a student at Northeastern University.
Please join us. Mid-winter fellowship and dancing will be encouraged. There will also be a brief reading by Michael Uhl from Vietnam Awaking, a memoir which provides an account of how Vietnam veterans were organized around the issue of American war crimes in Indochina, which led to the original Winter Soldier in 1971.
Please bring a dish to share. VFP will provide non-alcoholic beverages.
Contact/RSVP: Michael Uhl - 677-6018 or Bruce Gagnon - 443-9502

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• Thursday February 21, 7 PM: NY Society for Ethical Culture 2 W 64th St New York NY

The evening will begin with a special taped greeting to the young vets from Pete Seeger followed by a panel of VVAW discussing the first Winter Soldier (1971). The 2nd Winter Soldier will be in D.C. next month. We will next have panels of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans (live) and young veterans (live feed or dvd) that have chosen to go to Canada (tape or 'live feed'). Music provided by Meetliah.

Prices:
Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans - Free
Students - $5
Adults (Members Of Peace Groups) - $20

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• Thursday February 21, 6 - 8 PM: Capen Auditorium in Edwards Hall at Illinois State University, 100 N. University St., Normal, IL 61761

The Central Illinois Chapter of IVAW is presenting the Winter Soldier Documentary to raise awareness of Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan and to recruit more members for the chapter. This event is being co-sponsored by Student Peace Action Network, Bloomington Normal Citizens for Peace and Justice, The Indy, ISU Political Science Club, and more.
Contact e-mail: [email protected]

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• Thursday February 21, 7 - 11 pm: Soldier You Are Not Alone, Benefit Concert @ Hells Kitchen, 3829 6th Ave., Tacoma, WA

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IVAW News - Indiana veterans opposed to war in Iraq hold rally

This article, by Amy Lavalley, was originally published in the Post-Tribune, February 16, 2008

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VALPARAISO -- The newly formed Indiana Iraq Vets Against the War would like to introduce themselves.
Toward that end, they will participate in a rally in downtown Valparaiso today before holding a forum on their organization and its goals at Valparaiso University.
The chapter is one of 36 across the country and has 15 members from throughout the state so far, said chapter president Vincent Emanuele.
Emanuele, 23, of Burns Harbor, served in the Marine Corps in Iraq in the spring of 2003, and again in the fall and winter of 2004-2005.
Between his times in Iraq, he began reading up on opposition to the war.
"I started to wonder why this was becoming a national topic, being opposed to the war," the Chesterton High School graduate said.
He went back to Iraq and what he saw, including the poor condition of the military equipment used by American soldiers, reaffirmed his position.
"By the time I left, it was solidified in my mind that we needed to get out of there, and I was going to protest the war," he said.
After attending IVAW events in Chicago, he decided to start one in Indiana.
The program at VU will provide the history of IVAW, discuss why the U.S. should end its occupation of Iraq, give information on a March forum in Washington, sponsored by IVAW, and offer news of upcoming events in the region.
If you go
An assortment of peace organizations from the region will hold a rally from noon to 1 p.m. today on the courthouse square in Valparaiso. At 2:30 p.m., in room 140 of Mueller Hall on the Valparaiso University campus, members of the newly formed Indiana Iraq Vets Against the War will introduce themselves and their plans for the coming months. For more on IVAW, check out www.ivaw.org.