Opinion
Let's
really support our soldiers
by
Clare Hanrahan
"The
time for dissent is passed once the war is declared," one Asheville,
NC resident wrote in a recent letter to the editor of a local
publication, echoing the sentiments of many who fear for the lives
of their loved ones in this coming war.
"Don't
undermine the morale of our troops now that they're deployed,"
is another caution, skillfully manipulated by a government determined
to go to war despite calls by millions of mainstream people worldwide
for restraint, diplomacy and genuine efforts to avoid another
barbaric assault on the people of Iraq.
This
war is wrong. It is an immoral and illegal act of terror. It will
continue to be wrong throughout its bloody course. The men and
women in the US military – armed with the most terrible weapons
ever devised, and deployed to toxic battlefields – are now awaiting
orders to unleash hellfire on a country and a people already devastated
and starved. Throughout Western North Carolina, this military
call-up has torn asunder family after family. Already the human
collateral damage of past wars and of the ongoing domestic war
on the poor fills our streets, while funds for health care, housing,
education and transportation are cut to the bone.
If
this war continues, many of our sons and daughters, husbands and
fathers in the military will be returned to us only as ashes (a
measure proposed by Pentagon war planners to limit contamination
from soldiers exposed to anthrax, smallpox or other toxins), and
we may never even hear about the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi
people – most of them noncombatants – who will also die.
Those
who have called a "Support Our Soldiers" rally in Asheville attempt
to equate dissent with disrespect for the men and women who have
chosen the military path. This is deceitful, divisive and dangerous.
Many among the nearly 2,000 people who gathered in Asheville on
Feb. 15 to say no to this war are veterans; others have lost loved
ones in previous conflicts and would not wish this grief on any
other family. We oppose this war because it is wrong and unnecessary.
We oppose this war because it violates the very Constitution our
soldiers have sworn to uphold. We oppose this war because we fear
our government's unchecked power far more than we fear the dangerous
dictator in Iraq. We oppose this war because we believe that the
best way to support our soldiers is to refuse to consent to the
wanton exploitation of their noble impulse, and the reckless abuse
of their precious lives.
When
I was a teenager in Memphis, "Back our Boys in Vietnam" was the
only bumper sticker my parents ever allowed on our family car.
This was after my older brother, Tommy, joined the Marines just
out of high school. In solidarity, my sister Eileen and I joined
the USO. We wanted to show our support and express our patriotic
sentiments. We wanted to do what was right in a time of war, as
we believed our brave brother had done when called on by his country.
I was naive, blindly patriotic, and deeply concerned for my family
and friends in the military. I would have waved the flag in any
"Support our Soldiers" rally.
As
a USO volunteer, I met hundreds of young men in transit to Vietnam.
Most were too young to vote; too young to drink in the nightclubs;
too young, really, to even know why they were drafted to fight,
kill and die in Vietnam. Some of them were African-American soldiers,
many from Northern cities; even on their way to war, they still
had to contend with the ugly racism rampant in Memphis, my hometown.
Brother
Tommy made it home a few days before Christmas, 1967. He was wounded
and broken in ways only the years would fully reveal. At the VA
hospital, I visited with other casualties of that war. Many of
these men had no family nearby, so they came to our home on weekends
– some on crutches, some missing limbs or with wounds still bandaged.
Some just sat on the porch and stared out into space.
It
wasn't long before Tommy's twin, Danny, stepped forward. He was
in the recruiters' bag before my parents could intervene. "There
was nothing I could do to stop him," my mother lamented. I stood
with her the day he left, and I joined her at a local Marine Corps
Mothers' Club gathering where women offered one another support
as their not-quite-grown sons fought and died in Southeast Asia.
One after another, my fine young brothers – bright, handsome and
brave – went off to war. One after another, they returned – wounded,
poisoned and broken. And one after another, they died – carrying
to their early graves the memories of that war and the Agent Orange
toxins that coursed through their systems. Their names were never
etched on that Wailing Wall in Washington, DC Nor were the names
of their brothers in arms whose suicides exceed the number of
combat deaths, or the names of the many others who still suffer
from the delayed stress of that criminal war.
These
veterans, forgotten by their country, are joined now by the many
spent-and-discarded soldiers from the first Bush's Gulf War –
soldiers still seeking the acknowledgment and treatment of their
war-induced illnesses while the son of a Bush who called them
to war cuts funding for the veterans' hospitals. Is this what
we mean by "Support our Troops"? I will not stand by and wave
a flag as this next generation marches off to war.
I will
not repeat trite platitudes as these men and women are used up
and then abandoned by a US government that has broken faith with
its noble principles, that fails to protect its citizens – a US
regime that threatens the world with the use of first-strike nuclear
weapons.
This
President who calls for endless war never stood in battle, never
struggled for a livelihood, never learned the lessons of the Christianity
he claims – nor of the God he invokes in his power-hungry quest
for domination and control. It is he – and the other politicians,
generals and armchair warriors – who truly undermine the safety
and security of our men and women in the military and who constitute
the biggest threat to peace in this world.
Last
month, I shared a Greyhound journey with some young marines who
boarded the bus in Knoxville. They were on their way to Camp Lejeune,
and as the night deepened and the bus rolled on through the mountains,
I listened to their conversations. They talked about the families
they'd left behind, about the pay packet that didn't quite cover
their expenses, about their girlfriends and the buddies they'd
made in boot camp. One wore a new jacket boldly embroidered with
the slogan, "Trained to fight, learned to kill, ready to die,
but never will." They were not sophisticated men, just country
boys setting off on heroes' journeys – cocky and sure of themselves,
and full of the rhetoric instilled by their military indoctrination.
Listening to them, I understood my mother's lament: There was
nothing I could do to stop them. They could have been the two
brothers whose loss I still grieve.
I will
continue to voice my opposition to this war – it is my moral and
civic duty. And I will continue to support our soldiers with my
ongoing, outspoken, risk-taking refusal to cooperate with this
government in yet another criminal war.
Clare
Hanrahan lives in Asheville, North Carolina. A conscientious objector
to war and to paying for war, she is the author of Jailed For
Justice: A Woman's Guide to Federal Prison Camp.
This piece first appeared in the Feb 26, 2003 issue of the Mountain
Xpress, Asheville, NC
Clare's newest book is Conscience & Consequence: A Prison Memoir, a highly personal account of her six-month incarceration inside Alderson prison, the oldest and largest US Federal prison for women. The book exposes some of the devastating abuses of the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Clare can be reached at: www.celticwordcraft.com
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