I am a nurse in the military and I recently went on an Aerovac from Germany to the states that had
60-plus wounded soldiers on it -- many of them critically injured.
I used to be a frequent contributor to my home paper, which happens to be the Vacaville Reporter, where
Cindy Sheehan is from. I wrote a letter about the soldiers and ended it with how the wounded are putting a human face to the
war and this is the reason that people are protesting: to end the suffering, not because they hate America or are unpatriotic.
The editor from the paper knows me and put my rank and military affiliation on the letter. I was immediately called in to
see the Commander. They sent my letter to numerous lawyers to see if they could punish me, but in the end I did nothing wrong.
I just did not say what the military wants us to say. WE are not at liberty to speak out against the war -- we can be punished
severely. We took an oath to support the orders of the Commander in Chief and we have to do our duty.
I do not regret my letter or what I said. Those in the military can not speak for themselves, we depend
on the American people and the government to do the right thing. I respect those that are brave enough to stand up for what
they believe and are willing to sit in front of a ranch in Texas or stand in front of Congress and question what is going
on. There is no Democracy without dissent. I thank Congressman Murtha and Senator Kennedy and Senator Boxer for fighting for
the military and trying to save lives. I am also grateful to Senator Kerry.
Interview with Mark Wilkerson by Aaron Glantz co-produced by Sarah Olson for KPFA Radio August 18,
2007. 19 min. audio edited by Courage to Resist.
The entire live broadcast is available here from KPFA Radio.
Following his presentation at the Courage to Resist workshop at the 2007 Veterans for Peace National
Convention in St. Louis, Mark sat down with journalist Aaron Glantz for a live interview. They are joined by David Cortright,
author of "Soldiers in Revolt".
Mark was a Army military police officer in Iraq. He talks about joining the military, the reality of
the Iraq occupation, his five months in the Fort Sill brig, and how people can better support today's GI resisters. At the
time of this interview, Mark had just been released from the brig only days earlier.
November 8, 2007 -- Army faces massive
AWOLs publication date: Nov 8, 2007
WMR's Pentagon sources report that
the Army is facing so many absent without leave (AWOL) cases, Army Judge Advocate General (JAG) lawyers are being forced to
revise standing regulations on dealing with AWOL personnel.
The numbers of Army personnel refusing Iraq duty are staggering
and unprecedented in modern times. Pentagon sources put the numbers at 5000 enlisted personnel and 600 officers. The AWOL
personnel are mostly in National Guard and Army Reserve units but also include some active Army personnel.
JAG personnel
and other senior Army officials are reluctant to discuss the AWOL numbers and fear that a raft of courts-martial will focus
the public eye on the absentee problems in the Army. Hence, the procedures for dealing with AWOLs within the Army are being
drastically altered.
Sources in Iraq have previously informed WMR that some U.S. military personnel in Iraq have gone
AWOL by simply leaving the country through a virtual "underground railroad" established through countries bordering Iraq,
including Turkey, Jordan, Iran, and Syria, into Europe.
“The rule of law does not do away with the unequal distribution
of wealth and power, but reinforces that inequality with the authority of law. It allocates wealth and poverty in such calculated
and indirect ways as to leave the victim bewildered.”
Howard Zinn was born in Brooklyn, New York, into a working-class
family and, though he had few formal educational opportunities, he developed a strong social consciousness while working as
a shipfitter and avidly reading the novels of Charles Dickens. Flying bombing missions in World War II shaped his opposition
to war. After military service he earned a doctorate in history at Columbia University and taught at Spelman College in Georgia
where he was active in the Civil Rights movement. In 1963 he moved to Boston University and became a prominent, outspoken
critic of the Vietnam War.
Best known for his A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present (1980, revised
1995), a history of America through the perspective of “those outside of the political and economic establishment,”
Zinn remains an active advocate for the underclass, a proponent of world peace and an articulate critic of corporate power
and greed supported by governmental collusion.
“We need new ways of thinking,” says Zinn. “We need
to rethink our position in the world. We need to stop sending weapons to countries that oppress other people. We need to decide
that we will not go to war, whatever reason is conjured up by the politicians or the media, because war in our time is always
indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children. War is terrorism, magnified a hundred times.”
“We
can not be secure by limiting our liberties, as some of our political leaders are demanding, but only by expanding them…We
should take our example not from the military and political leaders shouting ‘retaliate’ and ‘war’
but from the doctors and nurses and … firemen and policemen who have been saving lives in the midst of mayhem, whose
first thoughts are not violence, but healing, and not vengeance, but compassion.”
