GI SPECIAL 3C36A:
Proof Civilians Spit On Vietnam Vets:
JACK OFIELD’S “DIFFERENT SONS” SCREENS IN V.V.A.W. RETROSPECTIVE
Ofield, who heads SDSU’s Film and Television Department, captured the entire march as the veterans—some walking on crutches and braces, some pushing themselves in wheelchairs— encountered FBI agents, spectators, and counter-demonstrators from the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars who spat on them, accusing them of treason and of “losing the war.”
From: Jack Ofield
To: GI Special
Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2005 3:28 AM
Jack Ofield’s 1970 Vietnam documentary, “Different Sons,” will be screened continuously during “Operation R.A.W.”, a multimedia art exhibition on display from Sept. 2 – 25 (Thurs – Sun., noon to 6 p.m.) in the Ice Box Project Space at Crane Arts, 1400 N. American Street, Philadelphia. The website is www.operationraw.com.
Conceived by Jane Irish, coordinator, School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania, “Operation R.A.W.” commemorates the 35th anniversary of the famous 100-mile march by 150 members of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War that began on Labor Day, Sept. 4, 1970 in Morristown, New Jersey, and culminated four days later in a huge rally at Valley Forge.
Dubbed by the VVAW “Operation R.A.W.” for “Rapid American Withdrawal,” the combat veterans wore battle attire as they protested the Vietnam War with reenactments of the brutal tactics they had been required to use against Vietnamese civilians.
Ofield, who heads SDSU’s Film and Television Department, captured the entire march as the veterans—some walking on crutches and braces, some pushing themselves in wheelchairs— encountered FBI agents, spectators, and counter-demonstrators from the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars who spat on them, accusing them of treason and of “losing the war.”
Along the march route, the VVAW, who had been awarded 110 Purple Hearts between them, talked of their war experiences and why they had been transformed from staunch pro-war patriots into anti-war patriots – the “different sons” of Ofield’s film title.
On the fourth day of the march, the vets carried five symbolic body bags, displaying the number of U.S. and Vietnamese dead, onto the Valley Forge Battlefield as they gathered with amputees from the Valley Forge Army Hospital and thousands of sympathizers. In a wrenching ceremony, they broke their plastic M-16s and cried out, “Peace Now! Peace Now! Peace Now!”
Irish is working with the Philadelphia Print Collective and more than 60 artists to produce the multimedia pieces for the exhibit, as well as hundreds of silk-screened posters that will line the march route on Labor Day. “Operation R.A.W.” will also be part of Philadelphia’s annual Live Arts Festival.
The Vietnam Era Educational Center at the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans Memorial at Holmdel, New Jersey is participating in the event, which will feature seminars, music, poetry readings and tours of “Operation R.A.W.”
“Operation R.A.W.” will occupy the entire 5,000 square foot Ice Box Project Space, a former fish freezer attached to a 19th century, brick warehouse in Philadelphia’s historic Old City. With its 25-foot high ceilings, the Ice Box exemplifies “saving old while building new” in Philadelphia’s urban redevelopment and has become a center for the visual and performing arts.
Ofield made “Different Sons” with the assistance of volunteer professionals in New York Film Industry For Peace.
The producer was Robert J. Sann with assistance from Arthur Littman. The one-hour film debuted in 1971 at New York’s Museum of Modern Art and was televised on most of the PBS network, the CBC, the BBC, Eurovision and channels in France, Germany, Spain and Scandinavia.
The film received many festival awards and was screened throughout the U.S. by the Peace Action Coalition and church and campus organizations. In 1994 it was shortened to 28 minutes and re-released for classroom and civic use.
THE OLD LIE LIVES ON:
August, 21, 2005 Pensacola News Journal
Army Reserves Lt. Col. Alice Bell, 46, who spent 10 months in Kuwait in support of the Iraq invasion, said she has heard nothing but praise since returning home.
"It's not like in Vietnam, when they spat on troops coming back," she said. "Some people don't agree with the mission itself. But even if they're against the war effort, they're for the troops. They realize we're doing what we have to do, what we've been ordered to do, whether we agree with it or not."
[There were no instances of anti-war civilians spitting on any returning Vietnam soldiers. The spitting was done by the ignorant pro-war assholes named above, on anti-war Vietnam Veterans.]
IRAQ WAR REPORTS
Mosul Car Bomb Attack:
One U.S. Soldier Wounded
An ambulance and a U.S. patrol vehicle arrive at the scene of an explosion in Mosul, August 28, 2005. A car driven by a bomber struck a U.S. patrol. A U.S. soldier was wounded in the attack. REUTERS/Namir Noor-Eldeen
Two Bragg Soldiers, One Benning Soldier Die
AUGUST 27, 2005 FORT BRAGG, N.C. (USASOC News Service)
Two Soldiers assigned here to Headquarters Company, U.S. Army Special Operations Command and one Army Ranger assigned to the 75th Ranger Regiment died Aug. 25 in Husaybah, Iraq, of injuries sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near their position there.
Master Sgt. Ivica Jerak, 42, and Sgt. 1st Class Trevor John Diesing, 30, both assigned to Headquarters Company, U.S. Army Special Operations Command and Cpl. Timothy M. Shea, 22, an infantryman assigned to 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment at Fort Benning, Ga. were killed.
Jerak, a native of former Republic of Yugoslavia, first entered the U. S. Army as a combat medic Jan. 19, 1988 and, after completion of initial entry training, was assigned to the 690th Medical Company, Fort Benning, Ga. Since that time, Master Sgt. Jerak served in 3rd Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) and 1st Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group (airborne). His last assignment was as an assistant team sergeant assigned to the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, Fort Bragg, N.C.
Diesing, a native of Red Wing, Minn., entered the U.S. Army as an infantryman May 24, 1993, and after completion of initial entry training, was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment of the Minnesota National Guard. Since that time, Diesing served in 2nd Battalion, 187th Infantry Battalion, 101st Airborne Division, and 1st Battalion, 10th SFG (A). His last assignment was as a team member assigned to the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, Fort Bragg, N.C.
Shea , a native of Sonoma, Calif., enlisted in the Army in January 2003. After completing infantry, airborne and Ranger indoctrination training at Fort Benning, Ga., he was assigned to 3rd Bn., 75th Ranger Regiment, in August 2003.
Shea deployed to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in July 2005. He was a five-time veteran of Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom.
AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS
Three U.S. Soldiers Wounded;
Candidate Killed
28 August 2005 Aljazeera.Net
An attack on the US military has wounded three soldiers near the capital.
On Friday, insurgents attacked the US service members as they were patrolling about 40km east of Kabul, a US military statement said. An attack helicopter rushed to the site, but the attackers had fled.
The wounded were in stable condition after being evacuated to Bagram, the main US base in Afghanistan, about an hour's drive north of Kabul, the statement said.
Armed men on Sunday ambushed parliamentary candidate Adiq Ullah as he was driving in Uruzgan province, killing him and wounding two others in his vehicle, said provincial governor Jan Mohammed Khan.
Security forces pursued the insurgents, but they escaped, the governor said.
“A Lot Of Times, It's Like Chasing Ghosts
Aug. 20, 2005 By Jonathan S. Landay, Knight Ridder
LANDING ZONE NORTH DAKOTA, Afghanistan - The Bush administration declared more than two years ago that major combat in Afghanistan was over. Tell that to the 60 young men of Battle Company.
For the past four months, the U.S. paratroopers and other American units have been fighting a war thousands of feet up in the sun-blasted peaks and boulder-strewed defiles of one of history's most grueling battlefields.
They're facing guerrillas who were born here, hardened by poverty and backwardness, and steeped in a centuries-old tradition of resisting foreigners.
The fighters of the resurgent Taliban movement are no match in face-to-face clashes for highly trained U.S. troops, who are equipped to fight at night and are backed by helicopter gunships, jets, remote-controlled spy planes, Afghan soldiers and local intelligence officers.
But after suffering massive casualties in a series of major firefights, the Taliban has learned to avoid set-piece battles with the U.S. and Afghan troops.
The war has evolved into a bloody game of cat and mouse, a classic guerrilla struggle with echoes of the much larger and far bloodier conflicts in Iraq, Chechnya and Vietnam.
The outcome may well come down to which side can outlast the other.
The Taliban operates in small bands, staging hit-and-run attacks, assassinations and ambushes, laying mines and firing missiles and rocket-propelled grenades before melting back into local populations. U.S. intelligence reports indicate Taliban leaders constantly change locations.
“One day, they could be firing at you, and serving you chai the next,” said Army Capt. Michael Kloepper, 29, of Caldwell, N.J., after a helicopter dropped him and some of his men on a boulder-strewed hilltop dubbed Landing Zone North Dakota on a two-day mission in a remote valley in southern Zabol province.
The guerrillas stash their arms in the wheat stacks, wells, thick groves and the off-limits women's quarters of adobe compounds. Their hiding places are scattered in the small oases of almond and apple trees in valleys wedged between mountains that seem to roll ever onward like immense, dun-colored waves.
Hiding in mountaintop caves and crevices, the Taliban tracks U.S. troops and aircraft -- sometimes for scores of miles -- and guerrillas pass intelligence to each other in coded-language via walkie-talkies that are extremely difficult to get a fix on.
“A lot of times, it's like chasing ghosts,” said Kloepper's radio operator, Spec. Mark Cushman, 20, of Norman, Okla., during the patrol last week in the district of Deh Chopan, a Taliban stronghold.
Polling Places Will Not Be Targets, Taliban Official Says
8.23.05 New York Times
Taliban fighters will not attack polling places during parliamentary elections in Afghanistan next month, so as to avoid killing civilians, but will continue to attack American and Afghan government forces, a spokesman for the group said.
CRAWFORD TEXAS WAR REPORTS
Over two thousand people made their way to Camp Casey yesterday for a huge hoedown deep in the heart of Texas. Full buses of supporters from Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin unload and loaded throughout the day. After Cindy Sheehan welcomed many of the buses, the main tent stage featured a day of music by artists from across Texas. Photo by Jeff Paterson, Not in Our Name, Aug. 28, 2005 at 11:51 AM
“WE MUST CONTINUE KILLING AMERICANS BECAUSE AMERICANS HAVE ALREADY BEEN KILLED!!!”
August 27, 2005 Cindy Sheehan, BUZZFLASH [Excerpt]
I finally figured out George Bush's NEW reason for staying in Iraq. This reason has also been co-opted by the Move America Forward (forward to what: Fascism?) and the poor mothers who would be honored if their sons were killed in George Bush's war for greed and power.
Since the Freedom and Democracy thing is not going so well and the Iraqi parliament is having such a hard time writing their constitution, since violence is mounting against Iraqis and Americans and since his poll numbers are going down everyday, he had to come up with something.
I have continually asked George Bush to quit using Casey's name and the name of the other Gold Star Families for Peace loved ones to justify his continued killing. He continues to say this: "We have to honor the sacrifices of the fallen by completing the mission."
So the mission is now this: WE MUST CONTINUE KILLING AMERICANS BECAUSE AMERICANS HAVE ALREADY BEEN KILLED!!!
How can anyone, anyone in their right minds support this line of reasoning?
Camp Casey, PTA
In fact, contrary to the claims of conservative pundits and bloggers that this is simply a bunch of unreformed hippies pulling a stunt and yearning for the '60s, most people I talked to said that they'd never done anything like this before, that they'd never been to a single protest and didn't really like politics outside of the bare minimum of civic duty -- reading the paper and voting.
August 22, 2005 By Amanda Marcotte, AlterNet [Excerpts]
Making the decision to go to Crawford, Texas and visit Camp Casey was easy -- it's just a two hour drive from my house in Austin, and the stubborn righteousness of Cindy Sheehan puts to shame any weak excuses I could make. I made the decision about a week ahead of time, assuming that protest conditions would remain more or less static.
I was wrong.
My traveling companion had gone out to Camp Casey last week and was blown over by how, in the past week alone, the influx of assistance and donations has managed to turn a makeshift operation expanding from one woman's tent into, well, something much bigger and much more organized.
My friend noted that last week it had just been crosses, but people have been adding things like American flags, handmade dolls, handmade coffins, flowers and photographs of the dead, which made some onlookers burst into tears. The baby pictures were especially moving.
A resident of Vidor, TX, our shuttle driver had decided to go to Camp Casey after hearing about it on Air America's Randi Rhodes show.
He told me he got into an argument with a 19-year-old co-worker who supported the war. When he asked her why she didn't enlist and go fight if she was so gung-ho, she piously replied, "God has other plans for me."
He responded in standard East Texas fashion, involving some blaspheming and a whole lot of cursing, which may have shocked the more gentle member of our group. I'm afraid that being a liberal in Texas does teach one to use the F-word frequently and with enthusiasm.
My friend pointed out that even if this entire thing doesn't change a single mind about the war, it will still be worth it for the comfort it provided to the bereaved and for them to see that so many people around the nation are supporting them.