Letters and Essays of Mark Lindstrom

WINTER SOLDIER

Thirty seven years ago a group of Vietnam Veterans calling themselves the Winter Soldiers [a term created by Thomas Paine to describe the bravest of all soldiers] assembled and gave startling testimony to the inhumanity and futility of America's occupation of Vietnam, including atrocities they either witnessed or committed. It remains an indelible memory for many of us, and was a watershed turn toward America's ultimate withdrawal from that miserable mistake.

March 14th through 16th, 2008, young men and women returning from Iraq and Afghanistan repeated the Winter Soldier testimony. With wrenching emotion, they described, one after another, the cruel realities of these American occupations including their own participation in the abuse and killing of innocent citizens which now haunts them. They do not fault those in their ranks who remain silent, but want us to at least understand why hundreds have taken their own lives. They want us to know how criminal and inhumane this President's wars are to both the occupied and they the occupiers who must live every day with what they have done.

But unlike 37 years ago, this time America is not listening.

The America that once poured into the streets by the hundreds of thousands to demand and end to such inhumanity (in our name) has changed. This time there were no mainstream journalists, no corporate broadcasters, and no one from Congress listening. Our media elite were instead wetting themselves over the antics of Brittney Spears and the sexual follies of our politicians. And certainly our lawmakers on the corporate dole would not now be seen at such an event. Dick Cheney is not the only one profiting on the carnage, though he must be envied by others for his Halliburton stock that has increased in value by over 3200%.

The Winter Soldiers, returning from duty, see our bumper stickers declaring we SUPPORT OUR TROOPS pasted onto our gas guzzling behemoths, and they understand. They understand well, because they were guarding the oil fields and oil ministries while Baghdad was allowed to be looted. And while much of Iraq lay in ruins without water and electricity, they were building the permanent bases that the White House denies exist - bases strategic to oil. The Winter Soldier understands keenly all of the lies this government measures out as noble platitudes of "liberty" and "democracy," and when that doesn't work, the use of fear to keep us subdued and compliant. They are angry with the few thousand in our government and complicit media, yes, but enraged with the millions of us that we could be so gullible and so callous to a brutal American aggression that is, in their direct experience, criminal per Nuremberg, Geneva and our own Constitution. They compare themselves with their grandfathers who sacrificed much in the 1940's to stop such aggression and wonder if we have not become what we once deplored.

They are angry, too, for the wholesale betrayal of their generation, which for many of us is our own children, who we are so willing to encumber with the cost of this endless "borrow and spend" albatross while demanding ever more tax cuts. They want us to know that though we may think this war is someone else's burden and someone else's funeral to attend, it may never the less bankrupt us all financially, if not morally. (Per the National Priorities Project, Chelan County's share alone of the Iraq war through 2007 was $109,300,000.)

Moreover, the Winter Soldier would like those who cling to the notion that we are "winning" and that "victory" is achievable, to read again the 2006 National Intelligence Estimate, that this White House attempted to classify and keep from us, which concluded that this American occupation only enrages global terrorism against us, making us less safe. Though, they acknowledge that if victory is defined as the complete subjugation of a nation helpless to our military might and our desperation for oil, then such a victory is indeed possible and John McCain, forever angry about America's withdrawal from Vietnam, can finally find his personal vindication.

The Winter Soldiers, in that event, ask that we minimally be honest about what we have become. and honest with our 18 year old recruits concerning what they are about to do.

More about these brave young men and women and how you can support them can be found at their website: IVAW.org.