Alice Embree / Terry DuBose : Defend the Soldiers' Right to Heal

Under the Hood contingent at Veterans Day Parade, Killeen, Texas, Saturday, November 10, 2012. Photo by Susan Van Haitsma / The Rag Blog.
Defend the right to heal:
Veterans’ Day parade in Killeen

As the deployments wind down from this decade of combat, service members are finding that their access to medical care is restricted, denied, delayed, and stigmatized.

By Alice Embree / The Rag Blog / November 15, 2012

See story by Terry J. DuBose and photos by Alice Embree and Susan Van Haitsma, Below.

Malachi Muncy’s vision was obscured, but he could hear a boy’s voice saying: “It’s a soldier in a pill bottle. Break out! Break out!”
The boy, a spectator along the Veterans Day parade route in Killeen, Texas, got it. So did most of those who saw Under the Hood’s message on Saturday, November 10.

Under the Hood (UtH) is a GI coffeehouse that opened in 2009 in Killeen, a mile from Fort Hood, the largest U.S. military post in the world. The UtH contingent marched for the second time in Killeen’s Veterans’ Day event. Three veterans led the march with this banner: “Honor All Who Served: Defend Service Members’ and Veterans’ Right to Heal.”

Behind the banner, on the bed of a pickup truck, was Malachi Muncy, a veteran of two Iraq deployments, a writer and an artist. Malachi had produced the pill bottle image as a print on paper made of combat uniforms. For the parade he took his art large, constructing a six-foot tall orange pill bottle with a white cap. Malachi, in uniform, stood inside the bottle, occasionally reaching his hands above him into the air. The prescription read: “RX: We Deserve Better.”

Although Malachi’s vision was somewhat limited by the orange acetate he was behind, he could hear the crowd’s response. Those seated along the parade route would begin asking each other what was on the truck, then talk amongst themselves as they realized it was a soldier in a pill bottle. There was occasional laughter, even applause. Some spectators made comments about the medicines they were on.

Along the route, UtH supporters handed out leaflets supporting soldiers’ right to heal -- for real treatment beyond pills for the hidden injuries that are now so prevalent -- Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Military Sexual Trauma, and Traumatic Brain Injury.

Supporters also carried signs with the grim markers of this decade of war. “A veteran commits suicide every 80 minutes. Stop the cycle!” “There were 154 service member suicides in the first 155 days of this year. 154 suicides vs. 134 combat deaths.”

In an October 23 article, the Austin American-Statesman dug deep into the Texas face of these statistics: “Special Report: Uncounted Casualties,” reporting on the recent Texas veterans who have died of overdoses, suicide, and vehicle crashes.

As the deployments wind down from this decade of combat, service members are finding that their access to medical care is restricted, denied, delayed, and stigmatized. An appeal to Congress for redress for service members’ and Veterans’ right to heal can be found at www.RighttoHeal.org. You are urged to sign this petition and to continue to support Under the Hood -- a space for free speech, peer support, and decompression.

[Alice Embree is a long-time Austin activist, organizer, and member of the Texas State Employees Union. A former staff member of underground papers The Rag in Austin and RAT in New York, and a veteran of SDS and the women's liberation movement, she is now active with CodePink Austin and Under the Hood Café. Embree is a contributing editor to The Rag Blog and is treasurer of the New Journalism Project. Read more articles by Alice Embree on The Rag Blog.]

"Trapped." Print by Malachi Muncy on paper made from old combat uniform.

Malachi Muncy: A veteran artist

Malachi Muncy, a veteran of two deployments to Iraq, uses art and theater to express his frustration, situation, and anger. Two of his prints, “Trapped” and “Escape,” carry strong messages in this era of record suicide rates among troops and veterans.

Malachi prints on paper made from his combat uniforms. As guerrilla theater for the Veterans’ Day Parade in Killeen, Malachi designed and built a giant pill bottle. Standing in uniform in the bottle on the back of a pickup truck his art reached hundreds along the parade route.

Malachi served in the Texas Army National Guard as a motor vehicle operator from 2003 to 2009, with service in Iraq from 2004-2005 and 2006-2007. He has a BA in journalism form Texas State University (TSU) and is currently pursuing a BA in English.

Malachi’s writing has appeared in the Copperas Cove Leader Press, SKUNK Magazine, and at RawStory.com. His poetry and prose have been included in the Warrior Writers anthologies. Malachi’s print and papermaking artwork has been exhibited at The National Veterans Art Museum in Chicago.

Malachi has volunteered as arts coordinator at Under the Hood Café, a GI Outreach Center in Killeen. He has conducted workshops there on making “combat paper” from uniforms -- transforming war experiences into art. In December he will become the new manager of Under the Hood.

-- Terry J. DuBose / The Rag Blog

[Terry J. DuBose, who was an organizer for Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) in Texas, is an Associate Professor Emeritus of Diagnostic Medical Sonography at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.]

"Escape." Print by Malachi Muncy.

Photo Gallery: Under the Hood at Veterans Day Parade

Photo by Alice Embree / The Rag Blog.

Photo by Alice Embree / The Rag Blog.

Photo by Alice Embree / The Rag Blog.

Photo by Susan Van Haitsma / The Rag Blog.

Photo by Alice Embree / The Rag Blog.

Photo by Susan Van Haitsma / The Rag Blog.

Photo by Susan Van Haitsma / The Rag Blog.

Photo by Susan Van Haitsma / The Rag Blog.

Photo by Susan Van Haitsma / The Rag Blog.

Photo by Susan Van Haitsma / The Rag Blog.

Photo by Susan Van Haitsma / The Rag Blog.

Photo by Susan Van Haitsma / The Rag Blog.

Photo by Susan Van Haitsma / The Rag Blog.
Find more photos of Under the Hood and the Veterans Day parade by Alice Embree and Susan Van Haitsma.

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Harry Targ : Vince Emanuele, Anti-War Vets, and the 99%

Anti-war vet Vince Emanuele. Photo by Jessica A. Woolf / nwtimes.
Veterans unplugged:
Hoosier anti-war activist connects
returning veterans to the 99%

By Harry Targ / The Rag Blog / November 6, 2011

“I grew up in Chicago and Northwest Indiana. Working-class family, father was a Union Ironworker... mother was a stay at home Mom.” Vince Emanuele joined the Marines after graduating from high school. “I came out of boot camp a hard chargin’ Devil Dog.”

He served in the Marines from 2003 until 2005 stationed in California, Kuwait, and Iraq. His eight month deployment in Iraq involved him in street patrols, looking for snipers and land mines, “along with shooting at innocent civilians, destroying their property and beating up prisoners.”

While in Iraq the fascination with war that he had acquired as a kid playing video games dissipated. His father sent him reading material -- Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal, Hunter Thompson, The Nation -- and he and friends began to reflect on what they were doing in Iraq. He came to the view that the war was “illegal, immoral, unjustified, and unneeded.” He was not spreading “democracy” or “peace” and the U.S. war effort was not winning the “hearts and minds” of the Iraqi people.

After returning to the U.S., Emanuele joined Iraq Veterans Against the War, has been organizing vets in Indiana and Illinois, created a weekly radio show called “Veterans Unplugged” which is available online, and has become a prominent activist for social, economic, and political justice in the heartland of America while finishing an undergraduate political science degree.

Emanuele recently spoke on a panel organized by the Lafayette Area Peace Coalition. He elaborated on the current plight of veterans, particularly veterans who served in the two longest wars in U.S. history, Afghanistan and Iraq.

While acknowledging that the current military force has chosen to enlist in regular army or reserve units, the 21st century enticement to serve is really an “economic draft.” With declining incomes, wages, job opportunities, and rising educational costs, more and more men and women, he said, have seen military service as the only escape from lives of economic marginalization.

He spoke of the culture of militarization to which every new recruit is exposed: a process of dehumanization; the spread of racism, particularly targeting stereotypes of Muslims; sexism; and homophobia. In reality the military experience of young people, Emanuele said, involves placing raw, uneducated, teenagers in a war zone, with weapons and a license to kill. The victims of the actions of these raw recruits, schooled in video games and super-patriotism, were the millions of Iraqi and Afghan citizens who most fervently wanted the young foreigners off their land.

Emanuele presented some figures on the impacts of military service on returning veterans. (According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2010 there were 20.2 million men and 1.8 million women who had served in the military). In 2011, Emanuele reported:

• Rates of unemployment of returning veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq are higher than in the non-veteran population, both men and women;
• African-American vets experience double the unemployment rate of white vets;
• 80,000 returning veterans are currently homeless (56 % of homeless vets are African American or Latinos);
• 20% to 50% of 21st century returning veterans suffer some form of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (an estimated 350,000 to 1 million vets);
• 1,000 returning vets attempt suicide each month.

Emanuele, connected the plight of returning veterans to the military-industrial complex and imperial wars. As a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, he highlighted the long tradition of soldiers resisting participation in unjust wars. He referred to patterns of resistance to war running throughout U.S. history:

• In 1781 the Pennsylvania militia mutinied against war profiteers and for food;
• Between the 1870s and the 1890s, National Guard soldiers often refused to fire on striking workers;
• In 1919 unknown numbers of U.S. soldiers refused orders to go fight against the Bolsheviks who had come to power in Russia;
• Thousands of World War I veterans, known as the Bonus Army, assembled in Washington D.C. in 1932 to demand back pay due them from their active duty experience;
• From 1964-75 a massive GI anti-Vietnam war resistance movement emerged with over 300 GI anti-war newspapers produced, 10 % of all Vietnam era soldiers going AWOL or deserting, and a broad array of other forms of anti-war resistance and opposition to military recruiting.

Emanuele stressed the commonality of experience and vision that is shared by most veterans with the Occupy Movement. He suggested that peace and justice activists must understand that returning veterans are a vital part of the 99% movement committed to radically restructure American society.

He argued that the 99%, including vets, must see the vital connections between the global capitalist system, the military-industrial complex, and the pain and suffering that have generated war and economic insecurity in the 21st century.

Emanuele ended his talk with reference to the frank admission of General Smedley Butler who oversaw the effort to crush the army of Augusto Sandino in Nicaragua in the early 1930s. Butler admitted that he, as a Marine General, had served as an instrumentality of Wall Street, putting down popular rebellions in the service of profit.

• To learn more about Vince Emanuele and his weekly radio show check out Veterans Unplugged.
• To learn more about Iraq Veterans Against the War, go to the IVAW website.

[Harry Targ is a professor of political science at Purdue University who lives in West Lafayette, Indiana. He blogs at Diary of a Heartland Radical -- and that's also the name of his new book which can be found at Lulu.com. Read more of Harry Targ's articles on The Rag Blog.]

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Susan Van Haitsma : Anti-War GI's March in Killeen Vets Day Parade

Representatives of IVAW and Under the Hood Cafe marched in the Killeen Veterans Day Parade. Photo by Susan Van Haitsma / The Rag Blog.
The burdens of war:
Anti-war GI's on Veterans Day

By Susan Van Haitsma / The Rag Blog / November 15, 2011

See more photos by Susan Van Haitsma, Below.

KILLEEN, Texas -- Usually Veterans Day bums me out big time. War is the worst human invention I know. Sacrificing the lives of young adults to "protect my way of life" is false and backward. I don’t know how to thank veterans for their sincere motivation to help the world when consequences of their roles as soldiers have been so harmful to the world and to themselves.

This Veterans Day, I had an opportunity to reconcile these sentiments in the heart of Texas, in the small town that contains the largest military base in the world.

Staff and volunteers with Under The Hood, the GI Rights Center and Café in Killeen, Texas, teamed with members of the Ft. Hood chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) to march in the Killeen Veterans Day Parade, and they invited supporters to join them. Several of us drove up from Austin to take part.

The parade entry was designed to promote IVAW's Operation Recovery project, a campaign for service members’ right to heal. The campaign is calling for increased health services for traumatized troops instead of continued deployments. Surely this is a reasonable demand.

To dramatize the message in the parade, four soldiers marched single file, carrying full army duffel bags on their backs. The bags were labeled “Trauma,” “PTSD,” “MST" (Military Sexual Trauma, and “TBI” (Traumatic Brain Injury). Each bag was also ringed with the word, “Stigma” in bold lettering.

The symbolism of the burdens of war borne by soldiers provided a strong visual message. The soldiers also carried signs calling on Ft. Hood’s base commander, General Donald Campbell, to stop deploying traumatized troops from Ft. Hood.

We civilian supporters walked with the soldiers, carrying an Operation Recovery banner and distributing fliers to the parade audience about Operation Recovery and Under The Hood. We weren’t sure how we would be received by the crowd lining the parade route, but even with red, white and blue everywhere, people were overwhelmingly receptive.

As the parade wound its way through Killeen’s modest downtown streets, we passed deserted storefronts and saw many signs of economic struggle. War does not profit the warrior.

A press release about our parade entry was issued just before we walked the few blocks from Under The Hood, across the railroad tracks to the parade lineup. A local ABC-TV affiliate responded, and a reporter came to the café after the parade. Iraq war vets, Kyle and Curtis, gave excellent interviews for a good report that ran on the evening news and the KXXV-TV home page.

After the interviews, we hung around the café and talked, readying things for the evening’s special Veterans Day poetry event hosted by the phenomenal Killeen poetry slam group. My feelings about the day’s events seemed to find expression in the poems I heard that night. Truths were spoken about military life, death and injury, separation and reconciliation, love and pain. We were drawn together: soldier and civilian, gay and straight, youngadults and older ones.

Under The Hood is a busy place, with lots of good things happening. Current events include weekly “Ribs ‘n Rights” nights, twice monthly poetry slams and an upcoming Warrior Writers workshop. They recently held a community art show and Combat Paper workshop.

Check out www.underthehoodcafe.org to find out more about Under The Hood, and go to www.operationrecoverycampaign.org to register your support for service members’ right to heal.

[Susan Van Haitsma is active in Austin with Sustainable Options for Youth and CodePink. She also blogs at makingpeace. Find more articles by Susan Van Haitsma on The Rag Blog.]

• Find more articles about IVAW and Under the Hood on The Rag Blog.

Photos by Susan Van Haitsma / The Rag Blog.
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Alice Embree : War is Trauma but GIs Have the Right to Heal

"Stop the Deployment of Traumatized Troops." Members of IVAW demonstrate in Washington, D.C., October 2010. Photo by Rose Marie Berger / rosemarieberger.com.
Operation Recovery and Hoodstock III

By Alice Embree / The Rag Blog / September 28, 2011

The Austin Lounge Lizards headline Hoodstock III, benefitting Under the Hood Café and Outreach Center and IVAW's Operation Recovery, Sunday, Oct. 2, 2011, 6-9 p.m., at Jovita's, 1619 South First St., Austin, Texas. For more details, see the poster below.

For more than a decade, two declared wars have raged in Iraq and Afghanistan. War has traumatized civilian populations there and sent thousands of service members home suffering from trauma. With no end in sight to the wars, these servicemen and women face redeployment despite diagnoses of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), and Military Sexual Trauma (MST).

Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) and their civilian allies have embarked on a campaign that has a simple message: the right to heal. IVAW’s Operation Recovery advocates that service members who experience PTSD, TBI, MST, and combat stress have the right to exit the traumatic situation and receive immediate support and compensation. IVAW organizers talk to soldiers about their right to receive medical care and advice from medical professionals, advice that should trump a commander’s orders.

In Killeen, the G.I. coffeehouse Under the Hood, is the forward operating base for Operation Recovery. Aaron Hughes, an IVAW organizer, was pulled out of the University of Illinois in 2003 and sent into active duty in Iraq with his Illinois Army National Guard unit. Tall and serious, Aaron and other IVAW members have spent many weeks in the brutal summer heat of Killeen, Texas, talking to soldiers at Fort Hood, the largest Army base in the world.

Here, they can find plenty of soldiers who have returned from deployment, been diagnosed with trauma, have not been treated, and have simply been readied for deployment again. There are also many soldiers who have never been appropriately diagnosed. Unfortunately, at Fort Hood, these situations often translate into the worst possible result -- suicide.

In January 2011, the Army reported that 22 soldiers had killed themselves or were suspected of doing so, twice the number in 2009. That is a rate of 47 deaths per 100,000, compared with a 20 per 100,000 rate among civilians and a 22 per 100,000 rate Army-wide. “We are at a loss to explain the high numbers,” acting commander Major General William Grimsley told USA Today.

Aaron Hughes and other IVAW organizers have an easier time explaining Fort Hood’s record-breaking stat. The Army is first and foremost committed to keeping troops available for wars that are far from over. They direct inadequate resources to the diagnosis and treatment of traumatized soldiers. Service members often struggle in isolation with the invisible wounds of trauma -- wounds that fester in secrecy, wounds that affect spouses and children, families and friends.

Service members return to a country where the wars are invisible to a majority of their fellow citizens -- where media attention is lavished on the stupidity of stars and the cacophony of what passes for political debate. War coverage just doesn’t attract advertisers like “Dancing With the Stars.”

In the midst of this, IVAW has a powerful message: “You are not alone.” “You have the right to heal.” If there is one lifeline that can work for soldiers in trauma, it is to tell their story to peers who have walked in their boots.

Since it opened in February 2009, Under the Hood Café and Outreach Center has offered a space for active duty soldiers, military families, veterans, and concerned citizens to socialize, organize, and heal. You can support this space by coming to a benefit from 6-9 p.m., Sunday, October 2, at Jovita’s in Austin. Hear the Austin Lounge Lizards and other musicians and support a great cause

For more on Operation Recovery,
listen to the Rag Radio interview with IVAW soldiers:

[Alice Embree is a long-time Austin activist, organizer, and member of the Texas State Employees Union. A former staff member of The Rag in Austin and RAT in New York, and a veteran of SDS and the women's liberation movement, she is now active with CodePink Austin and Under the Hood Café. Embree is a contributing editor to The Rag Blog and is treasurer of the New Journalism Project. Read more articles by Alice Embree on The Rag Blog.]


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Scott Kimball and Aaron Hughes : Ft. Hood: 'On Watch' for Traumatized Soldiers

Memorial Day:
Ft. Hood 'Watchtower' on lookout
for mistreatment of soldiers with trauma

By Scott Kimball and Aaron Hughes / The Rag Blog / May 30, 2011

FORT HOOD, Texas -- Members of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), and representatives from Under the Hood GI Outreach Center and Café, erected a three-story watchtower outside Ft. Hood’s East Gate.

“We put up this guard tower to announce that we are putting General Campbell [Lt. Gen. Don Campbell Jr.] on watch for mistreatment of traumatized soldiers. As Third Corps commander, he is now accountable for the treatment of all the soldiers under his command," said Malachi Muncy, Under the Hood intern and member of IVAW. “This is how we are remembering our brothers and sisters for Memorial Day, by fighting for their right to heal.”

The veterans took turns standing guard on the tower while others handed out purple ribbons to soldiers heading into the East Gate.

“We are asking people to wear the ribbons this Memorial Day in remembrance of the service members we lost to suicide as well as those who are suffering from military sexual trauma, post traumatic stress disorder, and traumatic brain injury” said Sergio Kochergin, member of IVAW and Disabled American Veterans.

Operation Recovery, a campaign led by Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, calls for an end to the deployment of service members who have been diagnosed with trauma. The Operation Recovery campaign has been attempting to meet with General Campbell for over a month, sending certified letters and over 600 emails from supporters urging Campbell to meet with the Operation Recovery organizers at Ft. Hood.

According to representatives from IVAW, General Campbell has not responded to these requests.

On Wednesday, May 25, members of the Operation Recovery team went to Third Corps headquarters in an attempt to meet with Campbell. The organizers were turned away and questioned by security officials about their presence on post.

“We went to Third Corps with the hope that General Campbell would meet with us so that we could hear his plans for making changes at Ft. Hood. Instead, we were denied a meeting and questioned by the MPs,” said Kyle Wesolowski, manager of Under the Hood and member of IVAW.

The team was able to hand deliver a letter that listed Operation Recovery’s specific requests to one of Campbell’s aides. In the letter, the organizers requested a meeting with Campbell as well as information regarding Ft. Hood’s treatment of soldiers with trauma. The letter states specific demands including a threefold increase in the number of healthcare providers, mirroring the same increase in suicides at Ft. Hood last year.

The Operation Recovery campaign team chose Ft. Hood as their base of operations because of its reputation as the post with the highest suicide rate. The Army’s official suicide count for Ft. Hood last year was 22, nearly twice as many suicides as any other post.

“We are now holding General Campbell accountable for each and every suicide under his watch,” said Aaron Hughes, former sergeant, Iraq veteran and the Field Organizing Team Leader for IVAW. “Furthermore, we hold him responsible for every soldier under his command who is forced to deploy with military sexual trauma, traumatic brain injury, or post traumatic stress disorder.”

Members of Ft. Hood’s mental health care staff are burdened with over 4,000 patients every month. The veteran organizers feel that this and other statistics support their claim that mental health care at Ft. Hood is subpar.

“The Ft. Hood command is providing inadequate care for its soldiers,” Said Scott Kimball, veteran of the Iraq War and an Operation Recovery organizer. “As of last year, there was only one counselor for all military sexual trauma cases on Ft. Hood. Current Army-wide statistics report that one in three women in the military report sexual assault.”

According to reporting from the San Antonio Express News, Ft. Hood spokesperson Chris Haug claimed that Campbell would respond when the organizers “are ready for a two way conversation.”

“We are ready and have been ready. This is what we have been asking for, an opportunity to sit down with General Campbell to help him understand the seriousness of these issues and what he can do right now to combat suicides and provide the care his soldiers deserve,” said Wesolowski.

[Scott Kimball is an organizer for Operation Recovery and Aaron Hughes is a field organizer for the Iraq Veterans Against the War. Operation Recovery is a national effort led by IVAW to stop the deployment of traumatized troops and the abuse of troops’ right to heal. For more information, go here.]

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Clare Bayard : Veterans and the Healing Process

AWOL soldier Jeff Hanks speaks about the effects of PTSD on his family, Nov. 11, near Ft. Campbell in Oak Grove, Ky. Photo by Robert Smith / AP.
Healing from empire:
Anti-war veterans redefine Veterans Day

By Clare Bayard / The Rag Blog / November 22, 2010

“Today we are asking for more than a moment of silence. We are demanding justice.”

This statement, published in a Veterans' Day open letter from the Central Illinois chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), reflects the spark lit in cities across the country for Veterans Day this year.

Last Thursday, anti-war veterans and their supporters marked Veterans Day with a range of coordinated events around the country. Until the 1950s, November 11th was known as Armistice Day to commemorate the end of World War I. This year, members of IVAW and their civilian allies evoked the original meaning of this holiday through building up Operation Recovery, a campaign to transition this country out of our declared “endless war” and heal some of its wounds.

Operation Recovery: End the Deployment of Traumatized Troops was launched this past October 7th, on the tenth anniversary of the Afghanistan War. It seeks to end the military's abusive practices of deploying soldiers suffering from trauma, including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), and Military Sexual Trauma (MST).

IVAW's research estimates that approximately 20% of active duty troops are suffering from untreated trauma; many servicemembers have shared stories of being denied treatment as well as being punished and mocked for seeking it, even as military suicides continue to rise.

This campaign is one step towards IVAW's broader goals to not only ensure the right of servicemembers to heal, but also to end the wars and occupations, deliver reparations to Iraq, and hold accountable the people who are responsible.

Operation Recovery events included an art opening and Warrior Writers workshop in Chicago; street outreach in New York, Philadelphia, Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, and Manhattan, Kansas; outreach on bases to active duty soldiers at Fort Riley, Kansas, and Fort Lewis, Washington; teach-ins and organizing meetings in Savannah, Georgia and San Francisco; and the public surrender of an injured AWOL soldier at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky.


Picture this when you think of Veterans Day

Among this year's Veterans Day events for Operation Recovery, Army Specialist Jeff Hanks publicly surrendered during a press conference across from Ft. Campbell, Kentucky. Spc. Hanks went AWOL to resist redeployment to Afghanistan this fall after the military refused to treat him for severe PTSD. Supported by military and civilian allies alike, Hanks and other veterans testified about the military's negligent and often abusive treatment of even severely traumatized soldiers seeking care.

Spc. Hanks decided he wanted to turn himself in publicly to draw attention to these widespread practices. Hanks, his wife Christina, and their two young daughters are still awaiting the Army's verdict, trying to keep up hope despite their anxiety. If he is court-martialed, he could face up to two years in prison, and a lifetime felony conviction on his record. At worst, the Army could attempt to forcibly deploy him again.

At the gates of Ft. Campbell, 25 supporters from across the Southeast stood with Jeff Hanks as he told his story to 15 news cameras. Another AWOL soldier from his unit traveled to join the rally, disclosing similar experiences. One supporter explained that her husband, who is currently deployed, was sent against medical advice. Over the last week, a number of other soldiers gone AWOL from the 101st due to mental health struggles have reached out to Operation Recovery for support.

Visibility and support are important factors that can influence the morale of traumatized troops and their families, and can also impact the military's treatment of people who go public. Aaron Hughes of IVAW shared with supporters the fact that “Jeff's command was extremely hostile when he turned himself in on Veterans Day, but after [Jeff was interviewed by Katie Couric in a] CBS story aired on Friday, they changed their tune.”

At the same time, Operation Rescue unfolded in other forms around the country. On the University of Illinois campus in Champaign-Urbana, IVAW members and civilian antiwar organizers publicly mounted a large display board that counted Army suicides during the past year, with 334 bold tally marks. The striking art drew veterans, students (including Iraqi-Americans), professors, and workers into conversations with the organizers.

“It felt like an important presence to have because there were so many pro-military groups, including the military themselves, who were there using the day to drum up support for the wars. We effectively inserted a different understanding of what it means to support the troops, which is to bring them home,” said Sarah Lazare from the Civilian-Soldier Alliance that helped organize the event.

In San Francisco, 50 people -- from a range of veterans' and civilian organizations -- gathered to launch Operation Recovery on the West Coast. IVAW members traveled from four states across the West. Leaders visited from Coffee Strong, the G.I. Coffeehouse at Ft. Lewis, Washington, that provides critical support and community to questioning soldiers.

IVAW members explained the campaign and discussed local strategy with people from over 15 organizations and at least five cities. Thursday's event built on the momentum of the previous Sunday's annual Veterans Day march in San Francisco. This year kicked off a multi-year set of healing ceremonies and events led by veteran and non-veteran members of the Ohlone Nation, working alongside Veterans for Peace.


Veterans breaking the silence

The November elections revealed a striking wall of silence around war as a campaign issue. Politicians across the spectrum seem to be finding it expedient to keep people from thinking about or discussing the wars. At the same time mainstream coverage of PTSD and other health issues for veterans has increased.

The various forms of violence that people experience in the military -- and how bringing the war home effects them -- have long been taboo subjects in this country. But veterans and their loved ones are refusing to stay quiet about these important issues. And the increasing visibility of this campaign is not only raising public awareness, but it is also helping to break through the isolation that so often effects traumatized servicemembers and their families.

“We're excited to help Jeff get the help he needs, but this is not over. We intend to hold the people responsible for this accountable,” says Chantelle Bateman, a field organizer with Iraq Veterans Against the War who accompanied Spc. Hanks into Ft. Campbell as he surrendered himself.


Nobody is a bystander

This moment calls for the mass participation of veterans, their families and friends, and everyone who is looking for ways to actively reclaim this country from war. Operation Recovery offers concrete and powerful ways to involve a real grassroots movement in turning the tide. IVAW encourages veterans and their communities to contact them directly. The rest of us have a number of ways to support war resisters who are pushing back from inside the military.

Here are some ways to get involved:

• Sign the Pledge and learn more about IVAW's work and the campaign.
• Support Operation Recovery and Spc. Jeff Hanks financially.
• Raise funds through raising awareness in your own circles, and bringing your community into the loop: Hold a house party for Operation Recovery (contact IVAW field organizer Joe Callan at zkjcallan@ivaw.org).
• Write a supportive letter to Spc. Jeff Hanks and his family, as his wife Christina has requested. Even a quick note makes a difference. Email to: CMH1more30@yahoo.com.
• Help us build networks of skilled people who can provide health services and other basic needs to support veterans transitioning to civilian life. The campaign team is plugging in lawyers, therapists, doctors, acupuncturists, and others who are donating their talents to this cause.

It's time to turn away from war and towards healing and rebuilding.

[Clare Bayard organizes with the Catalyst Project and War Resisters League, building a G.I. resistance movement that challenges U.S. empire, and connecting domestic racial and economic justice organizing with international movements against militarism.]

• Those in the Austin area can also support Under the Hood, the GI Coffeehouse at Ft. Hood in Killeen.

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Clare Bayard : Soldiers Charge Troops Unprepared for Deployment

Troops in Afghanistan: How prepared are they? Photo by Brennan Linsley /AP.
Army Weak:
Reserve members facing deployment
Charge their company not fit for battle

By Clare Bayard / The Rag Blog / August 12, 2010

See 'A call to action at Fort Hood,' Below.

Army Reserve members facing imminent deployment to Afghanistan are publicly charging that their company is not properly trained or mentally fit for battle. Several members of the Indiana-based 656th Transportation Company, which is due to activate August 22nd, are requesting a Congressional inquiry into the unit’s lack of readiness. Alejandro Villatoro, a sergeant in the company, is amongst those coming forward.

Sergeant Villatoro says,

The main reason I am doing this is that I want people to know the lack of training and education our soldier have been receiving, and the focus on the mission is just not adequate to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. All I am asking is more time to reevaluate the training and mental health of these soldiers before sending them into war.

At risk to themselves, these soldiers are going public with first hand experiences of failures in military training, mental health care, and leadership, which many veterans charge are problems endemic to the military. This comes as the Afghanistan War falls under increased scrutiny in the wake of the Wikileaked “War Logs” information.

Untrained and unsupported

Three members of this company, Sgt. Villatoro and two reservists who wish to remain anonymous (referred to here as Private First Class A and Specialist B), have come forward to expose a crisis.

They tell of inadequate mental health care, scant and inappropriate training, and incompetent leadership distrusted by the rank and file.

Troops set to deploy to Afghanistan are given only a rudimentary briefing on Iraq -- not Afghanistan. This transportation company has not even been trained on the vehicles and weapons their assignment depends upon, according to these servicemembers. Some mentally ill soldiers are able to keep their diagnoses secret from the military, which is not screening before deployment, while those with known mental illnesses are deployed regardless.

The 656th has been assigned to convoy security operations in Afghanistan. Yet, only 10% of its soldiers qualified on the .50 caliber guns that will be their primary weapon. Most have not learned to operate the heavy Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAPs) vehicles they will be driving in Afghanistan, and Villatoro fears a repeat of his experience invading Iraq in 2003, with gun truck drivers who had never learned to drive a stick shift.

The company's mandatory trainings have been cut from the required 40 hours down to two-hour PowerPoint presentations. Officers told the soldiers that funding cuts were the reason that their recent two-week training at Indiana's Camp Atterbury, scheduled to be run by a privately contracted company, was reduced to some hastily improvised sessions with almost none of the equipment necessary for training.

“We're part-time soldiers, we only train once a month, and when we do actually have trainings that are supposed to last any significant amount of time, we don't do anything that seems useful.” says Private A, a 21 year-old reservist.

Training inadequacies go beyond the issue of equipment. According to Private A,

Most of the things we're being taught are being applied specifically from Iraq and from Iraq vets. Afghanistan is a whole different ballgame. The only thing that's the same is IEDs [improvised explosive devices]. The language, the landscape, the situation... everything is different

While U.S. and European diplomats have recently admitted they are floundering in the immensely complex social and political landscape of Afghanistan, Private A describes the level of preparation his company was offered: a single cultural awareness class focused, again, on Iraq rather than Afghanistan.

Everything they mentioned pertained to Iraq, so people were asking, "Well, in Afghanistan, what's this like?" And they'd say, well, we can't really tell you. Or just make up facts. It's not making me feel any more comfortable about my first time deploying.

'I fear that my chain of command will fail me'

The company has experienced numerous changes in leadership, including the transfer of their first sergeant after the disastrous Camp Atterbury training, where morale plummeted to a new low and one servicemember attempted suicide. Months of changing leadership have created insecurity and instability for members of the company, who have not had time to train together or build trust with the leadership they'll be serving under in Afghanistan.

Even some top military brass acknowledge that poor mental health in the ranks is compounded by failures of leadership. Suicide is at “crisis level” in the military, declared Navy Adm. Mike Mullen in an August 2nd speech to the National Guard Family Program Volunteer Workshop in New Orleans. Mullen said, “A big part of the solution is tied to leadership and how we do the training.”

"Without stable enlisted leadership, unit commanders are unable to properly assess the training, mental health, and personal needs of their troops or effectively implement their training plans. This leaves soldiers vulnerable to inadequate training and pre-deployment preparation which could lead to disastrous outcomes on the battlefield.” wrote Iraq War veteran Aaron Hughes, in a July letter on behalf of the 656th arguing to delay deployment.

Specialist B, a 20 year-old from Indiana, says

I would like to believe that I'm fully prepared to go to war, but that is just not the case. I don't know what my mission will be, I feel as if I have to defend my very close battle buddies and not my chain of command. I fear that my chain of command will fail me in the ultimate end and as a result my life will be on the line, or one of my buddies' lives will pay the price for the lack of leadership.

Willful negligence?

Two weeks out from their activation date, Sgt Villatoro explains “It's just not possible to be sufficiently trained in this time frame, let alone broadly enough for not knowing what our mission will be.”

“It just doesn't make sense. And it's dangerous. I just don't understand why they'd put us in that much danger, to the point where it doesn't make sense cause we're unprepared for anything.” says Private A.

Clearly, the 656th cannot be prepared to successfully complete a mission it has not been trained for. But the question of inadequate training cannot be divorced from context. In every branch of the military, service members continue to question the legitimacy of the mission, and whether they can in good conscience participate in these projects.

Sgt. Villatoro says,

That's the part I struggle with, that we don't have to do this. It's kind of hard to convince a soldier that they do have a choice. That the mission we were given, we believe it's not effective.

Sit down and look at the effectiveness of trying to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. Sending 30,000 more soldiers with weapons doesn't make sense to me. We don't know anything about the culture, diplomacy; they train us on how to conduct traffic checkpoints.

These servicemembers also express concern about the effects on the Afghan people of deploying unprepared soldiers, untrained on their weaponry and equipment, and many in need of mental health support.

Sgt. Villatoro says:

What I'm afraid is that the rules of engagement might go out the window. That's what happened when I went [to Iraq], they told us that as soon as you feel threatened you're able to shoot. I'm afraid soldiers are going to forget the rules of engagement, go by their emotions, their anger and frustration, and take matters into their own hands.

Unfit for deployment

Lack of training on guns and vehicles makes soldiers a danger to themselves as well as others. The 656th will be operating top-heavy MRAP vehicles on Afghanistan's difficult terrain, without having practiced driving these rollover-prone trucks even on Indiana's flat roads.

“Whether we run off the road and kill somebody, or it's somebody who snaps... If you don't get mental help, that's what is probably going to happen. And when you don't have prepared soldiers, you're going to have accidents.” says Private. A.

Many soldiers diagnosed with a mental illness by a civilian doctor don't report their diagnosis to the Army. They fear that they will be either immediately discharged, or deployed without treatment and possibly barred from carrying weapons. Private A was diagnosed as bipolar 3 years ago and has kept this information secret.

“Mental health screening is a little embarrassing on the Army's part -- the fact that they haven't done it,” says Private A. “There are several people here who I know of including myself with a diagnosed mental illness and the Army hasn't caught it or done anything about it.”

During the Camp Atterbury training, a young servicemember slit his wrists with a number of others present. The military's minimal response didn't include mental health screening for the witnesses, the friends who intervened in the suicide attempt, or other company members shaken by the incident. Villatoro explains that the only mental health screening offered to this unit has been an anonymous online survey.

“The lack of screening could be a good thing to keep our numbers up as a unit,” says Private A, who has learned to manage his stability without medication over the last two years, after losing health insurance. “But God forbid something happens to those people or for some reason they can't get medication over there. That could be the last time they see home. Any of those people could turn a gun on us or themselves.”

The experiences of these servicemembers reflect the escalating mental health crisis in the military, with rising deployments and redeployments of soldiers suffering from trauma, mental illnesses, and physical wounds. A third of troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan report mental problems, according to a study by the RAND corporation. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), military sexual assault (MST), depression, and anxiety disorders have carved holes in the ranks.

Army suicide attempts peaked this past June. The Army reports that in the last year, 239 soldiers killed themselves, (including 160 on active duty) and 1,713 people attempted suicide. Studies that include veterans in their statistics show even more horrifying numbers, like a CBS News study of state-by-state data in 2007 that revealed about 120 veteran suicides a week. The military does not acknowledge responsibility for many post-service suicides by veterans, who are two to four times more likely to commit suicide than civilians of the same age.

“It's not enough for Obama to say that it's not weak to ask for help, “ says Maggie Martin, an organizer with Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) who works on issues of stopping deployment of soldiers with trauma and mental health needs. “We have to create a community where people know that. What the 656th is doing, in trying to delay the deployment and call attention to these issues -- that is really important in helping soldiers know that they have to stand up for themselves and let people know what's happening,”

Sgt. Alejandro Villatoro. Photo from Facebook.
Soldiers fill the leadership gap

Alejandro Villatoro enlisted as a high school senior in 2000 for economic reasons. Six months ago, he told his command he was applying for conscientious objector status. He avoided thinking about his participation in the invasion of Iraq in 2003 until entering non-commissioned officer training three years later.

As a leader, I wanted to take initiative and learn more about the war... It took me about two years to learn and decide what we were doing was ineffective and immoral.

When Sgt. Villatoro learned that his unit was slated to deploy to Afghanistan this fall, he decided to drop the conscientious objector application to go through deployment with his soldiers. “I wanted to be with them to educate them about the wars, what's worth fighting for, what it really is to be a soldier.”

“They know my situation, that I wanted to get out and am only doing this for them” says Sgt. Villatoro. In conversations with soldiers in his unit, Villatoro found that many soldiers shared these concerns, and some felt ready to risk speaking out. Even more have indicated their agreement through informal surveys made by Villatoro, but stay quiet for fear of retribution.

Specialist B says “I have too many concerns with the 656th deploying to Afghanistan,” echoing the basic sentiment of many others in the company. Private A says “If we can't even get little stuff like trainings scheduled, how are we supposed to nail down a complex mission in Afghanistan?”

Others appear comfortable or even enthusiastic about deployment. Villatoro says, “There's a lack of knowledge; the motivation is money or medals, coming back with ribbons and hoping to have war stories. It's not about the Afghan people, or thinking this will end the war. They don't think that's going to happen.”

“You have a bunch of people who want to go just for the experience and for the money. I think that a lot of it is the money. That's the only thing that's keeping me from saying OK, thanks and goodbye; there's not a lot of jobs out there.” says Private A, who is from a small farming town and enlisted at 17.

The only thing that's making me go is that I need the money. When I get back, I want to start school again and didn't have money to do that before. That's essentially the only thing that's keeping me there.

Sgt. Villatoro says he feels a sense of responsibility to help younger soldiers to recognize where they may need more experience to understand of their own lack of preparation.

You can ask some of these soldiers if they're satisfied with the training so far, and they'll say yes. But you ask, Is it sufficient for you to conduct a mission in Afghanistan? That's where the confusion sets in.

After his own experiences in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Sgt. Villatoro names a key fear of sending out young, unprepared soldiers, many on their first deployment, without clarity about what they are expected to do and how they're going to survive.

“As a young soldier, there's a lot of insecurity,” he says. “You're scared, you're not going to remember the rules of engagement or what you're supposed to do. You just want to get through the firefight.”

Private A sums it up: “It just doesn't make sense to send an unprepared soldier into battle. It's like brushing your teeth without toothpaste.”

Fending for themselves

After his command denied him an audience (and declined to comment for this article), Sgt. Villatoro and an increasing number of servicemembers from the 656th are looking to elected officials for assistance. Villatoro visited the office of Chicago's Rep. Luis Gutierrez to underline the need for soldiers to be properly trained and mentally fit before deploying; Gutierrez has acknowledged the severity of these concerns and is taking the matter under advisement. Sgt. Villatoro was accompanied by allies including veterans of the Navy, Marines, Army and Illinois National Guard, representing service in Vietnam, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

Sgt Villatoro and several soldiers from his unit met last week to discuss the matter with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois), an advocate for mental health care for soldiers and veterans. Durbin's office offered to forward a letter from Sgt Villatoro to the military liason in Congress. Yesterday, Sgt. Villatoro filed an official request with his office to open a Congressional inquiry into the 656th's unfitness for deployment.

With only a couple weeks left before their activation date, these soldiers are taking multiple courses of action to address this situation. On why he decided to speak out, Private A says, “I just want future soldiers to realize you have to take this stuff into your own hands.”

More and more soldiers are stepping up to join Sgt. Villatoro in speaking up about the concealed chaos of the 656th. Their perspectives, politics, and hopes span a wide range; they unify behind lack of faith in their company's preparation and leadership, and a common belief that the Afghanistan war is only getting worse.

An unwinnable mission

“I ask soldiers: what do you hope, do you really think this last push will end this war? A lot of them say no, because they know they're not there to help the Afghan people.” says Sgt. Villatoro.

Private A says,

No, absolutely not. There's no reason we're even there. I'm going overseas to fight people where I have no idea that they did anything wrong. We're not even fighting al-Qaeda, we're just over there picking a fight, driving around and seeing who shoots at us, then shooting them. I don't even understand the reason we're over there.

“The mission as a whole in Afghanistan has lost its purpose,” says Specialist B. “The government can say whatever and do whatever and get away with it, with very little justice to the American people.”

Over 150 soldiers have publicly refused orders or deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan. There is precedent for a unit to successfully delay its deployment, as another National Guard unit and family members managed to do in 2007. Servicemembers, families, allies, and groups like Iraq Veterans Against the War organize resistance both publicly and under the radar.

The Under the Hood G.I. Coffeehouse in Killeen, Texas held a march to publicize opposition to the deployment of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment (3rd ACR) from Fort Hood, scheduled for August. Soldiers, military families and civilian organizers demanded an end to the occupations, cancellation of this deployment, and for an end to the 3rd ACR's policy of deploying traumatized soldiers.

"There is a strong history in this country of G.I.s taking a stand, confronting and exposing unjust and illegal military practices,” says Sarah Lazare, an Illinois-based organizer with the Civilian-Soldier Alliance, a group of non-veterans supporting and collaborating with servicemembers and veterans who resist orders and wars they view as unjust and illegal.

By courageously speaking out about the problems with their unit, soldiers in the 656th are strengthening the movement of servicemembers taking stands of conscience against military actions they oppose.

Despite his principled objection to the Afghanistan War, Sgt. Villatoro is prepared to deploy with the soldiers in his charge if they are unable to delay the 656th's activation.

I ask myself why I feel so responsible. I put a lot of blame on myself because of mistakes I made as a young naïve soldier, and I don't want to do it again or see other young soldiers make those mistakes.

Sgt. Villatoro says, “This war has never ended for me. I feel bad a lot about the soldiers, how they keep re-enlisting. My war, my fight will never end until every soldier is home.”

Call to action at Fort Hood

This is a nation-wide call to action! Come to Fort Hood, Texas, Aug. 22 to participate in peaceful actions with veterans and anti-war leaders opposing the deployment of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment’s 5,000 Soldiers to Iraq...

Despite President Obama’s fallacious claims that the war in Iraq is winding down, the 3rd ACR is gearing up for yet another deployment! Furthermore, many Soldiers facing deployment are known to be unfit for combat due to injuries sustained in prior tours. The Peace Movement must not let this stand!...

This will be a RADICAL demonstration, with optional direct action elements and possible legal implications. While all are welcome to participate at whatever level they are comfortable, we value greatly those willing to put their bodies on the line...

Our message is that wounded warriors should never be forced to deploy. Our message is that the people of Iraq should not suffer at the hands of American troops. We will make this message clear with our voices, wills and bodies. We welcome our brothers and sisters from any social justice movement and their chosen messages of solidarity. We stand united as citizens of the world opposed to U.S. Empire.

We invite all who plan to participate to attend a brief planning meeting Aug. 21st at 5 p.m. We will be discussing plans for the following day’s actions, as well eating, drinking and enjoying each others’ company, before rallying at Fort Hood the following day.

Contact us now at forthooddisobeys@hushmail.com to RSVP, learn the location of the Aug. 21st meeting and stay up to date as more becomes available. Please send us your name, contact information and a brief bio of you as an activist, and we will be in touch. We are moving forward rapidly and look forward to welcoming you to beautiful Killeen, Texas!

In Solidarity,

The Disobedient

The Rag Blog

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Memorial Day in Texas : Farewell to Nick Travis and Lisa Morris

Nick Travis at the opening of the Under the Hood Café in Killeen, Texas. Photo by Carlos Lowry / The Rag Blog.
Memorial Day:
Texas peace movement
Looses two great friends

By Alice Embree / The Rag Blog / June 6, 2010

Memorial Day 2010 was a day to remember two friends who were mainstays of the Texas peace community. Nick Travis III, 55, passed away suddenly early Monday morning, May 24, in Austin. Lisa Morris, 28, passed away unexpectedly the next day in Copperas Cove.

Nick was a founding member of Instruments for Peace, an organizer along with Richard Bowden, of the annual Million Musicians March for Peace. He was a sustaining member of the Crawford Peace House and a Camp Casey regular. Nick and his wife, Melissa Garner, worked together to rebuild houses in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. They were also supporters of Under the Hood Café in Killeen, Texas, a pro-soldier, anti-war space for soldiers and their families, situated less than one mile from Fort Hood, the largest military base in the United States.

Lisa Morris, at the east gate of Fort Hood. Photo by Heidi Turpin / The Rag Blog.
Lisa Morris was an Under the Hood regular. A graduate of Rockford High School in Michigan, Lisa enlisted in the Army and was deployed to Iraq. She was present during the fierce fighting at Sadr City in 2004 when Tomas Young, subject of the documentary Body of War, was paralyzed. The fighting at Sadr City also took the life of Casey Sheehan, peace activist Cindy Sheehan’s son. Lisa was wounded later at Sadr City. She received a Purple Heart.

Lisa was part of the Under the Hood family. After her discharge, she stayed in the Killeen area, buying a home in Copperas Cove where she was known for her barbequing skills, and was beloved by neighborhood children and adored by all cats and dogs that crossed her path. Like many of the soldiers at Under the Hood, Lisa suffered with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Days before her death she had been hospitalized for an infection. She died in her sleep at home.

Nick was a musician for 30 years in the Austin area, a bassist performing with Natalie Zoe, The Vanguards, Guy Forsyth, the Paul LeMond Band, and Leeann Atherton. In recent years, he accompanied Miss Lavelle White, John Gaar and the Hopeful Soul, and Julieann Banks. Nick was also an actor, appearing in films and commercials and as a body double for Billy Bob Thornton in “Friday Night Lights.”

With his wide grin and big heart, Nick was always there for the benefits and the marches, getting the stage set up at Camp Casey or City Hall. He would serve as the emcee for the Million Musicians Marches and Instrument for Peace gatherings. More than 150 musicians and friends celebrated his life on Memorial Day at Leeann Atherton's Barn Dance site in Austin. One peace activist there said, “I feel like one side of the tent has fallen.”

Lisa’s life had only begun to take an activist turn after Iraq. She was a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War. For her Under the Hood family, her loss was devastating. At the memorial for Lisa in Killeen, a neighbor sported a fresh tattoo -- a fitting permanent tribute to Lisa whose arms were covered with ink. The tattoo shows “America’s High Five,” a map of Michigan in plaid, and carries these words below the map: “R.I.P Lisa Morris, June 9, 1981 – May 25, 2010.”

In the ninth year of the war in Afghanistan, there are now a thousand U.S. dead. There are uncounted civilian deaths. Drone attacks and ambushes on celebrations occasionally make the news. Injured soldiers like Lisa return from the continuous waves of deployment with physical and psychological wounds.

The peace community must honor the lives of Nick Travis III and Lisa Morris. Then, in their memories, renew every effort to stop these endless wars before they morph across more borders and more decades. As Joe Hill urged before his death, “Don’t mourn, organize.”

[Long-time Austin activist Alice Embree is a contributing editor to The Rag Blog and a member of the board of the New Journalism Project.]

The Rag Blog

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Eric Jasinski : Treating PTSD With Jail Time

Spc. Eric Jasinski.
Went AWOL seeking help for PTSD:
Eric Jasinski released from Texas jail

By Alice Embree / The Rag Blog / April 23, 2010

Eric Jasinski is being released from the Bell County Jail in Belton, Texas, tomorrow morning, April 24. He will have served 25 days of a 30-day sentence.

Jasinski, 23, who is a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, went AWOL in 2009 to seek help for his PTSD. His story was reported on by Dahr Jamail in The Rag Blog.

Eric Jasinski enlisted in the Army in 2005, and deployed to Iraq in October 2006 as an intelligence analyst. He collected intelligence used to direct air strikes. After his return to the U.S., Jasinski suffered from severe PTSD resulting from what he did and saw in Iraq. He felt remorse and guilt for the way he contributed to loss of life. He went through a divorce and had friends killed and maimed in combat.

He tried to get treatment for PTSD and finish out his military contract. “In late 2008,” Jasinski said, ”they stop-lossed me [an involuntary extension of contract], and that pushed me over the edge. They were going to send me back to Iraq.” Jasinski went AWOL until December 11, 2009, when he turned himself in to authorities at Fort Hood.

The Army scheduled a Summary Court Martial for March 31. Jasinski was sentenced to 30 days in the Bell County Jail. Laura Barrett, Jasinski’s mother, told the Temple Herald Telegram, “This has been a total outrage. I cannot believe my son who is diagnosed with PTSD from his deployment to Iraq would be sent to jail.”

James Branum, Jasinski’s civilian defense attorney, submitted a clemency request asking that Jasinski be released on mental health grounds or transferred to the psych ward at Darnall Army Medical Center to complete his sentence. The Army did not respond. With Jasinki’s permission, Branum shared a letter written from the Bell County Jail by Jasinski.

Branum said, “We, as Americans, need to see how combat vets are treated today. Eric is in jail because he has PTSD and was denied the care he needed. His 'desertion' was an act of desperation, the act of a soldier who had no other options.”

Here is part of what Eric Jasinski wrote from the Bell County Jail in Belton, Texas. We publish it as he wrote it:

When I am taken out of jail back to Fort Hood for any appointments I am led around in handcuffs and ankle shackles in front of crowds of soldiers… which is overwhelming on my mind. My guilt from treating prisoners in Iraq sub-human and I did things to them and watched my unit do cruel actions against prisoners, so being humiliated like that forces me to fall into the dark spiral of guilt. I now know what it feels like to have no rights and have people stare and judge based on your shackles and I feel even more like a monster cause I used to do this to Iraqi people.

Even worse is the fact that this boils down to the military failing to treat my PTSD but I am being punished for it… I feel as if I am being a threat to others or myself and still the Army mental health professional blow me off just like in 2009 when I felt like I had no choice but to go AWOL, since I received a 5 minute mental evaluation and was stop-lossed despite my PTSD, and was told that they could do nothing for me. The insufficient mental evaluation from a doctor I had never seen before, combined with the insufficient actions by the doctor on 9 April show the Army is not trying to make progress…

I have tried to "do the right thing" as those in the Army say and all they do in return is destroy me even more mentally and publicly say that they are going to look out for me while behind closed doors the exact opposite is happening… I have been tossed in the trash just like the brave and honorable resisters of Vietnam. The machine never stops and it never changes.

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