Vets Form Backbone of ‘Occupy DC’ Protest: Or do They?
November 08, 2011
Military.com|by Bryant Jordan
Former servicemembers don't just make up part of Washington's population of "Occupy Wall Street" protestors -- by one measure, they make up fully half.
Veterans established one of the city's two main encampments, and it's clear from the neat layout of tents there was military planning behind it. A large white tent is clearly marked for first aid. There's also a mess tent where people can get chow, and the concrete path that runs like a main street down the center of the camp is totally clear.
"Veterans for Peace are the organizers, and we're a little older," said Bill Miniutti, a former Marine artilleryman and Vietnam veteran. He came up from Jacksonville, Fla., for the protest in early October, but the origins of the Vets for Peace camp go back even further. "They were actually working on this since March, way before [Occupy] Wall Street."
"We actually have port-o-potties -- and us old men need that," he quipped.
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Showing posts with label Veterans for Peace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Veterans for Peace. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Monday, September 22, 2008
Veterans For Peace convention explores military suicide "epidemic"
Veterans For Peace convention explores military suicide "epidemic"
By Kathlyn Stone , TC Daily Planet
September 21, 2008
Penny Coleman wishes people would stop thinking of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in combat veterans as a mental disorder. “It’s not a disorder, it’s an injury,” says Coleman flatly.
Coleman led a workshop on PTSD and suicide prevention at the Veterans For Peace national convention held in Minneapolis the last week of August. About 20 Vietnam veterans, an Iraq war veteran, and two family members who each lost a sibling (one to suicide following her service in Vietnam and one in combat) shared what works and what doesn’t in treating PTSD in soldiers. What’s clear is that from Minnesota to Alabama to Colorado and Maine, VFP members devote time to helping their fellow veterans cope with combat-related trauma. “Working with other vets is the most healing thing you can do,” said one.
Coleman was introduced to PTSD through Daniel, whom she married shortly after he returned from Vietnam in 1969. PTSD often appears some years after exposure to trauma and may not manifest until 10 or more years have passed. Coleman said she didn’t know how to help him as she watched him disintegrate from the injury to his soul during his tour in Vietnam. His injury would not heal, in fact, it morphed and divided into new illnesses including depression, anger and addictions. After several attempts, Daniel killed himself.
A writer and photographer who lives in New York, Coleman said it took her a couple decades to realize that she, too, was injured by the experience.
“I couldn’t get him to be present with me,” she said, and she blamed herself at the time for not being able to “fix” him. She found healing by immersing herself in researching “combat fatigue,” “shell shock, ” “post-Vietnam disorder,” and other terms used in other wars and by interviewing vets and family members. While documenting the impact of PTSD she became an advocate for veterans and family members suffering the effects of combat-related trauma. In her 2006 book Flashback: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Suicide, and the Lessons of War, she describes the history of PTSD and its psychological and physical toll.
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By Kathlyn Stone , TC Daily Planet
September 21, 2008
Penny Coleman wishes people would stop thinking of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in combat veterans as a mental disorder. “It’s not a disorder, it’s an injury,” says Coleman flatly.
Coleman led a workshop on PTSD and suicide prevention at the Veterans For Peace national convention held in Minneapolis the last week of August. About 20 Vietnam veterans, an Iraq war veteran, and two family members who each lost a sibling (one to suicide following her service in Vietnam and one in combat) shared what works and what doesn’t in treating PTSD in soldiers. What’s clear is that from Minnesota to Alabama to Colorado and Maine, VFP members devote time to helping their fellow veterans cope with combat-related trauma. “Working with other vets is the most healing thing you can do,” said one.
Coleman was introduced to PTSD through Daniel, whom she married shortly after he returned from Vietnam in 1969. PTSD often appears some years after exposure to trauma and may not manifest until 10 or more years have passed. Coleman said she didn’t know how to help him as she watched him disintegrate from the injury to his soul during his tour in Vietnam. His injury would not heal, in fact, it morphed and divided into new illnesses including depression, anger and addictions. After several attempts, Daniel killed himself.
A writer and photographer who lives in New York, Coleman said it took her a couple decades to realize that she, too, was injured by the experience.
“I couldn’t get him to be present with me,” she said, and she blamed herself at the time for not being able to “fix” him. She found healing by immersing herself in researching “combat fatigue,” “shell shock, ” “post-Vietnam disorder,” and other terms used in other wars and by interviewing vets and family members. While documenting the impact of PTSD she became an advocate for veterans and family members suffering the effects of combat-related trauma. In her 2006 book Flashback: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Suicide, and the Lessons of War, she describes the history of PTSD and its psychological and physical toll.
click post title for more
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Anti-war veterans group banned from Bremerton parade
Anti-war veterans group banned from Bremerton parade
06:24 PM PDT on Tuesday, May 13, 2008
By ALLEN SCHAUFFLER / KING 5 News
BREMERTON, Wash. - They're expecting good weather and big crowds in Bremerton this weekend for the annual Armed Forces Day Parade.
This year organizers expect two dozen bands, 165 entries and nearly 6,000 people on parade.
If the weather heats up, it could draw 40,000 spectators
But one veterans group says they're not invited. The North Olympic Peninsula Veterans for Peace say they're being kept out of the parade this year because of their anti-war stance.
The anti-war group marched last year. This year the Chamber of Commerce sent them a rejection letter.
David Jenkins, who served four years in the Navy, says they have no interest in causing problems on parade day.
"We believe sincerely that we need to find peaceful solutions to all international problems, national problems, local problems," Jenkins said.
The North Olympic Peninsula Veterans for Peace say they're being kept out of the Bremerton Armed Forces Day Parade because of their anti-war stance.
But organizers say the group is too political and that's not what the parade is about.
"This is not set up for politics," said Cris Larsen, chairman of the Armed Forces Festival.
"Veterans groups are allowed to march and walk, it's the whole idea of the parade was set up 60 years ago to honor all those brave men and women who have served in our armed forces."
Jenkins says his group will be there and be visible Saturday even if they don't march.
Larsen says he'd be glad to sit down and talk and see if they can work out some kind of compromise.
So in this particular battle, maybe there is a chance for peace.
http://www.king5.com/localnews/stories/NW_051308WAB_vets_parade_KS.f9c71fa6.html
In this case I have to agree. This is the Armed Forces Day Parade and should be one day to unite as all members of the Armed Forces.
06:24 PM PDT on Tuesday, May 13, 2008
By ALLEN SCHAUFFLER / KING 5 News
BREMERTON, Wash. - They're expecting good weather and big crowds in Bremerton this weekend for the annual Armed Forces Day Parade.
This year organizers expect two dozen bands, 165 entries and nearly 6,000 people on parade.
If the weather heats up, it could draw 40,000 spectators
But one veterans group says they're not invited. The North Olympic Peninsula Veterans for Peace say they're being kept out of the parade this year because of their anti-war stance.
The anti-war group marched last year. This year the Chamber of Commerce sent them a rejection letter.
David Jenkins, who served four years in the Navy, says they have no interest in causing problems on parade day.
"We believe sincerely that we need to find peaceful solutions to all international problems, national problems, local problems," Jenkins said.
The North Olympic Peninsula Veterans for Peace say they're being kept out of the Bremerton Armed Forces Day Parade because of their anti-war stance.
But organizers say the group is too political and that's not what the parade is about.
"This is not set up for politics," said Cris Larsen, chairman of the Armed Forces Festival.
"Veterans groups are allowed to march and walk, it's the whole idea of the parade was set up 60 years ago to honor all those brave men and women who have served in our armed forces."
Jenkins says his group will be there and be visible Saturday even if they don't march.
Larsen says he'd be glad to sit down and talk and see if they can work out some kind of compromise.
So in this particular battle, maybe there is a chance for peace.
http://www.king5.com/localnews/stories/NW_051308WAB_vets_parade_KS.f9c71fa6.html
In this case I have to agree. This is the Armed Forces Day Parade and should be one day to unite as all members of the Armed Forces.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Veterans Voices Casualty of war
Casualty of war
By Kevin Cullen
Globe Columnist / March 6, 2008
There was a time, back in the 1950s, when they were in the Navy together, that Tony Flaherty and Wacko Hurley were the best of friends.
When they got back to South Boston, the place where they were born and where they remain, they drank together at the old Chiefs club, a sailors' hangout on Summer Street.
When Flaherty got married at St. Augustine's, Hurley stood at the altar with him, his best man. When Flaherty's first child was born, Hurley was godfather.
But something happened. Wacko Hurley went back to civilian life. Tony Flaherty, a career Navy man, went off to war, this time in Vietnam, and he came back a changed man. One day, he was walking down a dirt road, as a gaggle of Vietnamese kids straggled by, fleeing a village destroyed by American fire.
"One of the kids, a boy, had lost a leg," Tony Flaherty was saying, sitting in his apartment on East Broadway. "I had an epiphany that day."
Flaherty, a military man his entire adult life, had become suddenly, implacably opposed to war. Not long after, they airlifted him out of Nam. He left the Navy with the rank of lieutenant and something called post traumatic stress disorder. "I went cuckoo," he said.
He came back to Southie and tried to pick up the pieces. But he kept picking up a bottle. Eventually he got sober and with a clear head became even more opposed to war, more convinced of its folly, furious over the fact that the sons and daughters of the rich and powerful mostly stayed home while others fight the wars started by the rich and powerful. He worked for a program that got veterans housing and help for substance-abuse problems.
He joined a national organization called Veterans for Peace and, closer to home, a group called South Boston Residents for Peace. Five years ago, as US forces prepared to invade Iraq, Flaherty and his friends asked to march in the St. Patrick's Day parade in Southie. He found himself seeking the permission of his old pal Wacko Hurley, the longtime parade organizer.
Wacko told them to get lost.
"He called us commies," Flaherty said.
go here for the rest
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/03/06/casualty_of_war/
By Kevin Cullen
Globe Columnist / March 6, 2008
There was a time, back in the 1950s, when they were in the Navy together, that Tony Flaherty and Wacko Hurley were the best of friends.
When they got back to South Boston, the place where they were born and where they remain, they drank together at the old Chiefs club, a sailors' hangout on Summer Street.
When Flaherty got married at St. Augustine's, Hurley stood at the altar with him, his best man. When Flaherty's first child was born, Hurley was godfather.
But something happened. Wacko Hurley went back to civilian life. Tony Flaherty, a career Navy man, went off to war, this time in Vietnam, and he came back a changed man. One day, he was walking down a dirt road, as a gaggle of Vietnamese kids straggled by, fleeing a village destroyed by American fire.
"One of the kids, a boy, had lost a leg," Tony Flaherty was saying, sitting in his apartment on East Broadway. "I had an epiphany that day."
Flaherty, a military man his entire adult life, had become suddenly, implacably opposed to war. Not long after, they airlifted him out of Nam. He left the Navy with the rank of lieutenant and something called post traumatic stress disorder. "I went cuckoo," he said.
He came back to Southie and tried to pick up the pieces. But he kept picking up a bottle. Eventually he got sober and with a clear head became even more opposed to war, more convinced of its folly, furious over the fact that the sons and daughters of the rich and powerful mostly stayed home while others fight the wars started by the rich and powerful. He worked for a program that got veterans housing and help for substance-abuse problems.
He joined a national organization called Veterans for Peace and, closer to home, a group called South Boston Residents for Peace. Five years ago, as US forces prepared to invade Iraq, Flaherty and his friends asked to march in the St. Patrick's Day parade in Southie. He found himself seeking the permission of his old pal Wacko Hurley, the longtime parade organizer.
Wacko told them to get lost.
"He called us commies," Flaherty said.
go here for the rest
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/03/06/casualty_of_war/
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