Supporting Our Soldiers

Once upon a time I joined a list serve, founded by Code Pink, that was keeping folks abreast of anti-war organizing taking place around the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Once the invasions took place and the wars in full swing, the focus of the list serve changed to combating the use of unmanned drones that have made some egregious errors costing many civilians their lives. The focus switch of the list serve happened and folks weren't asked to opt in.

For the most part, I never read anything on the list over the last several years. Until this morning when an email caught my eye that said that all soldiers are cowards, followed up by an angry U.S. resident of Afghan descent that, when facing folks pushing back against the statement that all soldiers are cowards, said, "Enough with making excuses for soldiers aka guns-for-hire. ENOUGH!"

That pushed me over the edge. Here is my verbatim response:

Message flagged
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 8:13 AM
Can someone let me know how to remove myself from this list? The straight up ignorance around the poverty draft and other intentionally socially engineered policies that create real situations where many young people of color and rural poor whites see or actually have only the military as an option to escape cyclical poverty, the drug war, or urban violence is really too much. And it smacks of some serious unexamined privilege. Let's talk about the root causes of why the overwhelming majority of recruits join the service. It has nothing to do with privateering and patriotism, it has to do with a paycheck and a way out of wherever they came from. Those aren't excuses those are the reality of this capitalist corporate state. How about this, Fatima, you go into the hoods and counties where these children are drafted and cut them a check, pay for their education, give then a home, and remove them from the violence and poverty of the places you find them in. Support their families as well. Until you can do that while also eradicating the systemic oppression that created their circumstances, you are just as much a part of the problem as they end up being.

To denounce folks for taking what appears to be their only option to have a better life at the risk of their own lives, no matter how misguided the choice may have been, is an act of cowardice. Especially from behind a computer screen.

I am no fan of the military industrial complex. I do not believe in the United States' hegemonic neocolonialist policies. I despise the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the secret invasions that we stage all the time. But I also know that when my little brother and little sister joined the military it wasn't for some love of having to go to war against people that look like them. Neither did my Father or my Uncle or my Great-Uncle who fought in Korea and WWII. They joined because they felt it was the best option to get them to the place in life they wanted to be and whether from rural Minnesota or rural West Virginia, the options were limited. My great-great Uncle Lieutenant Colonel William Harrison Carey was a friend of Teddy Roosevelt's and rode with him during the colonization of Puerto Rico. Another relative of mine was with General Eisenhower in France and was the mapmaker that laid the literal plans and map of the D-Day invasion. Am I proud that one of my relatives participated in the colonization of Puerto Rico? No. Am I proud that another helped set the stage for the liberation of France and the fall of Hitler. Hell yes.

I support my family. My sister Shannon was named NCO Officer of the Year for the United States Army last year. My little brother has lost handfuls of friends to the war in Afghanistan and struggles with that on a regular basis. These are not mercenaries...these are my family. I may not support the military as an institution, but I support and love these human beings that have been my friends, allies, and loved me through some hard shit. I am proud of my family and the service they have given.

And anyone that calls them a coward to my face is likely to get my foot placed squarely in their ass. Check your fucking privilege...I am so done with arm chair activists hiding behind computer screens making broad declarations about shit they know nothing about.

Get up. Get out. And do the work necessary so that not a single one of our beloved family members and friends ever have to choose between poverty and violence and the risk of going to war in order to live a better life. Dismantle capitalism...erase racism....and abolish poverty....and then come talk to me about folks that join up. Until then. Shut the fuck up.

Risk and Death

One year ago today, I lost my cousin to leukemia. In less than three months, my little sister will be shipped back to Iraq for her fourth tour of duty. Last spring, I lost a friend and mentor, Mona Harris, to cancer. My little brother recently returned from Afghanistan, and with that war showing no signs of ending, it is almost a surety that he will also be sent back into harms way.

I am sick and tired of death and the risk of death.

At the age of 32, I should rarely have to think of death. If I do, it should come in the form of elders that have lived long and fulfilled lives, individuals that die surrounded by the people that love them knowing that they are loved.

How fucking naive is that statement.

Unfortunately, I know that because I am not white and most of the people around me are not white, they will die younger than they should. I know because I have had one family member die from cancer that now it is more likely that others will also pass along.

And then there is war.

When a country enters into a war it enters into a compact with death. It promises to the Reaper the certainty of soul collection in order to achieve some goal. Some wars are fought because they must be fought. Though the impetus for the United States to enter the Second World War had little to do with justice and everything to do with empire, entering World War II was just. Hitler was an evil man with evil ambitions that caused great and destructive harm.

No war since then that has been fought by the United States has been right or just, they have simply been the United States trying to protect or enforce a particular corporatized political ideology or protect our own selfish and self-destructive political and economic interests.

The rest of the world and the families that sacrifice their children on the altar of false patriotism be damned.

The death of my cousin and Mrs. Harris and the risk of death of my little brother and sister are connected.

We spend BILLIONS of dollars each month on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Forget Korea, forget Vietnam, forget the silent invasions of Grenada, Panama, Somalia and the first Gulf War. Just calculate the amount of money that we have spent in the last six years in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now imagine if even ten percent of that money had been spent on cancer research and treatment.

My cousin almost survived leukemia.

He had an experimental bone marrow transplant, and for months the doctors at the University of Illinois-Chicago were calling him the miracle guy. Except the cancer came back and took him down quickly.

Afterwards they examined the data and thought perhaps they had done the transplant to soon, too quickly, they hadn't given his own immune system enough time to resist the cancerous blood cells. What if they had been granted a billion dollars to do their research? One billion dollars is LESS than we spend on war in one month. YET imagine what it would mean to research labs across the country. A year ago, perhaps the researchers would have known what they WILL know five years from now. If only they had the staff, equipment, lab space, and materials to move forward. If ONLY Bush hadn't restricted stem cell research during his eight years in office. If only we cared more about preserving life than we did about preserving the bottom line of corporations and shareholder profits.

If only.

But we don't. Instead, I am sitting here nearly a year after my cousin's death. I am remembering that I couldn't afford to fly from California to Minnesota to be with my family. To this day the guilt of that sits in my stomach. I saw my Aunt in June for the first time since my cousins death. All I could think of was that I was my cousin's closest family member outside of his Mom, Dad, and two brothers. I WAS the cousin that made sure to see him when he was in the hospital. I was the cousin that his wife loved. I was the cousin that went to see him when he got back from Korea. I was his friend.

And there is a good chance that if we spent more on life than on death that he would still be alive today, and I would still get to see him at family reunions and on holidays. I would have gotten to be at his wedding, and I would, perhaps, be with him right now.

Instead I am wondering how his nephew, the son of his twin brother, will ever know how amazing his uncle was. Instead, I wonder if my Aunty Susie, a woman that treated me like one of her own children, a woman that I love and look up to, a woman that understood me when I didn't really understand myself...I wonder if she will ever be the same aunty that I have known and loved my entire life.

And all because of a stupid disease that we could cure, except that we are too busy spending our money on war. And I am too busy worrying if I am going to lose my brother and sister too soon as well.

My Brother Is My Keeper: A Soldier Speaks

My little brother Julius posted this as a response to my blog yesterday about PTSD and the tragedy at Camp Liberty. I love my brother. And this should be read by the entire damn world.

Hey Billy,

I'm glad you're getting the help you need to deal with your PTSD. It is indeed a known fact that PTSD doesn't just come from war. For example, a rape victim could have PTSD far worse than any soldier whose been to combat. it's just the God awful honest truth. So once again, i'm happy you're doing what you need to to help yourself.

..At first, I didn't want to admit it. when i came back from Afghanistan, I thought after a couple of months I'd be fine. I went to mental health and was told to come back. I have what they call 'survivors guilt', a form of PTSD. I did return for two sessions, but later quit. I was scared. Everyone else wasn't going, so i felt weak. I didn't wake up in cold sweats, or wake up screaming. It was more subtle than that. I didn't realize how bad I was until I went to Disneyland a month later. The fireworks started going off and I panicked. In a crowd full of happy tourists and families, I broke down and started crying. My friend grabbed me and ran me to the restroom. I'd never felt so embarrassed. I could hear the fireworks still going off. I could picture the rockets incoming. The bullets hitting all my friends except me. I felt helpless and weak.. I just wanted to die and join my brothers in arms that had fallen. I felt I didn't deserve life. Why should I get to live when so many great young men had died, some with families and unborn children they'd never see. I felt I cheated death, and I wanted to meet up with him and pay him what was owed.

I still have flashbacks every now and again. When I'm driving sometimes, I see myself on the roads of Afghanistan, keeping an eye out for IED's (Improvised Explosive Devices). I get ancy when I'm in big crowds. My finger gets itchy, I need to shoot. I yell when there's no need, I freak out when I feel something's not right. I try to get help, but I keep putting it off.

Anyway, I just wanted to say, I appreciate you brother. Sometimes I get soo angry, because I feel no one cares. The world keeps spinning. But in war, time stops. You're ripped out of society and tossed in a life or death situation. Contact with the outside world is limited. All you can do is sit and count the days. Pray America still hopes for your safety. You say prayers, hoping everyone appreciates what you do. The 1-2 meals a day, 3 if you're lucky. The hiking up the mountains with 80-120 lbs. worth of gear. Not showering for weeks even months at a time. Sweating under the Middle Eastern sun. Watching your friends die and wondering when you'll be next. Bullets flying in the middle of the night. Looking out for Taliban trying to sneak into your base. Rockets and mortars hitting where you live. Taliban toying with you with harassing gun fire. trying to draw you out so their snipers can pick you off. Wishing, that you can make it back for 1 day to be with the one you love. The soldiers on the front lines experience this and I have not forgot. The taliban grow stronger and gain ground. It's hard for me to focus on my current course of life. If I let my guard down, my enemy will become stronger and better than me.

Take it easy Billy. I'll ttyl.

Love,
Julius