Yesterday I spent most of the day doing stuff with Iraq Veterans Against the War.
We met at Union Station at 7 AM for the beginning of Operation First Casualty IV. Operation First Casualty I-III happened in DC, NYC and LA (Santa Monica). The name "Operation First Casualty" comes from the idea that truth in the first casualty of war.
Operation First Casualty shows how a squad on patrol deals with civilians in Iraq. There were a couple scenarios. In one a crowd has assembled and is demonstrating against the occupation. The squad has to disrupt the demonstration. They engage the demonstrators and try to identify the leaders of the demonstration. The leaders are then apprehended, zip cuffed and hooded. In the other scenario the squad is looking for specific Iraqis to apprehend, so a civilian might be pulled out of a crowd with doing anything to provoke the squad.
In between the encounters with civilians (played by local activists) the squad shows what it's like to move in an urban environment, staying alert. They also simulated taking fire from points unknown including having a soldier shot and needing an evacuation.
The patrol route started at Union Station and then went to Boeing, the Thompson Center, Daley Plaza, Chicago Board of Trade, Federal Plaza, Metropolitan Correctional Center, Water Tower, Michigan Avenue and ended at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The Daily Herald (Robert McCoppin) was the only Chicago daily to provide in-depth coverage. See Chicago Tribune for the minimalist version.
I served as a peace marshal. I was supposed to help stall cops or security guards who might interfere. Our plan was that each demonstration only took a couple minutes and that if we could stall the authorities the patrol would move on before any demonstration could be interrupted.
It took the Chicago Police Department a little while to become interested. Eventually a couple bicycle cops started trailing us. They radioed ahead when we took the Red Line from Roosevelt to Chicago. The move put us in another police district. The cops in the other district met us on foot and Segways at Water Tower. The cops on Segways were even helping us explain the demonstration to some people on Michigan Avenue. One cops asked me like three times, "Are they real Iraq War veterans?" I explained that all the veterans demonstrating the patrol had done patrols in Iraq and all the support people in the black IVAW shirts were also Iraq War veterans not participating for a variety of reasons. I knew one guy was on probation and had crossed state lines to come to Chicago so I made up a story, "Yeah, he's got a knee injury." One of the IVAW members who helped leaflet is still on active duty. That takes some fucking courage. He's still on active duty and he's active in IVAW.
The patrol kicked my ass. They'd slow or stop periodically because a patrol has to show caution moving through an urban environment. But it was interspersed with running. I'd try to stay a little ahead of the patrol or in the direction I thought was the primary threat axis for police or law enforcement. So I did a bunch of running too. Yesterday definitely qualified as hot and humid by June standards.
There was a ceremony at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial at noon. The members of the patrol all removed their desert cammie blouses. As Aaron Hughes, president of the Chicago chapter, explained during the training the day before all the members of IVAW are opposed to the occupation and the tactics that brutalize civilians. They left the military and found the patrols morally repugnant. They voluntarily are doing the patrols—and getting in the mindset of yelling at civilians, zip cuffing them on the ground and hooding them—because they believe showing the truth of the occupation will help end the Iraq War.
At 7 PM IVAW hosted a gathering at the National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum. IVAW encourages its members to write and use art to express themselves on the topic of Iraq. Aaron Hughes is quite a talented visual artist. His work has been on display at the museum since last Veterans Day. (See Proviso Probe for a covering of the opening, also here and here.)
One of the pithy observations made as the veterans read what they wrote was when Paul Abernathy described entering a Ba'ath Party printing office during the invasion. He explained what the Iraqi government line about the invasion was in their newspapers. And he ended by noting, "The difference between the Iraqis and the Americans {during wartime} is that the Iraqis know their media is government propaganda."
Various veterans read stuff they had written before—there was a publication for sale Warrior Writers, volume one—or stuff they had written at the workshop that day.
Garett Reppenhagen is the chairman of IVAW. He read "Dirt" from Warrior Voices, volume one.
Dirt
Iraqi dirt is everywhere
in my boots and in my hair
the dark clay that soldiers keep
where they march and where they sleep
to prevent the ache in a mothers heart
white sand becomes penned pure art
we exaggerate and bring to light
when the gravel grains are colored bright
under wheels and under track
dirty bombs reality lacks
stuck to sweat under trigger finger nails
that itches and stings when a child wails
dirt so heavy that one can't hide
inside sand bags that divide the sides
turning to grime when it begins to rain
American pride turned to pain
Scandalous chit chat in day to day gossip
"those veterans are insane they really lost it"
closed minds, mass destruction of innocence
and truth gets a purple heart amidst all the ignorance
red white and blue covered in dust
the color of money, oil and lust
soiled uniforms brown with taint
breathe uranium air contaminate
Jesus pimps our children like whores
like Uncle Sam's hate crimes that the family ignores
under patriot makeup is the garbage and filth
body bags filled with love, swept under the rug is guilt
scum put on sale, but they put us on trial
it's in our teeth when we bite and we smile
grease fed to the masses on the daily news
if the war never ends we'll never lose
we dig and dig, but they cover the hole
when we discover the truth we pay the toll
an unknown soldier in a shallow grave
burdened and battered and buried alive
Garett Reppenhagen served in the Army from 2001-2005. During that time he served in Kosovo and Iraq. Garett currently lives in Washington, DC and joined IVAW in 2004 while deployed. This was written in Iraq in January of 2005.
I have more anecdotes and observations, but they'll have to wait.
IVAW is a small budget organization, so giving $100 to IVAW is like giving $1,000 to a presidential campaign. The organization is doing good work. Please be appropriately supportive of the good work being done.
If you know any veterans who want out of Iraq, please let them know about IVAW.