Daniel - Deployed! -- Band of Buddies War Series

DANIEL was on the radio at a FOB near Ramadi and Fallujah when the engineer unit called in a “sit rep”: several men had been hit by an IED explosion. Three were dead and two expectant, meaning they wouldn’t survive. The medics and Centurion tried to get a helicopter in the air but that got scratched: the military doesn’t put a bird up unless someone has a chance of surviving.

Daniel hoped they died quickly; there wasn’t much left of their M113 light armored tank, basically an aluminum can on a track: the largest piece was the rear ramp and the engine block, but the recovery crew didn’t need the M88 to lift anything. Over 500 lbs of explosives had been set and that much could have disabled an M1 Abrams tank. At the funeral ceremony Daniel figured that counting those five, they’d lost around 20 soldiers and officers since they’d arrived in Iraq.

Col. C. of Devil 6 came for the occasion, along with the 1st Engineers LTC and higher-level people. Daniel felt pretty cynical that those folks only came when it involved death but never came to see their toughest guys in action.

Actually, Daniel was getting pretty cynical overall: heck, he’d heard the guys in Fallujah were scared to do nighttime missions which was why IEDs exploded outside the gates each morning and why giant truck bombs rocked Champion base and Camp Junction City.

He didn’t write home anymore; how could he tell his family they were hurting bad, supply lines were compromised because of increased attacks, they’d lost services and supplies -- fuel, water, and food – and convoys got hit on the highways and back routes.

Everyone was scared to bring fuel up to the FOB; they were cutting back on everything including food because there wasn’t fuel to cook with. They ate MRE lunches and soon they’d be eating MRE dinners. The guys who delivered water hadn’t shown up.

What’ll happen when the extra 600 soldiers from 1st Armored Division arrived? Life was hard enough without extra guys making it worse.

(I created this piece with accompanying story to share the reality of war - holding that too many stories are not being told. The details in this story come from a young man deployed to combat after being told by his recruiter that he'd "never be sent to Iraq, no way, dude!")


See other pieces in the Family of War Series:
Daniel, Deployed! - Band of Buddies Series

Ryan, Recruited! - Band of Buddies Series

Bob, Burned in Combat

Luis, Corporate Warrior

Jerry and Candy, family of war

Governor Goldie Myron

Response from H Rep. Pete Stark on HR 867 - and the two-state non-solution

I wrote my representative, Pete Stark, and urged him to vote against HR 867. He responded,

Thank you for writing in opposition to H. Res. 867. I voted against the resolution, but it passed the House 344-36.

The Goldstone Report was commissioned by the United Nations in order to investigate alleged human rights violations occurring in Israel, specifically the Gaza strip. The goal of this commission was well-intentioned and their report shed some light on the severity of the ongoing conflict in Israel. I believe that both Palestine and Israel have committed wrongdoings against one another, and ultimately their people are the ones that suffer the consequences. Condemning the report because you do not like the outcome is completely unjustifiable and will not help rectify the current issues facing Israel and Palestine. Sustainable peace will only be reached with security for Israel and dignity for the Palestinian people. A two-state solution will be built on a foundation of good faith and honest commitment to peace.
Sincerely,
Pete Stark, Member of Congress

Good on Pete Stark. However, a two-state situation already exists and it untenable. This whole discussion about a two-state "solution" maintains the status-quo while settlements continue to be built in areas that would fall to Palestinians IF there were a two-state solution. It is a sham and a place holder while the "real" work goes on... usurping all Palestinian land for Eretz Israel.

No surprise on the House's support of Ros-Lehtinen/Berman resolution

(I'm finding it hard to place this article with progressive online publishers ... Is it the content d'you think?.)


Oy vey! So, what's new? Ros-Lehtinen/Berman resolution 867 passed: 344-36.

That it did so with such a wide margin is a bit surprising...certainly craven...and shameful. After all, this nonbinding resolution merely urged Obama and Clinton to oppose unequivocally any endorsement of the Goldstone report. If ever there's a time to placate the progressive population – and lose very little in doing so – a nonbinding resolution is it!

Given Congress, the Pentagon, and mainstream America's ongoing and uncritical support for Israel and its policies, what is new is Anti-Defamation League's Abe Foxman was threatened enough by the possibility of the House not backing H.R. 867 that he called on Judge Goldstone to repudiate his report.

Said Abe to the Judge: “I have had great respect for you over the years. Your work at the head of the South Africa Reconciliation Commission and in helping to find a just solution to the Bosnian conflict deserves the highest commendation....I know you to be a proud Jew who serves on the Board of Trustees of Hebrew University and who has a daughter living in Israel...[and] the Human Rights Council has repeatedly demonstrated its bias against Israel...”

When has the House, or the Senate, ever let Foxman and his friends down? This is the same Foxman who denies the Armenian genocide, who believes that issue should be resolved between Turks and Armenians, and who works behind the scenes to defeat a fair hearing about that genocide in Congress.

Ironically, at a San Francisco Jewish Community Center for a recent book event, Foxman said, “No one can dictate to you to use the word that you want us to use. We will use the words that we feel comfortable with.”

Accordingly, Foxman feels comfortable making thoughtful Jews feel uncomfortable with words such as anti-Semite, self-hating Jew, Israel-threatening Jew, Israel-bashing Jew, and so on.

Author and medical doctor Alice Rothchild grew up as a good American Jewish girl and came of age to the dominant narrative of Israel as heroic, courageous, standing bravely against all odds.... Since then, believing what her eyes show her, she's changed her views about the situation. This effort to grow, learn, and change one's mind based on new information is essential to adulthood. But it landed Rothchild on the Jewish S.H.I.T List, an alphabetized roll-call of more than seven thousand so-called Self-Hating and/or Israel-Threatening Jews.

In a recent radio interview I asked her about the moral underpinnings of her work.

She said, “One big moral dilemma for me is how the American Jewish community blindly supports everything the Israeli government does. My question is, what is the role of US Jews and the United States in this conflict? While it is difficult to paint American Jewry with one broad brush stroke, for the most part mainstream American Jewry walks in line with Israeli policy no matter what it does. It is very intolerant of any critical dissent. That is bad for us...and it is bad for Israel.”

She continues, “I believe that if we American Jews see our brothers and sisters in Israel doing things that we find morally indefensible, we have to say something. If we don't, it is bad for them...and it is bad for us. Let's face it, it doesn't get any better than having a Zionist, Jewish South African human rights lawyer like Goldstone reporting these facts. For the Jewish community to come down so heavily on his report makes me want to cry. For, if we don't face up to what is in this report, we as Jews and as Israelis are going to lose any moral credibility in the world.”

Rothchild makes a compelling analogy. “Just as we in the United States are made stronger by facing up to our history of slavery, the civil rights struggle – all the things that we are ashamed of in our history – Jews and Israelis need to do too.”

Rothchild concludes, “The US government sends Israel billions of dollars of aid every year...and for what? There is a huge intermix of the two military establishments. They try out our weapons, they do all our dirty work... Once you start researching this stuff it is very disturbing. It is a dangerous relationship and it raises difficult moral questions for all of us.”

Apparently, it raises no moral question for 344 members of the US House. Or Abe Foxman.

I imagine the day when that S.H.I.T. list becomes a roll call that honors the people whose courage and steadfast morality helped turn the tide in Israel/Palestine.

Meanwhile, Let's see what Obama and Clinton do. I'm afraid there will be no surprise there either. Oy vey!


(BTW, I grew up in apartheid South Africa, lived in Israel from 1975-1977 and learned to speak Hebrew while I was there (well, enough to get by).

Economic Conscription: Of Veterans and Volunteers

This article was published in CounterPunch today (Nov 4, 09).

Economic Conscription

Of Veterans and Volunteers

By SUSAN GALLEYMORE

Veteran's Day 2009 coming up November 11 and the United States economy founders on rocky shoals after decades of deregulation. It's messy out there...and, by most accounts, the unemployed flotsam and jetsam will only increase.

read it all...

Ryan, Recruited! - Band of Buddies Series

RYAN had talked non-stop over dinner about the military recruiters in his high school…and the cool free stuff like t-shirts and video games! They said he could be a helicopter pilot and get a job anywhere. His little brother said helicopters were cool… His sister said a friend’s boyfriend died in Afghanistan. She was dumb…the recruiters said he wouldn’t even have to go to combat!

His folks said not to sign anything the night he and his friend went with the recruiter to visit a military base. But they’d stayed in a hotel and never got to the base - the recruiter said the CO had called to say it wasn’t a good time to visit.

Then the recruiter talked all friggin’ night about how cool the military was, how much they’d learn, how much people would respect them, what a great opportunity it was to get money for college…. They’d signed after he offered a $10,000.00 bonus!

His folks had been furious and asked the recruiter to tear up his papers. But the recruiter said it was all legal and binding and even a lawyer and a lot of money couldn’t break the contract.

So Ryan went to basic training where he learned he couldn’t train as a helicopter pilot as his test scores were too low. Now he’s an infantryman….

Basic was pretty weird… kinda like high school with buzz cuts and uniforms. There was funny shit too: a recruiter had promised a vegetarian guy that of course the military served vegetarian food. So at Basic he couldn’t eat anything! He just cried and cried; finally, when he couldn’t take it anymore -- everybody laughing at him and dragging him out of bed for another midnight blanket party – he slit his wrists at morning chow.

They stuck him in the brig for damaging military property – that is, he was the property!

Two weeks after Ryan arrived at his permanent duty station his unit got order to deploy to Iraq. When he told them his recruiter had promised he wouldn’t be in combat they’d just laughed and called him a “pussy.”

Now Ryan can’t reach his recruiter on the phone….

See other pieces in the Family of War Series:
Daniel, Deployed! - Band of Buddies Series

Ryan, Recruited! - Band of Buddies Series

Bob, Burned in Combat

Luis, Corporate Warrior

Jerry and Candy, family of war

Governor Goldie Myron

Oil Spill!

Day before Halloween, Oct 30, helicopters hovered over my home for much of the day. Not looking for me. Looking for an oil spill on the beach practically on my doorstep. Ironically, I live on a marine sanctuary... not so safe right now!
I didn't know about the spill until Saturday (no TV helps keeps this sort of news out of my immediate living space). I thought the air traffic was about the emergency closure of the Bay Bridge (a few iron bars fell off the old bridge onto traffic below - yes, life is precarious for all living creatures around here right now).
Bunker fuel pumped into the Dubai Star - Panamanian registration, what else? -- missed the slot and spilled into the bay...apparently for some time before anyone noticed.
A 3-mile long slick south of the Bay Bridge threatens the sea and shore birds -- about 300,000 in transit right now which is the middle of their migration. 
One woman, on learning that about 30 sea birds had been treated for oil contamination by Saturday said, "Oh, is that all?"
Perhaps my imagination is too active for I experience what it must be like to dive into clear water, eat some delicious greenery on the bay bed, then pop up into bunker fuel. It is the really heavy, sticky stuff. Hard to recover if you have feathers!
Pix below taken late afternoon on Halloween. Foggy pix taken morning after...the fog makes it tough for bird clean up crews to see our struggling feathered friends.

Blessing in Disguise...SF Chronicle Nov 2, 2009

My Letter to the Editor in San Francisco Chronicle today....

or read it here:

Blessing in disguise

A quarter of a million cars use the Bay Bridge each weekday. Much of the time, drivers and Bay Area residents, intent upon goals and destinations, take this for granted.

When something unique happens and the bridge closes for major repairs, many realize how profound is our interdependence. Yes, some complain loudly and blame the transit systems, other drivers - someone else. Others marvel at the treasured lesson inherent in these moments.

The truth is we depend deeply upon one another. We are not the individualized and atomized entities our culture promotes and valorizes. The more than 7 million people here - socially, economically, educationally, politically disparate - must reach beyond differences and toward similarities.

The bridge closure was our blessing in disguise. Use this opportunity to create interdependent futures. Look into your neighbor's eyes. See, feel, encounter that actual, real, live human being. She or he is not a hurdle in your path, an obstacle to your goal. That other human being holds a key to your mutual humanity, even survival.

The Chinese say chaos is opportunity. Horace said, Carpe diem! I say, there's no moment like this moment.

SUSAN GALLEYMORE Alameda