Street roots., August 19, 2011, Page 8, Image 8

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Televised shots like this from the Persion Gulf War in 1990 triggered nightmares in Vietnam-era vets. With that already in the back of many minds, chapters of veterans against the war were
quickly reformed when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan.
But then the vets came to town
An immersion into the anti-war movement at the Veterans for Peace National Conference in Portland
Portland author
Martha Gies is the
daughter of Lt. Carl
Parker Gies (1915-
64), World Warll
pilot and recipient of
the Distinguished
Flying Cross. She is
also the newest
associate member of
Veteran’s for Peace.
BY MARTHA GIES
and nonviolent revolution, was brewing in our
midst
here was not much promise in the
To abolish war, that’s the mission of
week beginning August 1. On Tuesday,
Veterans for Peace (VFP), explains Daniel
following the Congressional battle over
Shea, a Portland veteran of Vietnam who
the debt ceiling, President Obama signed into
serves on the national board. “Some
law the Budget Control Act of 2011, and one
members are pacifists,” he adds, “but I don’t
day later national debt surpassed 100 percent
count myself as a pacifist because I do believe
of gross domestic product for the first time
in self-defense. If somebody were occupying
since World War II.
our country, I’d join in the fight. But that
On that same day, Wednesday, August 3,
would be the only time.”
Nick Turse posted to Tomdispatch.com an
Shea, along with other members of local
article about the clandestine reach of the U.S. VFP Chapter 72, spent months planning the
Special Operations Command (S0C0M), now
convention, which Portland hosted for the
metastasized to 120 countries, where special
first time. Vets arrived from across the
op teams from all branches of the military
country for five days of film, music, tabling
carry out “assassinations, counterterrorist
and book sales, speeches and a business
raids, long-range reconnaissance, intelligence
meeting at which 16 resolutions, on issues
analysis, foreign troop training, and weapons
from depleted uranium to Palestine to toxic
of mass destruction counter-proliferation
chemical dumping in South Korea required
operations.” And while Turse’s chilling exposé their vote. Shea, an artist with a day job at
was probably seen only by lefties - it went to
the Oregon Symphony, personally curated an
Huffington Post, Common Dreams and
exhibit at the Littman Gallery called The
Counterpunch within a day - by Saturday the
Tenacity of Hope.
New York Times had published a long and
On Thursday, day two of the convention,
thoughtful piece by Drew Westen about the
the workshops begin and the corridors of
demise of our hope in Obama (“...the arc of
Lincoln Hall are loud with talk and laughter
history does not bend toward justice through
as vets, WW II to Iraq, high five, hug and try
capitulation cast as compromise.”) that
to figure out where each of the nine offerings
quickly became one of the most widely
will be held in that first time slot Back-to-
e-mailéd of the year.
back presentations include two on PTSD
What a week! As some of us clicked
(encounters with the crimirial justice system
frantically through websites looking for the
and transformational heating), drone payloads
elusive good news, others went outdoors into
that target civilians, helping GIs who want out
the novel Oregon sunshine, where news
of the military, and a teach-in on the basics of
might never reach at all.
organizing behind VFP’s new campaign: How
But then, on August 3, the vets came to
is the War Economy Working for You?
town.
“Man, how do you choose?” I hear one vet
At Portland State University’s historic
grumble in the elevator. “They’re not going to
Lincoln Hall, 400 veterans convened for an
repeat any of these!”
annual national convention to talk about
In the afternoon, I pass up a session by
peace and to scheme, on several
Col. Ann Wright, who resigned in 2003 in
simultaneous fronts; to wage it even in the
opposition to the Iraq war, talking about
face of a war machine so lucrative that even
organizing thé 2011 Gaza flotilla; and a panel
Eisenhower might gasp.
on the continuing tragic aftermath of war in
Hope, in the form of resilience, resistance
Vietnam, where people still sicken and die
CONTRIÈUTING WRITER
S
from Agent Orange, and unexploded
landmines still maim and kill. I choose to
watch “The Welcome,” a powerful new
90-minute film shot during a unique veterans’
healing retreat in Ashland, Oregon. Under the
guidance of author and storyteller Michael
Meade, veterans begin to transform the raw
nightmare of war into poetry. The film ends
with retreat participants reading their poems
to an audience of 650 people who pack the
Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Bowmer
Theater.
One particularly moving poem, by Melissa
Steinman, a veteran of Kuwait, speaks to the
hidden path to healing through the jungle of
underbrush and to the gratitude she feels tq
older vets. Her poem is called “Old Timers -
A Term of Endearment.”
From across the valley, a brother runs
towards me,
and nearly out of breath he says, “There was
no path
to healing when we came back.
But we are used to cutting through jungles,
we started hacking through the bush 40 years
ago,
in a direction that might lead to it... ”
Older vets companioning young vets is a
key dynamic in VFP. “The Iraq vets would tell
you that they’re standing on the shoulders of
Vietnam vets,” says Daniel Shea, “and we’re
standing on the shoulders of WWII
combatants who realized later that it was too
high a price, that war could have been
averted.”
Shea appears in “The Welcome,” one of
the two dozen vets who went through the
retreat with Meade, but misses the VFP
screening to give a workshop on recent U.S.
actions in Libya, where we bombed “to
protect civilian lives” and in Honduras, where
See VETS, page 9