- A VA doctor estimated the number of Vietnam Veteran suicides
totaled 200,000 men. He said, "The reason the official suicide statistics
were so much lower was that in many cases the suicides were documented
as accidents, primarily single-car drunk driving accidents and self-inflicted
gunshot wounds that were not accompanied by a suicide note."
-
- War the deadly game that top-level leaders play
-
- Iraqi citizens kill American soldiers weekly. GIs kill
Iraqi citizens daily. Experts say a million Iraqi men, women and children
suffered death at the hands of Americans and Islamic fighters. Two million
Iraqi refugees languish in Turkey, Iran and Syria. Death, disease and
misery haunt Iraq 24/7. As the Iraq War continues, death reaps its grim
numbers on both sides. An entire civilization staggers under America's
war machine.
-
- It's ironic that the architects of the Iraq War, Dick
Cheney and George Bush, hid out during the Vietnam War. Cheney enjoyed
five student deferments while his buddy Bush got drunk on weekends at the
National Guard Armory in Texas.
-
- Later, Robert McNamara admitted that Vietnam, "was
a mistake." No kidding Bob! Fifty-eight thousand dead and 350,000
horrifically disfigured! Another 2.0 million Vietnamese died while Vietnam
suffered desecration via bombs and Agent Orange. Not a small mistake!
-
- What started Vietnam?
-
- Someone in the Johnson administration concocted the "Gulf
of Tonkin" incident that triggered the 10 year war. All that death
and destruction based on a lie. What does Bush hold in common with LBJ?
The lie of "Weapons of Mass Destruction."
-
- What do the Iraq and Vietnam wars hold in common? Both
wars erupted from lies by sitting presidents. Results? Both men killed
millions for nothing but the lie itself. What makes the Iraq War lie even
worse? For the past six years, America's borders offered wide open invitations
for terrorists to enter 24/7.
-
- Beyond the immediate carnage, what will Iraq bring to
America in the long term besides a $5 trillion price tag?
-
- Chuck Dean, a Vietnam War veteran wrote a troubling book,
NAM VET, published in 1990 by Multnomah Press. Out of the 2.7 million
Americans who served in Nam, Dean reported 58,300 died. That proved small
compared to the suicides! "Over 150,000 veterans have committed suicide
since the war ended," Dean said.
-
- Dean served in the 173rd Airborne, arriving in Vietnam
in 1965. Dean serves as the executive director of Point Man International,
a Seattle based, non-profit organization dedicated to healing the war wounds
of Vietnam Veterans.
-
- A VA doctor estimated the number of Vietnam Veteran suicides
totaled 200,000 men. He said, "The reason the official suicide statistics
were so much lower was that in many cases the suicides were documented
as accidents, primarily single-car drunk driving accidents and self-inflicted
gunshot wounds that were not accompanied by a suicide note."
-
- The report added, "According to the doctor, the
under-reporting of suicides was primarily an act of kindness to the surviving
relatives."
-
- Boot Camp in Fort Benning, GA this writer learns
about war, first hand
-
- When I ran and crawled through Army Boot Camp (E-8-2)
at Fort Benning, Georgia in the summer of 1968, terror clutched my chest
as I struggled through the night machine gun course. Live bullets and
tracers ripped through the air four feet over my head as I low-crawled
under the concertina wire. Bunkers blew up that vibrated through my body
as I scurried across the sand. Sweat bathed my body in fear. Drill Sergeant
Pearce screamed at me to keep going. He yelled, "What is your purpose?"
I screamed back, "To kill!" If I didn't yell loud enough, he
sent me back through the gauntlet again.
-
- Inside my mind, I cried, "This is completely insanethis
is nutsI'm being trained to be cannon fodderwhy must I fight someone who
hasn't done anything to my country?"
-
- Returned soldiers around Ft. Benning suffered jaws half
blown away, fingers and hands missing from mines; eye-lids, ears and lips
melted off by napalm and hundreds of amputees. It sickened me beyond anything
I can write about. I suffered depression as to the uselessness of living.
-
- Why so poignant to me?
-
- My college roommate died in Vietnam. The draft grabbed
him right out of our room. The U.S. Army trained him and politicians like
Johnson and Nixon killed him. The "Silent Majority" said nothing,
did nothing and would not raise a finger against the hyper-insanity of
Nam.
-
- What did Vietnam accomplish? It made arms manufacturers
rich. It filled the pockets of aircraft CEOs. It killed millions. Other
than that, it did nothing for world peace or human progress.
-
- Major General Mark Graham, THE COMMANDER, Fort Carson,
Colorado
-
- This week, March 9, 2008, in the Denver Post, "The
Commander" by Erin Emery another devastating story spoke in
print. In a self-revelation, Major General Mark Graham, Fort Carson, Colorado,
revealed that he suffered the loss of his first son as a U.S. Army Infantry
Lt., who died in action in Iraq. The General also revealed that another
son hanged himself as he trained in ROTC at the University of Kentucky.
-
- War Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome
-
- We know that "Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome"
stems from the horror of war, the futility of war and the total madness
of war. Many men and women face neurological thresholds or face overloads
that render mental illness from the senselessness of combat the sheer
terror of watching a buddy blown to shreds.
-
- Of all the sickening and wretched horrors Bush and Cheney
visit upon America's youth, we will not know how many American boys and
girls will commit suicide in the coming decades from their personal nightmares
in Iraq. How many bodies disfigured beyond human understanding? How many
will live lives self-medicating with alcohol, pills or other drugs? How
many will suffer divorces or long term depression via the horrors they
witnessed or participated in while soldiers in Iraq? How many thousands
will become the new homeless on the streets of America?
-
- Most U S Presidents insist upon Imperialistic Wars, but
why?
-
- Bush insists these human calamities vindicate our "War
on Terror" weekly while, in truth, he wages a war on humanity. His
protégé, Senator John McCain advocates staying in Iraq for
100 years. Obama and Hillary fail to clarify their intentions, thus assuring
thousands of added suicides in the years ahead.
-
- In my travels across Europe recently, I met another world
traveler who said, "America is the greatest threat to world peace."
I would add our leaders prove the greatest threat to planetary peace!
-
- "Of course the people don't want war"
-
- The Nazi, Hermann Goering, said,
-
- "Why of course the people don't want war.
Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when
the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece?
Naturally the common people don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England,
nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood.
-
- But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who
determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people
along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament,
or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always
be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have
to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers
for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.
-
- It works the same in any country."
-
- Some of you may be old enough to remember the so-called
Cold War. Our beloved President, Jack Kennedy, urged all of the good folks
in the USA to dig a backyard bomb-shelter. And why was that ? Because
the nasty Russians had hydrogen bombs and would soon bomb us.
-
- Daniel Ellsberg (former American military analyst employed
by the RAND Corporation) in 1971 revealed that, at the moment Kennedy was
pleading with us to get ready the USA had one hundred hydrogen bombs, while
the Russians had four.
-
- Yes, FOUR.
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