A letter from Ron Kovic to young veterans and GIs
http://www.pslweb.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=14851&news_iv_ctrl=1261
December 12, 2010
By: Ron Kovic
'Raise your voices, protest, stop these wars'
The following is a personal appeal from Ron Kovic, Vietnam War
veteran and author of Born on the Fourth of July, to Iraq and
Afghanistan war veterans and active-duty service members. Kovic
issued the appeal to bring more veterans and GIs into the anti-war
struggle and to support the work of March Forward! To learn more
about March Forward! visit their website.
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As a former United States Marine Corps infantry sergeant, who was
shot and paralyzed from the mid-chest down on Jan. 20, 1968, during
my second tour of duty in Vietnam, and someone who has lived with the
wounds of that war for over 40 years, I am writing this letter to ask
you to join me as we begin a critical new phase in the growing
anti-war movement.
Many of you have already served multiple deployments in Iraq and
Afghanistan. You have been coming home now for almost 10 years. Many
have begun to question, to doubt these wars and our leaders. Over two
million of you have served honorably in both theatres of conflict.
Though many years separate us, we are brothers and sisters.
Though we have fought in conflicts generations apart, we have all
been to the same place. We know what war is. We understand it, and
for many of us, our lives will never be the same again. In many ways,
we represent a very powerful force in our countrya moral, spiritual,
and political high ground that is unassailable, a potential to
transform our nation that is undeniable. No one knows peace or the
preciousness of life better than the soldiers who have fought in war,
or been affected by it directly: the mother of a son who has died, a
wife who will never see her husband again, a child who will never
have a father, a father who will never see his son again.
For, it is we who live with the physical and emotional scars of war,
and we who live with these wounds everyday, and feel their weight and
pain every morning. It is we who have walked and wheeled through the
streets of our country and watched children stare at us and wonder
why. And it is we who cry out now for the future, for a world without war.
We are the reminders of what war can do, of how it can wound and
hurt, and diminish all that is good and human. We struggle everyday
to believe in a life that was almost taken away from us. We know that
even though we have lost, though parts of our bodies may be missing,
though we may not be able to see or feel, we are important men and
women, with important lessons to teach, with important things to share.
Those of us lucky enough to have survived combat yearn for life now,
for beauty, for all that is decent and good, for in war we saw the
worst in the human being. We saw poverty and death, killing and
savagery, the darkest sides of the human soul, the most hated parts
of our humanity.
I, like many Americans who served in Vietnam and those now serving in
Iraq and Afghanistan (and countless human beings throughout history),
had been willing to give my life for my country with little knowledge
or awareness of what that really meant.
Like many of you who joined up after 9/11, I trusted and believed and
had no reason to doubt the sincerity and motives of my government. It
would not be until many months after being wounded, and while
recovering at a veterans' hospital in New York that I would begin to
question whether I and the others who had gone to that war had gone
for nothing.
Change does not come easily, and opposing one's government during a
time of war is often very difficult. You've been taught to follow
orders, to obey and not question, to go along with the program and do
exactly what you're told. You learned that in boot camp. You learned
that the day the drill instructors started screaming at you. It is
"Yes Sir" and "No Sir" and nothing in between. There is the physical
and verbal abuse, the vicious threats and constant harassment to keep
you off balance. It is a powerful conditioning process, a process
that began long ago, long before we signed those papers at the
recruit stations of our hometowns, a process deeply ingrained in the
American culture and psyche, and it has shaped and influenced us from
our earliest childhood.
The late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said that, "A time comes
when silence is betrayal." King went on to say that, "The truth of
these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is
a most difficult one. Nor does the human spirit move without great
difficulty. Even when pressed with the demands of inner truth, men do
not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy,
especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without
great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within
ones own bosom and the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues
at hand seem as perplexing as they often do in the case of this
dreadful conflict we are often on the verge of being mesmerized but
we must move on."
Over 40 years have passed since Dr. King spoke those words to an
overflow crowd at the Riverside church in New York City in 1967, and
the tragic lessons of Vietnam continue to go unheeded. The same
patterns of wars, lies, aggression and brutality continue to repeat
themselves. Another country, another occupation, another reason to
hate and fear, but in the end it is the same crime being committed
over and over again, the same innocent civilians being killed, the
same young men and women returning home in caskets and body bags and
wheelchairs.
We have petitioned our government time and time again. We have
peacefully marched and demonstrated for over a decade yet the killing
and mayhem continues. Precious lives continue to be wasted as another
generation of young men and women are squandered in this, our latest
foreign policy debacle.
Our leaders refuse to listen. They refuse to learn. How many more
senseless wars, flag draped caskets, grieving mothers, paraplegics,
amputees, stressed-out sons and daughters, innocent civilians
slaughtered before we finally decide to break the silence of this
shameful night? Many of us trusted and believed that change would
come, these wars would end, and that we would finally we be listened
to but that is not at all what has happened. We have been tragically misled.
We have been deceived and betrayed. We have been promised peace and
we have been given war. We have been told there would be change and
nothing is changing. Rather than learning the lessons from the
disastrous fiasco in Iraq, our government continues down the path of
destruction, brutality, aggression and war, dragging us deeper into
another senseless and unnecessary conflict in Afghanistan. The
physical and psychological battles from the war in Iraq and
Afghanistan will rage on for decades, deeply impacting the lives of
citizens in all countries involved.
As the 43rd anniversary of my wounding in Vietnam approaches, in many
ways I feel my injury in that war has been a blessing in disguise. I
have been given the opportunity to move through that dark night of
the soul to a new shore, to gain an understanding, a knowledge, a
completely different vision. I now believe that I have suffered for a
reason, and in many ways I have found that reason in my commitment to
peace and non-violence. We who have witnessed the obscenity of war
and experienced its horror and terrible consequences have an
obligation to rise above our pain and sorrow and turn the tragedy of
our lives into a triumph.
I have come to believe that there is nothing in the lives of human
beings more terrifying than war, and nothing more important then for
those of us who have experienced it to share its awful truth.
A time comes when a people can no longer wait. A time comes when the
agonies, the suffering, have become too great. A time comes when a
people must act and do what is necessary. Lives are at stake. No
longer can we trust the President or politicians to end these wars.
No longer can we believe them when they say the troops will come home
soon. They have long since lost their credibility.
Each day that passes another life is lost. Each hour that this war
drags on the need for a daring new approach by the anti war movement
becomes more apparent. Bold, creative, and imaginative leadership is
needed, and I do not believe there is a group more suited for that
task at this time than the veterans of our nation's most recent conflict.
At exactly 10:00 a.m., Thursday morning, Dec. 16, 2010, veterans of
Iraq and Afghanistan, including troops now serving in the armed
forces of the United States, will be leading a dramatic act of
non-violent civil disobedience in front of the White House in
Washington, D.C. with other brave veterans and citizens, protesting
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, calling for all troops to be
brought home immediately and without delay. (Click here to learn more
about this action)
May this action and other actions like it in the days ahead represent
a growing awareness by the American people that only they can end
these wars and begin to redirect the priorities of our nation toward
more positive and life affirming goals.
I am writing this letter to you today asking you to join them on that
dayand the difficult days ahead, to bravely, and with great dignity
step over that line you've not stepped over before and begin to exert
that powerful moral force you as veterans and active-duty troops
represent; to raise your voices, to protest, to demonstrate, to end
these wars and make our country a better place.
This is my hope. This is my prayer.
With great admiration and respect,
Ron Kovic
Vietnam veteran
Author, Born on the Fourth of July
.
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