Service

Months ago I came across a puppy cam that led me to - Warrior Canine Connection - an organization that pairs service dogs with combat veterans.

The dogs are trained from birth to two years old. They live with a volunteer foster family and are taught to help in more ways than I can count.

Check them out at their site and on Facebook.

I have found that when you are deeply troubled, there are things you get from the silent devoted companionship of a dog that you can get from no other source.

- Doris Day

A Grateful Nation ...

"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them."-John Fitzgerald Kennedy

My buddies at the VFW center talk a lot about WWII, even though most of them fought in Viet Nam. One veteran told me it was because he felt it was the war that actually meant something.

 field of stars at the national WWII memorial

During Viet Nam I did volunteer work for  Viet Nam Veterans Against War.  I was very young and it was both exciting and humbling to meet soldiers who had returned from the war. The war was also the beginning of my awareness of a larger world around me. It was the catalyst for my interest and involvement in politics and for my decision to never remain silent about things I felt needed changing.

"the wall" - at the Vietnam Memorial in DC

The brightest news this Veteran's Day is that the soldiers in Iraq will be home at the end of the year. Yet they come home to an economy that is the worst in decades and to already poor services that will continue to be cut. These men and women and their families should be met with jobs and healthcare and housing.

women's war memorial in DC, right next to the Viet Nam Memorial

Iraq Veterans Against War  is working to do just that. Of all the veteran groups I researched they are the only one clearly offering services to all veterans including women and soldiers from the LGBT community.

Military families can turn to Military Families Speaking Out for support.

At a time when a war veteran can be beaten by police at a peaceful demonstration (Occupy Oakland) I hope we all rise to the challenge of putting our actions where our flag waving is.

In war, there are no unwounded soldiers. ~José Narosky

Veterans For Peace

In honor of this day I thought I would let people who know what they're talking about share their voice.

You can read more at VETERANS FOR PEACE

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20500
October 27, 2009

Dear President Obama,

As veterans of our nation’s wars, we insist you hear our call.

British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin spoke an unassailable truth when he said, “War would end if the dead could return.” If you believe that is true, Mr. President and Members of the House, you must heed our counsel well: we are the closest anyone can come to that truth the dead would speak. Stop the killing!

Because we personally understand what war truly means, we have written, called and demonstrated repeatedly for an end to the killing in Afghanistan and Iraq. We have protested at and have been arrested in House Office Buildings, the House Gallery, the White House and Congressional offices across the nation. We have pleaded, then demanded, that you stop the suffering in these countries. Although promised prior to the election, no combat brigades have returned from Iraq. And now we can smell the mire of escalation in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Nevertheless, we cannot cease to appeal to that spark of humanity in your hearts. We know wealthy, powerful interests such as weapons contractors, lobbyists and right-wing broadcasters daily make a deafening noise, trying to drown out the voice that insists, “Stop the killing.” We also know that no matter how quiet the voice of humanity might become, it can never be silenced.

So we lift up to you voices much more eloquent than our own, voices of soldiers who survived the worst fighting human beings have ever experienced, World War One. For nearly 100 years, the wisdom and compassion of their poetry has endured. Their words now stand as one of the world’s most powerful witnesses to the madness of war.

You must hear them.

…And you yourself would mutter when You took the things that once were men, And sped them through that zone of hate To where the dripping surgeons wait; And wonder too if in God's sight War ever, ever can be right.
– From “Foreword” by British ambulance driver, Robert Service

And

…If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori.
– From “Dulce et Decorum est” (It is Sweet and Right to Die for Your Country) by British Army Lt. Wilfred Owen, killed a week before the 1918 Armistice.

More than that we cannot say to you, so we will address our former brothers and sisters in arms who are now our brothers and sisters in peace.

Most Sincerely,
Mike Ferner
National President
Veterans For Peace

cc: Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House
Steny H. Hoyer, Majority Leader of the House
John Boehner, Republican Leader of the House
James E. Clyburn, House Majority Whip
Eric Cantor, Republican Whip