http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/ ... otest?lite
Iraq war veteran Steven Acheson will engage in the rarest of protests this weekend: He will hand back his military service medals at the NATO summit in Chicago, an act one veteran calls "disgraceful."
Acheson, who served for five years in the Army, including more than a year in Iraq that he says left him with PTSD and nightmares, is taking this step to protest the "war on terror" and the force leading it, NATO. He will be joined by a few dozen veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who are concerned about the wars' fallout on veterans and civilians alike.
“I feel like this is a really good way for me to kind of, not clear my conscience, but just make a step in the direction of healing and kind of reconciling with the Afghan people and the Iraq people,” said Acheson, a 27-year-old college student from Wisconsin and a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, which includes soldiers who served in any of the post- 9/11 conflict zones, “… and let them know that we’re standing by their side and we’re not standing with NATO anymore. We don’t agree with the policies that are driving these wars.”
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Acheson and 30-50 fellow 9/11-era veterans will carry their medals as they lead an anti-war march this Sunday through Chicago’s downtown area to the convention center where NATO is holding its summit. President Obama and other world leaders are scheduled to be among the summit attendees, and the city of Chicago is bracing for major protests.
Organizers are hoping the rally, which caps a week-long series of anti-NATO actions, will draw thousands. The Iraq and Afghanistan veterans will be flanked by Vietnam veterans and will hold a reconciliation ceremony with Afghans for Peace.
They intend to carry an American flag that they will lower and replace with a white one as they approach the summit venue. They are planning to pin their medals to the American flag, which they’d like to present to NATO officials. If they’re unable to do so, they may construct an ad hoc memorial or toss the medals toward the convention center -- like some 900 Vietnam veterans did in 1971 on Capitol Hill in an anti-war protest dubbed “Operation Dewey Canyon III.”
Barry Romo was West Coast coordinator for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War during the 1971 week-long demonstration.
“Wives left husbands; parents said … those medals were something you should be giving the grandkids. But I mean, the level of death was just really too much for us to deal with at that time and we said, you know, if there’s a question of medals versus lives then there was no question,” he said.
I fucking hate with every fibre of my being these wars, drones, and all this destructive evil shit done in the name of "Western freedom" and "the war on terror" and Im glad to see in the
Lord Obama age people raising a voice against it.
The government thinks because the disgusting war in Iraq was drawn down and Obama is wearing a rainbow halo, that we won't notice the other ghastly shit going on
