This thread is dedicated to US veterans and friends of veterans who have stories to share about their own experience for being suppressed either by the general public, the workplace, military personnel, family members or even times when in debate and discussions on forums.... anything to do with expressing ourselves and our feelings about the military, govt, and the general way of life in America. If it's one's truth that is expressed and it has been or gets suppressed then share that here.

I'd like to start out about how after I returned from Vietnam, that for 10-12 years afterwards, I found that when applying for work and I listed my active duty service in the military, that employers would shun away from hiring me. I know this to be true. In 1979, I started with a new company in this one city iin which we built from the ground up right into production, upon which at that time, I became the plant foreman. I learned then about the favored hiring tactice that had been in place that has been is exisitance fthat was shared among the other managers in other states of that same company. Vietnam vets were basically a no no. In fact, I believe even Korean vets were as well, but possibly due to their age at that time. Once I was plant foreman and along with a rebellious new plant manager, we on our own began hiring ppl out of the military, although I was the only Vietnam veteran there. At that point in that new plant's crucial startup time, and the fact that we had the plant operating at top notch, we were able to get by with hiring such militray types. I knew then that this was a general practice among many employers who rejected hiring Vietnams.

Later on, it got to the point that when I had to apply for an application for anything, I'd lie about my military experience (leaving military service as N/A) to have a better chance for getting what I was neediing to get. It took my more than 10 years to figure that out.

The entire article is a good read, but this section of it held a strong message that sets the tone for how it was for returning 'Nam vets.


http://www.providence.edu/polisci/students/vietnam/paper.htm


While many veterans expected a peaceful return, they were met with disillusionment and anger, the very thing they had tried to escape while in Vietnam. Many wondered if they would ever again be accepted into American society, or if they would continue to be the country's scapegoat. Frederick Downs, a Vietnam veteran, poses himself this very question in his book Aftermath: A Soldiers Return from Vietnam; "I wondered if my country would ever welcome us back. Welcome all of us in body and spirit. Or would we always remain a flaw in America's vision of itself'(Downs, 222). This quote typifies how many veterans felt upon their homecoming; would America welcome them back with homecoming parades, or would they be seen as a stigma, something America would rather not talk about? America tried to hide the ugly experience of Vietnam; in doing so, the veterans who were called to fight the war were alienated from the country they once revered. Much has been written about the Vietnam veterans' preference not to discuss their war experiences at home; whether or not America was willing to listen is another issue altogether. A personal interview conducted with Dan Mouer, a veteran returning home in 1967, further develops this point; "…I found people who just had no clue what I had been doing in Vietnam, nor did they have any sensitivity to the issues of someone who had been at war. My mother recently told me that I never wanted to talk about the war, while my memory is that nobody else wanted to hear about it"(Personal Interview, Mouer). America was insensitive to the needs of many veterans like Mr. Mouer. Nobody wanted to be bothered with the war; and hence, they did not provide a very welcoming atmosphere for the soldiers. The same theme arises over and over again; at a time when scared young men needed the country's support the most, many were left to deal with "their" problems alone. The homecoming experiences of many veterans served to alienate them from their country, keeping them isolated from their fellow Americans. After returning home, the veterans strongly sensed that nobody could or would identify with them. Certain unfortunate incidents did not help the situation; "never before had America's fighting men returned home so quietly and so unwelcomed. Much has been made of the fact that there was no 'victory parades' for the veterans of Vietnam, but little consideration has been given to the consequences of this fact for the soldiers'personal identity. Many found their status of 'veteran' a stigma rather than a source of pride"(Figley and Leventman, 103-4). Vietnam veterans returned to a country with both little interest and understanding of what the veterans were experiencing. The previous quote typifies many veterans' sentiments; the country unfavorably viewed the War, leaving many veterans as the unfortunate recipients of the country's bad feeling. Because the war was so unpopular, many GI's arrived without so much as a 'hello,' viewing their veteran status as something to scoff at rather than embrace. This feeling was due to the unpopularity of the War; however, the soldier's esteem was not helped by the lack of support back home. This theme is reversed with the Gulf War and will be dealt with later in the paper. Another aspect of veteran harassment that is often overlooked is the fact that many were harassed by older veterans of foreign wars, the few who were supposed to identify with and understand them. Figley and Leventman also share this sentiment, because "the men {they} interview often spoke of their fear of hostility and blame from their peers for having participated in the war and the lack of respect accorded them by older veterans who reproached them for not having won 'their' war"(104). The older veterans did not seem to understand the younger generation of veterans.

I can only speak to my own experience. I've never been made to feel that my Vietnam service was a determent. It's never affected my ability to get a job...In fact it may have helped on a couple of occasions.
Maybe it's a Mid-West thing, but veterans are celebrated and revered here. Sorry about your experiences, Ghost.

I also have never experienced any discrimination or disrespect due to my military service. Of course I do not go around every day as a visable veteran of military service. If I did I am sure there is someone out there that would say or do something. Its a big country with lots of viewpoints. But in the ordinary course of living my life in a normal manner (jobs, socialy etc) noone really gave me a bad time. Actually I have have good experiences due to my being a veteran rather than bad ones.

My intention was not to disrespect GG. I am sure there are people out there that have had bad experiences. GG did not say let me hear bad experiences. As far as I can tell he was asking for truthful responses from the posters on this forum. I posted my truthful answer to his question.

You are well within your rights to do that David. Not all vets had bad expeiences and I realize that.

My own bad experiences happened almost daily. The strange part about it was is how I was doing my best to distance myself from 'Nam and the military, and blend into society the best I could. It appeared like everyone in the town where I was, took it upon themselves to know who it was that went there and participated in that war... then they'd turn their backs on us as if we were the plague. Tehy seemed to recognize us by our dark skins, short hair and some would say that we sported that look of death in our faces. I never once was greated anywhere on the street or in public with any handshake, pat on the back or smile welcoming me back home. It wasn't until I established my own frequent waterhole where alcohol provided the only friends at that time where I could be accepted into any social circle of ppl. Then not manyof them would recognize much about 'Nam... or vets. To be honest, I really didn't want to recognize by it either. It was those 10 years after I returned home that I found isolation to be man's best friend, next to a pop top.

Here's another nice little sceret during those times. I think sometime around 1975 or just prior, I worked a second job in the evenings cleaning a doctor's office. One night, I came across some suspicious papers on the nurses desk, that caused me to look further because of it's govt labels on the envelope. It was a letter to doctors in general directing them to NOT recongnize veterans claiming any affects from Agent Orange, and if they did, that their licenses would be revoked. In my own unfortunate experiences with various infections in the years to follow, no doctor would address such infections being related to Agent Orange.... not until the '80s did it seem like Veterans Affairs finally got it to a point that Agent Orange would be considered as to being real and what it might be doing to us. I could barely get the right treatment for my various infections for many years due to this. The only thing that they had for any Agent Orange claims was the Smith Town register only to basically get a head count of how many veterans were affected by the defoliant.

Now for some, I'm sure their military tour of duty has been a fun hoot, but for others, it's ruined their lives. I guess it all depends in whose shoes you stand in before it effects some who wish not to understand just how much damage the military has done to indivudual lives....even right down to coming home.

GG..If it seems that my last post was out of context, it was. The prior post to mine was deleted. Someone was saying or thinking that I was trying to show you up by my post.

In any case, I did not have your experiences. I was a Navy machinest mate who worked in an warship engine room. I was offshore of Vietnam for about 18 months or 2 years (I do not remember exactly). I came back to Pittsburgh Pa, a large city, where no one really cared much if I was a veteran. There were lots of other veterans of all wars in Pittsburgh so I was nothing new. Needless to say veterans were not looked down on here. So I did my 4 years in the Navy and just blended in to life as ususal. I used VA benifits to obtain a college degree in Accounting then got a job with the IRS for a total of 31 years federal government service. There were lots of veterans working at the IRS. We all got veterans preferance to obtain our jobs. That is the short history of my life. I am now retired with pension which I must keep the Republicans from stealing.

Several years ago, there was news breaking out among this one veteran's center that I used to stop by about how the VA benefits would be reduced, and later, disability percentages and pensions would later be affected in cut backs as well. If I come across such reporting of this information I will place that here. With this soaring federal deficit and this gang of BushCon's unaccountable spending, there's nowhere for assistance programs to go but into the dumpers....including vets services and pensions. My suggestion to you is, to stash a lot of your pension now for your future survival.

I just called Spector, Santorum and Heart my two senators and house member about suggestions by Republicans to means test Social Security. My wife is on SS and I have a civil service pension. I am sure they will find that I am rich enough to cut SS and my pension. If not why bother in this exercise? Marine thinks his military pension is as good as gold and safe. He is living in a dream world. He really thinks republicans will honor his 30 years service and pay him what he is due. They only honor corporate doners to their campaigns and tax cuts for their rich friends. They will screw me and Marine to do that. Marine just does not understand the real world yet. He really believes everthing they tell him. I think he would still vote for them even after they screw him.

Lets scratch the surface a little.

[We basically ignored Korean war vets. 'Nam was too big to ignore and too complex and visually ugly for a soundbite mentality that wants quick, easily-absorbed knowledge and has no desire for insight or wisdom. So, "blame" the vets. I think a number of 'Nam vets are secretly (and justifiably) contemptuous of and disdainful toward a society that made unnecessary and excessive demands on them.]



http://www.vvaw.org/veteran/article/?id=139


Americans first went along with the war in Vietnam because they're greedy sheep and anti-communist, even though the vast majority of the population has no knowledge of or experience with actual communism or socialism (except for "entitlement programs"). They eventually opposed the war because we weren't winning it quickly enough and it required personal sacrifice. The country can't (won't) sustain long-term efforts - gotta have instant progress/gratification.

[We basically ignored Korean war vets. 'Nam was too big to ignore and too complex and visually ugly for a soundbite mentality that wants quick, easily-absorbed knowledge and has no desire for insight or wisdom. So, "blame" the vets. I think a number of 'Nam vets are secretly (and justifiably) contemptuous of and disdainful toward a society that made unnecessary and excessive demands on them.]

So, the home team lost, even though it was favored by the political Las Vegas line, which wasn't necessarily based on reality. The home team not only lost, but didn't cover the point spread. And, even more devastating, all the dire things predicted and expected didn't come to pass. Makes you want to ask, "Was this trip really necessary?" This makes many people automatically do upbeat post-game analyses to cover their tracks.

The real Vietnam syndrome is the need for some to justly and satisfactorily explain things, mostly to themselves. To make sense of the experience. Thing is, 'Nam is basically irrational. 'Nam is over; the next time it will get another fifteen minutes of fame will be on the 50th anniversary of the war's end. Except for Henry Kissinger, all the "significant players" and most of the vets will be dead by then. Another generation of political troglodytes, militarists and grad students needing dissertation fodder will be interested. Maybe. More than likely, Vietnam will end up in the same limbo as the War of 1812: a war we didn't "lose" (in our minds), but don't talk about. Let alone understand.

If you really want to understand America's Vietnam vets, check out what happened in France before and after Vietnam and Algeria. Or study the two Koreas. You can probably make more sense of another country's misadventures than ours. You're too close to this one. And, an honest 'Nam vet might tell you something about the collective you-and-us you really wouldn't want to hear. But it is kind of funny about pissants who never served in 'Nam pretending to be 'Nam vets. I bet talking to some outed ones of that type would give you some good insights. How come you did that?

Many vets don't talk about 'Nam because, although they can easily give you physical details, it was a mystical, lost, youthful "religious" experience no one wanted to hear about for so long that it's lost some precious and precise meaning.

It was Dickens: The best of times; the worst of times. A rite of passage. A science-fiction war. It was an adventure, a mistake. A "patriotic duty," a quasi-colonial war, a civil war, an anti-communist holy crusade and FUBAR - all at the same time. Society pinned a scarlet "N" on our foreheads and treated us as if we were former street whores. It was as if Vietnam made us the winners in Shirley Jackson's lottery. All we were was spouse, lover, father, mother, sister, brother, uncle, aunt, cousin, friend, classmate. The person from around the corner or up the street. The roles we played before and after we got blooded or bloody.

That is the reason Vietnam vets for the most part do not trust government to tell then the truth. Vietnam was a lie. Why should I ever believe government again? Anyone who waves a flag and tells you to take that hill should be told to take it himself. He better have a dam good reason to take the hill besides the flag waving. Lies will not due. WW 2 vets will still believe flag waving because they did not fight for a lie. That is why I do not like the VFW stuff. They still believe in flag waving. I grew up to realize that government will wave the flag at you and lie at the same time.

Hello Veterans,
Thanks for your service. There is a Buddhist story, I cannot remember it now, in fact I don't know if it is Buddhist or what, but what you do, or did, was done in good faith and has that value that nobody can take away from it. Even when governments lied you did what you were told, obediently. That is commendable. Some of you know I am British. But I feel part of this cyberfamily and want you to know that your service and lives are still honorable despite the government lies.
LB
Postscript...I have also got over the patriotism thing. It is so easy to manipulate people using emotive things like flags, and your Nation. I learnt it by reading one of Thomas Merton's books about the second world war. People who are not soldiers should read about war and learn what happens, how war turns everything on its head, it is the least they can do.

People who are in favor of Nuclear bombs etc should also read books by survivors, or based on survivor's stories. I think it is our solemn duty.

Some few marines gets it.

http://www.theworldlink.com/swmay/veterans.html

By Carl Mickelson, Staff Writer

Viktor Diaz knows about war.
But, after fighting in Vietnam as a U.S. Marine, and being discharged in 1973, he also knows about a soldier’s struggle to put a life back together when the bullets stop flying.


The experience, and similar stories from his fellow comrades-in-arms, taught him that vets don’t necessarily come back in one piece — either emotionally, or physically.

That’s one of the reasons that Diaz, 57, a native of Long Island, N.Y., is a solid fit to take over the helm of Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 799 in Coos Bay. He relocated to North Bend in 2002 to be near his daughter and grand daughter.
Not only does he want the group to continue to focus on helping Vietnam veterans navigate their way through the Department of Veterans Affairs, but he also hopes to ease the transition back into civilian life for soldiers returning from the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

However, unlike the soldiers of those campaigns — who returned to considerable fanfare on the South Coast recently — when Diaz rotated back stateside after the Vietnam war, he, along with hundreds of thousands of other soldiers, found themselves in a society not as willing to welcome them home.
“We came back from Vietnam not knowing if we would be accepted or not,” Diaz said with more than a touch of the Long Island accent. “The country was so divided over the war in Vietnam.”
And a group many of them thought they could rely upon for assistance — veterans’ groups from World War II and Korea — weren’t able to satisfy the Vietnam vet’s cries for help.

There experiences with war and the public’s reaction to the wars, were as different as night and day.
“It wasn’t that the older generation — the (Veterans of Foreign Wars), the American Legion — didn’t want to help,” he said. “But like the rest of the country, it did not come to light just exactly what we had experienced until years after the war was over,” Diaz said.

The mindset of the older generation of soldier, Diaz said, was that when soldiers reentered civilian life, they were expected to simply pick up their lives where they had left off. That proved to be easier said than done for many of those returning from Vietnam. There wasn’t a group for them to confide in and that resulted in a grim reality. During the 1970s, “Vietnam vets were committing suicide at an astonishing rate,” Diaz said. “They were being locked up in prisons and mental hospitals.”

While Diaz has lots of good to say about the people who work at the VA, he said that one of the main battles veteran’s groups fight today stems from “the government making promises they can’t keep.” In the best-case scenario, veterans can receive benefits within six to eight months, he said.
But in his case, he said, it took more than 30 years.
“It’s not an overnight process,” Diaz said. “It took 30 years for them to say, ‘What you said in 1973 when you were discharged is correct.’ Our mission in the VVA is not to have any 30-year cases. To get them the assistance as soon as humanly possible.”

The ACLU shares their views of how suppression in America is and when it's applied.
Not only does our govt suppress the 'real' news report, and squelsh active duty troops from speaking their mind about 'wrongfull' operations, but the suppression of dissent against anti-war demonstrations are high on it's list for controlling American information and actions.

http://www.statewatch.org/news/2003/may/14aclu.htm

USA: ACLU Releases Report on Suppression of Dissent in a Post 9/11 America
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 8 May 2003, FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NEW YORK-- Taking their cue from the Bush Administration, law enforcement officials across the country have interrogated, detained and prosecuted hundreds of people for exercising their First Amendment freedoms of speech and assembly, according to a new report by the American Civil Liberties Union on the suppression of dissent since the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

"This report clearly illustrates how dangerous it has become since the terrorist attacks of September 11 to criticize the President of the United States or his policies," said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. "Government officials and political leaders must not be allowed to chill the free and robust debate that has made the American way of life the envy of nations and its Constitution a beacon to the world."

"Freedom Under Fire: Dissent in Post-9/11 America," describes how some government officials, including local police, have gone to extraordinary lengths to squelch dissent wherever it has sprung up, drawing on a breathtaking array of tactics - from censorship and surveillance to detention, denial of due process and excessive force.

The 18-page report finds that dissent since 9/11 has taken three principal forms: mass protests and rallies, messages on signs or clothing, and other acts of defiance by communities and individuals. These have ranged from silent vigils in parks to the passage of resolutions in more than 100 communities across the country protesting federal measures that violate civil liberties.

Police have beaten and maced protestors in Missouri, charged on horseback into crowds of demonstrators in New York, fired on demonstrators in California, and helped FBI agents to spy on professors and students at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, the ACLU report said.

Attorney General Ashcroft’s Justice Department has further asserted the right to seize protesters’ assets and deport immigrants under anti-terrorism statutes rushed through Congress after the attacks, and debated whether to revoke U.S. citizenship in some cases.

Some of the most stunning abuses - such as the compilation of political profiles of peaceful demonstrators by police in New York - did not come to light until they were exposed and challenged by the ACLU.

The ACLU report also makes clear that ours is not the first generation to face such challenges, with historical comparisons to government suppression of dissent from 1920 through the Vietnam era. These included the "scapegoating" of immigrant communities at the end of World War I, when labor strikes turned violent, leading to mass arrests and deportations on orders from then-Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer.

Also documented in the report are the actions taken by ACLU affiliates like the New York Civil Liberties Union to monitor the actions of police during the anti-Vietnam War rallies of the 1960s and 70s, when mass arrests were taking place and the civil liberties of peaceful demonstrators were
being violated.

Anybody here ever heard of a vet, Air Force methinks, named Al (Alfred H.) Hubbard? Wasn't he one of the founders of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and one of the organizers of the Winter Soldier Investigation? Wasn't his voice and story suppressed in some way?

http://baltimorechronicle.com/080205Miller.shtml

Forgotten Victims of America’s Plutocracy
By Jason Miller

The bloated, corrupt government of the United States of America spends $500 billion per year on its "glorious" military industrial complex to ensure that it our Plutocratic rulers maintain their possession of much of the world's wealth and domination over the world. When they do provide military or financial aid to other nations, it is with the covert (and sometimes overt) purpose of furthering the interests of the Plutocrats, and often results in suffering and death for many (i.e. “collateral damage” caused by the US military operations). Hypocrisy reigns as the world’s largest terrorist state perpetrates imperialistic wars like the one in Iraq under the banner of "moral superiority". That same "moral superiority enslaved a race of people and nearly decimated the indigenous population of North America. The sad part is that America could be the moral leader of the world. As a people, Americans need to find a way to meet our fellow citizens of the Earth as equals and to channel our vast resources toward bettering humanity and the planet on which we live. A great place to start would be to ensure the rights, dignity, and well-being of our own people, including the oft-forgotten mentally ill.

Never mind! Methinks this Wikipedia article gives the answers, eh?

Here's how Hollywood suppressed the truth of the real Vietnam and it's veterans in the propaganda production (movie) of the Green Berets. All based on right wing views.... which like in real life, mostly lies. I'm sure with it's release during 1968, it was also used as a tool to excite the young bloods to sign up in Sammy's lie war debacle in SE Asia. This added to the making of the Nixionite sheeple in the late '60s... same same as the fakes who dodged war like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld.... on and on.



Prominent Republicans

* Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert - avoided the draft, did not serve.
* Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey - avoided the draft, did not serve.
* House Majority Leader Tom Delay - avoided the draft, did not serve (1). "So many minority youths had volunteered ... that there was literally no room for patriotic folks like himself."
* House Majority Whip Roy Blunt - did not serve
* Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist - did not serve. (An impressive medical resume, but not such a friend to cats in Boston.)
* Majority Whip Mitch McConnell, R-KY - did not serve (1)
* Rick Santorum, R-PA, third ranking Republican in the Senate - did not serve. (1)
* Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott - avoided the draft, did not serve.


* Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld - served in the U.S. Navy (1954-57) as an aviator and flight instructor. (1) Served as President Reagan's Special Envoy to the Middle East and met with Saddam Hussein twice in 1983 and 1984.

* GW Bush - decided that a six-year Nat'l Guard commitment really means four years. Still says that he's "been to war." Huh?
* VP Cheney - several deferments (1, 2), the last by marriage (in his own words, "had other priorities than military service") (1)
* Att'y Gen. John Ashcroft - did not serve (1, 2); received seven deferment to teach business ed at SW Missouri State

* Jeb Bush, Florida Governor - did not serve. (1)

The wealthy have never yet sacrificed themselves upon the altar of patriotism. Graphic courtesy Bartcop.com. Thanks, Bartcop!
* Karl Rove - avoided the draft, did not serve (1), too busy being a Republican.

* Former Speaker Newt Gingrich - avoided the draft, did not serve (1, 2)
* Former President Ronald Reagan - due to poor eyesight, served in a noncombat role making movies for the Army in southern California during WWII. He later seems to have confused his role as an actor playing a tail gunner with the real thing.
* "B-1" Bob Dornan - avoided Korean War combat duty by enrolling in college acting classes (Orange County Weekly article). Enlisted only after the fighting was over in Korea.
* Phil Gramm - avoided the draft, did not serve, four (?) student deferments




http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A781724


The Western Conceit

The first major film to tackle the subject of the Vietnam War was the 1968 film The Green Berets, directed by John Wayne, the hero of many Westerns. Sadly, though predictably, Wayne offers a very biased and politically naïve view of the issues of US involvement in the war. Indeed, the film has much in common with the Cowboy movies that made Wayne famous, dealing with communism as he had dealt with the Indian threat years earlier. The most serious challenge to the jingoism in the film's narrative came, ironically enough, not from the communist Vietnamese but from a liberal, sceptical reporter, George Beckwith (David Jannsen). Beckwith's doubts are suppressed as soon as he is exposed to evidence that the Vietcong have tortured and raped the inhabitants of a small village. His reaction to the brutality echoes that of Wayne himself in the classic western The Searchers. The film ends with Wayne walking off into the sunset hand in hand with his mascot, a small Vietnamese boy who befriends the hero in the same way the audience was supposed to believe the Vietnamese had befriended 'Uncle Sam.'

New York Times critic Renata Adler commented that:
The Green Berets is a film so unspeakable, so stupid, so rotten and false, that it passes through being funny, through being camp, through everything and becomes an invitation to grieve not so much for our soldiers or Vietnam (the film could not be more false or do greater disservice to them), but for what has happened to the fantasy-making apparatus of this country.

Hollywood could no longer rely on such obvious propaganda to convince the nation of the need for greater commitment in the war. John Wayne's old-fashioned, patriotic clichés about 'freedom, justice and the American way' and the brutal, totalitarian Vietcong failed to represent the dichotomy of public emotion towards the war. Instead, Wayne's values were challenged by Hollywood's new revisionism, featuring genre films that not only undermined Wayne's right-wing beliefs, but portrayed war with horror rather than honour as their prime focus.

Here's a parallel of truth between 'Nam and IraqNam that our Pentagon and VA loves to suppress.


http://www.veteransforpeace.org/Maimed_in_Iraq_021804.htm

VETERANS FOR PEACE
Veterans Working Together for Peace & Justice Through Non-violence. Wage Peace!


Maimed in Iraq, then mistreated, neglected, and hidden in America.

By Frederick Sweet

Combat veterans wounded in Iraq were left waiting weeks and even months for proper medical attention at military bases. According to an officer, their living conditions were so unacceptable for injured soldiers he said they "were being treated like dogs." Then the Pentagon underreported the number wounded.

The Bush administration, referring to veterans of the war in Iraq, told a House panel that they would avoid last year's "mistakes" of leaving sick and injured troops at U.S. bases to wait for months to be properly treated by doctors. Adding insult to injury, Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. James B. Peake told the House panel that he "was not aware" that last fall soldiers were waiting for medical care at U.S. bases and under substandard living conditions.

Wounded "treated like dogs"

Mark Benjamin’s investigative report on Oct. 20, 2003 for UPI, revealed that many wounded veterans from Iraq had to wait "weeks and months at places such as the Fort Stewart military base in Georgia, for proper medical help." They had been kept in living conditions that are "unacceptable for sick and injured soldiers." One officer characterized conditions for the wounded by saying, "They're being treated like dogs."

Compelling report given by Lt /Dr Doug Rokke with how the Pentagon and others have suppressed information about handling and treating DU infected personnel and veterans.

http://www.truth-now.com/drdougrokke.htm

US Army, Lieutenant, Head of Pentagon's Gulf War Depleted Uranium Project,
Dr. Doug Rokke
Says Army Had Full Knowledge Of Toxic Health Hazards To Gulf Soldiers...
U.S. Senate Caucus Room
November 10, 2000


As the DU assessment team health physicist and medic I was responsible for planning and implementing DU (uranium 238) contaminated equipment and terrain clean up and for providing medical care recommendations for exposed personnel. As we surveyed the battlefield it became obvious that we had serious equipment, terrain, and medical problems requiring immediate action. Although, effects of uranium exposure have been identified the effects from combat exposure during ODS were unknown. We had over 100 friendly fire U.S. casualties and several hundred others with verified exposures because of their U.S. Department of Defense assigned duties.

Consequently, the theater occupational health physician wrote and then distributed immediate medical screening and care guidelines on June 13, 1991. As verified by GAO officials, it was ignored then and still is today.

Today, affected individuals include military personnel from all nations that were involved, civilian non-combatants; and even residents of Vieques, Puerto Rico; Okinawa; Tennessee, Kentucky, Kosovo, Serbia, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. The wartime and now peacetime decision that you could just shoot solid rods of uranium 238 (DU) anywhere without providing medical care for all exposed persons and without cleaning it up is a crime against God and the citizens of the world.

Today we know that the anthrax manufacturing process was never inspected and approved by the FDA before 1993 and today the FDA still has not approved the facility.


I and others have sent numerous messages to the Honorable Dr. Bernard Rostker, Deputy Secretary of Defense, who was not there, whose staff was not there, and whose staff still ignores the warnings and recommendations those of us who were there for political and economic reasons. It is painfully obvious that DOD and VA officials have no intention of accepting responsibility for what has happened! The reason is very simple! If they acknowledge what happened to our nations heroes and accept responsibility for medical care and environmental remediation then these same officials must acknowledge the consequences of our actions on non-combatants and enemy forces around the world. We suggested that Dr. Rostker, Secretary of Defense Cohen, or the President Clinton state that: During the Gulf War essential decisions to protect our warriors and win the war were made based on the tactical situation and verified threats.

Today, we know that those decisions and our deliberate actions have resulted in serious adverse health and environmental consequences. We can no longer ignore the consequences of our deliberate actions. We apologize to our warriors, our warrior's families, and the citizens of the world. We resolve to provide medical care or medical care recommendations and complete environmental remediation.

ALTHOUGH, WE HAVE OFFERED THIS SOLUTION MANY TIMES IT IS IGNORED! We owe the combat veterans of our nation the medical care they earned! We must provide all WARRIORS with education and training to ensure combat readiness and prevent a repeat of what has occurred. We must provide military personnel with all of the operational equipment they need to complete their assigned missions.

We must hold those officials who have willfully harmed our nations heroes accountable for their deliberate actions. We must force a stop to the retaliation against those warriors who try to tell the truth and who epitomize our nation’s ideals expressed so eloquently by General Douglas MacArthur's three immortal words: DUTY, HONOR, COUNTRY

We have the ultimate obligation as leaders of the world to provide medical care or medical care recommendations to all that are sick. Finally we have an obligation to complete environmental remediation of contamination caused by our deliberate actions throughout the United States and the rest or the world! I want to recite a poem that I wrote in memory of SFC John Sitton, a Vietnam and Gulf War Veteran, who answered his nations call during two wars. He was my friend! He is a true American hero because he set up and ran the 3rd U.S. Army's medical evacuation radio communications system during the Gulf War. It is ironic that the warrior who saved so many lives died abandoned on the battlefield of political denials.

...

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: WE HAVE AN OBLIGATION TO DO WHAT IS RIGHT FOR GOD, OUR WARRIORS, AND THE CITIZENS OF THE WORLD! I will never quit until all individuals are cared for and environmental remediation is completed. I was ordered to complete that mission as a soldier and I will succeed even in the face of adversity! Today, I ask you to help. UNLIKE ANOTHER WARRIOR, I AM ONE SOLDIER WHO WILL NOT JUST FADE AWAY.

~Dr. Doug Rokke

Well ghost, was this a 1st or 2nd Lieutenant the Pentagon made Head of Pentagon's Gulf War Depleted Uranium Project? I had no idea the US Army would give a Lieutenant such responsibility.

However I googled the fellows name and he must be a chameleon ghost, he's a Lieutenant, then a Major, a physicist, a Colonel, a Doctor, a professor, then a PHD, the director of the pentagon DU project, supervisor of DU cleanup, lecturer and it all depends upon who he's talking to at the moment.

Seems to be a darling of the anti-war movemnt too. 57 pages of stuff he wrote, too bad he can't decide what he does for a living.

It behoves me the extent of your ignorance #780... in his 24 yr military career, one makes rank in such normal progression. That report came out in 2000 for which I am sure he was Lt at that time, then later made Major. Being that he's also a doctor, I'm sure his education in the medical field supports his doctorite as well. If he speaks on such subject matter, teaches, then he is called a professor. Man you sure can be dense.

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/du_syndrome.html

DU Syndrome Stricken Vets Denied Care

Pentagon Hides DU Dangers to Deny Medical Care to Vets

By Christopher Bollyn



Far from the radioactive battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, another war is being waged. This war, over the use of depleted uranium (DU) weapons, is being fought between the military top brass and the men who understand the dangers of DU: former military doctors and nuclear scientists.

This war is for the truth about uranium weapons, and the consequences of their use, and has been waged for more than 13 years—since the U.S. government first used DU weapons against Iraq. Most Americans, however, are unaware of this historic struggle, because the Pentagon has used its power to prevent information about DU from reaching the public.

John Hanchette, editor of USA Today from 1991 to 2001, in a recent interview with anti-DU activist Leuren Moret, said he had written several news stories about the effects of DU on gulf wars veterans. Every time he was ready to publish a story about the devastating illnesses afflicting soldiers, however, the Pentagon called USA Today and pressured him not to publish the story. Hanchette was eventually replaced as editor and now teaches journalism to college students.

Dr. Doug Rokke, 37-year Army veteran and former director of the Army’s Depleted Uranium Project, has become an outspoken “warrior for peace” in the war against DU weapons. Rokke is fighting for medical care for all people exposed to DU: active soldiers, veterans and civilians, including Iraqis, and for “remediation” or cleansing of all DU-contaminated land.

“Anyone who demands medical care and environmental remediation faces ongoing and blatant retaliation,” Rokke told AFP. “Anybody who speaks up—their career ends.”

http://www.ecotecture.com/library_eco/inte...okke_du_1a.html

The interview with DU expert US Army Major Doug Rokke was conducted by Dennis Bernstein, the producer of the program Flash Points on KPFA (Pacifica) radio in Berkeley, California, and broadcast on April 17, 2003.

Funny all the articles had been written since 2000 ghost, and it was a very strange progression. Called back into service in 1991 after he retired in 1973? You claim he was a Lieutenant in 2000? Yet he's out of the Military as a Colonel, man's that's the fastest I ever seen anyone make rank. Medical field work supports a PhD in Pyhsics? I'd like to see this guys resume, he's your expert, got one?

DUH.... maybe he was gathering the facts for about 5-6 years to make this presentation ..... ya think?

You're sttokin' to fast buzz saw.... you're trying to cover what has already been exposed for several years now. Hummm....lets see... lets call it a name... now what would BushCo call this... ahhhh SUPPRESSION of the facts!

http://www.denverspiritualcommunity.org/Am...htm#anchor19618
American Free Press September 6, 2004


Pentagon Brass Suppresses Truth About Toxic Weapons

Poisonous Uranium Munitions Threaten World

By Christopher Bollyn

The use of weapons containing uranium violates existing laws and customs of war and "constitutes a war crime or crime against humanity," according to a leading U.S. expert on humanitarian law.

Karen Parker, a San Francisco-based expert in armed conflict law, told American Free Press that the use of radioactive uranium weapons violates the Hague and Geneva Conventions as well as the Conventional Weapons Convention of 1980.

Although no treaty specifically bans DU weapons, they are illegal "de facto and de jure," Parker said. However, a class action lawsuit by victims of DU weapons will probably be required for a court to ban their use, she said.

‘ILLEGAL FOR ALL COUNTRIES'

"A weapon made illegal only because there is a specific treaty banning it is only illegal for countries that ratify such a treaty," Parker wrote in a paper, "The Illegality of DU Weaponry," presented at the International Uranium Weapons Conference in Hamburg, Germany last October. However, "a weapon that is illegal by operation of existing law is illegal for all countries."

Parker, a delegate to the UN Commission on Human Rights since 1982, provides legal advice to the UN on DU weapons and other matters of humanitarian law.

WHAT THE MILITARY KNOWS

The Defense Department is well aware of the toxic effects of DU. In an official presentation by U.S. Army Reserve Col. J. Edgar Wakayama at Fort Belvoir, Va. on Aug. 20, 2002, the dangers of exposure to DU were clearly spelled out:

"Inhalation exposure has a major effect on the lungs and thoracic lymph nodes," Wakayama read from a slide. "The alpha particle taken inside the body in large doses is hazardous, producing cell damage and cancer. Lung cancer is well documented," he noted.

"Urine samples containing uranium are mutagenic [capable of producing mutation]" and "the cultured human stem bone cell line with DU also transformed the cells to become carcinogenic," Wakayama read.

DU deposited in the bone causes DNA damage because of the effects of the alpha particles, Wakayama stressed. One gram of DU emits 12,000 high-energy alpha particles per second.

The fourth rule for weapons, the "environmental" test, says that weapons cannot have an unduly negative effect on the natural environment.

Wakayama advised, "Heavily contaminated soil should be removed if the area is to be populated with civilians."

Wakayama described the dangers to children playing in contaminated soil and the leaching of DU into local water and food supplies.

DU FAILS ALL LEGAL CRITERIA

DU weaponry fails all four tests, Parker says. Because it cannot be contained to the battlefield, it fails the territorial test. Airborne DU particles are carried far from the battlefield affecting distant civilian populations and neighboring countries.

Because the uranium dispersed on the ground and in the air cannot be "turned off" when the war is over, DU fails the temporal test.

"The airborne particles have a half-life of billions of years and have the potential to keep killing . . . long after the war is over," Parker wrote.

"The status of DU as nuclear, radiological, poison or conventional does not change its illegality. When the weapons test is applied to DU weaponry, it fails," she concluded.

DU weapons fail the humaneness test because of how they kill, Parker says, "by cancer, kidney disease etc, long after the hostilities are over.

"DU is inhumane because it can cause birth defects such as cranial facial anomalies, missing limbs, grossly deformed and non-viable infants and the like, thus affecting children . . . born after the war is over," Parker said.

"The teratogenic [interfering with normal embryonic development] nature of DU weapons and the possible burdening of the gene pool of future generations raise the possibility that the use of DU weaponry is genocide," she wrote. "Willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health" of civilians constitutes a grave breach of the fourth Geneva Convention, and this is "exactly what DU weapons do."

Finally, because DU weapons cannot be used without unduly damaging the natural environment, they fail the fourth rule for weapons, the environmental test.

"No available technology can significantly change the chemical and radiological toxicity of DU," the Army Environmental Policy Institute reported to Congress in 1994. "These are intrinsic properties of uranium."

"Regarding environmental damages, users of these weapons are obligated to carry out an effective cleanup," Parker wrote. "The cost of legal claims and environmental cleanup for the gulf wars alone could be staggering."

"Use of DU weaponry necessarily violates the `grave breach' provision of the Geneva Conventions, and hence its use constitutes a war crime or crime against humanity," Parker concluded.

Questions regarding the legality of DU weapons were sent in writing to the Pentagon's appointed spokesman on DU matters, James Turner.

Turner told AFP that he was "not qualified" to answer such questions.

By press time the Pentagon had not responded to repeated requests for information.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6732196/site/newsweek/

Fast Chat: Amber McClenny

Newsweek

Dec. 27 / Jan. 3 issue - McClenny, 21, made headlines in October when she and 22 other members of 343rd Quartermaster Company stationed in Iraq refused to carry out a mission with unarmored vehicles. The soldiers were threatened with charges of mutiny, and held under armed guard while investigated. McClenny spoke to Eve Conant by telephone from her base in Tallil, Iraq.

How did your unit get to the point where you simply said 'no' to a direct order?
We didn't have any armor on our vehicles. We were exhausted. They wanted us to drive farther north than we had ever gone, to deliver fuel we knew was contaminated. When they asked me I said 'No, no way in the world.'

How's the Army punished you?
I've been demoted from specialist to private first class. I get about $400 less per month than I did before. For thirty days I have to work from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. with one hour off, seven days a week.

How is morale at your base?
Ever since we got here things have been swept under the rug. We've had one suicide attempt, and one guy locked and loaded his weapon in another soldier's face. You'd never hear about it. Ninety percent of my unit has gone to "combat stress" for counseling. I don't recall any good news this past year.

What hurts morale the most?
It's mostly knowing that your chain of command doesn't care about you. The more fuel missions we do, the better it looks on our superiors' records. They make rank. We weren't even licensed to drive fuel vehicles to begin with. We have a better commander now.

And how's your armor?
The metal we've welded into our trucks is scrap metal about a quarter of an inch thick. It's all homemade. But I guess scrap metal is better than nothing at all.

Would you do it again, refuse that mission?
I wouldn't change a thing. It's time we stood up for ourselves. I think there have been some good changes because of what we did: I've heard that if you order armor now, you can get it within 45 days.

We understand who your preference of reporters are #780. Brainwashed robots from the DoD and of course, freelance Jeff 'purddy boy' Gannon.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/02/...t/index_np.html

"Jeff Gannon's" secret life
Revelations that the bogus reporter worked as a gay escort are the latest twist in the affair that has the White House squirming -- and Democrats demanding explanations.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
By Eric Boehlert

Feb. 15, 2005 |

Last week, Republican activist Bobby Eberle, the man behind the now infamous conservative Web site Talon News, insisted that before hiring "Jeff Gannon" as his White House correspondent, he never looked into Gannon's background. If true, Eberle now probably wishes he had.


<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Better yet this is simply what #780 and other BushConic lifer's pefers.... the BushCo filtered news reporting.

http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/37/9592

Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged Television News
By David Barstow and Robin Stein
The New York Times

Sunday 13 March 2005

It is the kind of TV news coverage every president covets.

"Thank you, Bush. Thank you, U.S.A.," a jubilant Iraqi-American told a camera crew in Kansas City for a segment about reaction to the fall of Baghdad. A second report told of "another success" in the Bush administration's "drive to strengthen aviation security"; the reporter called it "one of the most remarkable campaigns in aviation history." A third segment, broadcast in January, described the administration's determination to open markets for American farmers.

To a viewer, each report looked like any other 90-second segment on the local news. In fact, the federal government produced all three. The report from Kansas City was made by the State Department. The "reporter" covering airport safety was actually a public relations professional working under a false name for the Transportation Security Administration. The farming segment was done by the Agriculture Department's office of communications.

Under the Bush administration, the federal government has aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache remedies to auto insurance. In all, at least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government's role in their production.

This winter, Washington has been roiled by revelations that a handful of columnists wrote in support of administration policies without disclosing they had accepted payments from the government. But the administration's efforts to generate positive news coverage have been considerably more pervasive than previously known. At the same time, records and interviews suggest widespread complicity or negligence by television stations, given industry ethics standards that discourage the broadcast of prepackaged news segments from any outside group without revealing the source.

Federal agencies are forthright with broadcasters about the origin of the news segments they distribute. The reports themselves, though, are designed to fit seamlessly into the typical local news broadcast. In most cases, the "reporters" are careful not to state in the segment that they work for the government. Their reports generally avoid overt ideological appeals. Instead, the government's news-making apparatus has produced a quiet drumbeat of broadcasts describing a vigilant and compassionate administration.

Some reports were produced to support the administration's most cherished policy objectives, like regime change in Iraq or Medicare reform. Others focused on less prominent matters, like the administration's efforts to offer free after-school tutoring, its campaign to curb childhood obesity, its initiatives to preserve forests and wetlands, its plans to fight computer viruses, even its attempts to fight holiday drunken driving. They often feature "interviews" with senior administration officials in which questions are scripted and answers rehearsed. Critics, though, are excluded, as are any hints of mismanagement, waste or controversy.

Some of the segments were broadcast in some of nation's largest television markets, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and Atlanta.

An examination of government-produced news reports offers a look inside a world where the traditional lines between public relations and journalism have become tangled, where local anchors introduce prepackaged segments with "suggested" lead-ins written by public relations experts. It is a world where government-produced reports disappear into a maze of satellite transmissions, Web portals, syndicated news programs and network feeds, only to emerge cleansed on the other side as "independent" journalism.

It is also a world where all participants benefit.

Local affiliates are spared the expense of digging up original material. Public relations firms secure government contracts worth millions of dollars. The major networks, which help distribute the releases, collect fees from the government agencies that produce segments and the affiliates that show them. The administration, meanwhile, gets out an unfiltered message, delivered in the guise of traditional reporting.

The practice, which also occurred in the Clinton administration, is continuing despite President Bush's recent call for a clearer demarcation between journalism and government publicity efforts. "There needs to be a nice independent relationship between the White House and the press," Mr. Bush told reporters in January, explaining why his administration would no longer pay pundits to support his policies.

In interviews, though, press officers for several federal agencies said the president's prohibition did not apply to government-made television news segments, also known as video news releases. They described the segments as factual, politically neutral and useful to viewers. They insisted that there was no similarity to the case of Armstrong Williams, a conservative columnist who promoted the administration's chief education initiative, the No Child Left Behind Act, without disclosing $240,000 in payments from the Education Department.

What is more, these officials argued, it is the responsibility of television news directors to inform viewers that a segment about the government was in fact written by the government. "Talk to the television stations that ran it without attribution," said William A. Pierce, spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services. "This is not our problem. We can't be held responsible for their actions."

Yet in three separate opinions in the past year, the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress that studies the federal government and its expenditures, has held that government-made news segments may constitute improper "covert propaganda" even if their origin is made clear to the television stations. The point, the office said, is whether viewers know the origin. Last month, in its most recent finding, the G.A.O. said federal agencies may not produce prepackaged news reports "that conceal or do not clearly identify for the television viewing audience that the agency was the source of those materials."

It is not certain, though, whether the office's pronouncements will have much practical effect. Although a few federal agencies have stopped making television news segments, others continue. And on Friday, the Justice Department and the Office of Management and Budget circulated a memorandum instructing all executive branch agencies to ignore the G.A.O. findings. The memorandum said the G.A.O. failed to distinguish between covert propaganda and "purely informational" news segments made by the government. Such informational segments are legal, the memorandum said, whether or not an agency's role in producing them is disclosed to viewers.

Even if agencies do disclose their role, those efforts can easily be undone in a broadcaster's editing room. Some news organizations, for example, simply identify the government's "reporter" as one of their own and then edit out any phrase suggesting the segment was not of their making.

So in a recent segment produced by the Agriculture Department, the agency's narrator ended the report by saying "In Princess Anne, Maryland, I'm Pat O'Leary reporting for the U.S. Department of Agriculture." Yet AgDay, a syndicated farm news program that is shown on some 160 stations, simply introduced the segment as being by "AgDay's Pat O'Leary." The final sentence was then trimmed to "In Princess Anne, Maryland, I'm Pat O'Leary reporting."

Brian Conrady, executive producer of AgDay, defended the changes. "We can clip 'Department of Agriculture' at our choosing," he said. "The material we get from the U.S.D.A., if we choose to air it and how we choose to air it is our choice."

Lies and suppression are what many vets are used to in the likes of such Neocon / Republican govts today.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/19/1353243


Tuesday, July 19th, 2005
Seymour Hersh: Bush Authorized Covert Plan to Manipulate Iraqi Elections

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reports in this week's issue of The New Yorker that President Bush authorized covert plans last year to support the election campaigns of Iraqi candidates and political parties with close ties to the White House. Hersh's article cites unidentified former military and intelligence officials who said the administration had gone ahead with covert election activities in Iraq that "were conducted by retired CIA officers and other nongovernment personnel, and used funds that were not necessarily appropriated by Congress."

*****

AMY GOODMAN: We're joined on the line now by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, Seymour Hersh, author of the piece. Welcome to Democracy Now!

SEYMOUR HERSH: Hi.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Westmoreland, one of the main U.S. military leaders during the Vietnam War, retired General William Westmoreland has died at the age of 91. You won your Pulitzer Prize covering Vietnam, exposing a massacre, the My Lai massacre. Your response?

SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, Peter Davis, the filmmaker, did a marvelous documentary called Hearts and Minds, in which Westmoreland is filmed saying, ‘Well, the Vietnamese’ he said, ‘are not like Americans and us in the West. They don't feel losses. They don't feel. They don’t have the same kind of family feelings we do. Death to them is not like death to us.’ And that's what he said on camera. I'm paraphrasing because it's a 30-year-old memory.

The movie, the documentary, was done in the 1970s, but his suggestion was somehow they're less human than we are. And that kind of institutional racism, which may have something to do with our, you know, the casualness with which we look at the daily atrocities in Iraq. You know, this is a stigma for all of us. And unfortunately, those who say that this is not like Iraq, should just start listening to the way the military in the last six months have begun talking about insurgents killed, 100 insurgents killed here, 80 insurgents killed there. It's all that talk and the same language we had and the body counts back in Vietnam. You know, they are less than real.

Sounds the same as the stuff you subscribe to ghost.


To add insult to injury, when American POWs finally began to return home (some of them having been held captive for up to nine years) and describe the tortures they had endured at the hands of the North Vietnamese, Jane Fonda quickly told the country that they should "not hail the POWs as heroes, because they are hypocrites and liars." Fonda said the idea that the POWs she had met in Vietnam had been tortured was "laughable," claiming: "These were not men who had been tortured. These were not men who had been starved. These were not men who had been brainwashed." The POWs who said they had been tortured were "exaggerating, probably for their own self-interest," she asserted. She told audiences that "Never in the history of the United States have POWs come home looking like football players. These football players are no more heroes than Custer was. They're military careerists and professional killers" who are "trying to make themselves look self-righteous, but they are war criminals according to law."

Interesting....you mean that the Bush administration tried to rig the Iraqi elections? Well...let's see...Talabani ran and was assured election before the invasion because he was the leader of the Peshmerga in the PUK and Barzani was not interested because he wanted to be the leader of the KDP in Northern, Northeastern Kurdish Iraq...where he has his strongest support, and he was going to act as a sort of governor of that region. this was pretty much assured as well....so the invasion did not change that.

The administration wanted Chalabi to be the PM but they got foiled on that idea and the voters rejected him.

chalk it up to wishful thinking, incompetence in election rigging or perhaps....an outside chance that the vote was actually as honest as these things ever get!

Havin' seen what you was quotin' in this reply methinks you might wanna inform them of somethin' else. Might wanna tell any Army vets, just in case they didn't already know, that physicians in the Army, upon entrance or attainin' that status are in the grade O-3 (that's Captain for any "former Marine" in Boise, eh?) automatically. The only Lieutenants in the Army Medical Corps are medical students. Dental Corps is the same, but their other medical staff corps (Medical Service Corps and Nurse Corps) do have Lieutenants.

I see the thread is drawing a nice batch of RAs now. Only because the BushCons are in need of support in this thread that they appear. Since you all are coming here, how about you help your sidekicks in answering questions concerning going to more 'designed' wars under the PNAC. Should America's National Goober pursue invasion on Syria, Iran, N Korea, Venezuela, and Cuba within the next 2 yrs just for starters, or at some point has your Neoconic thinking seen a light bulb go off and pictures of how disasterous this will be to this nation if that happens? How many civilazations shall we 'try' to wipe out in order to place 'our' rule inside their countries?

I wonder just how much of this suppressed information that our troops and new veterans are aware of in all of this as they struggle with the Iraq mess today? I can remember when back in 'Nam... I really didn't hear of any future information other than someday we ourselves might cross over into Laos. There wasn't even an explaination as to why we would if we did... like who's next? Vietnam was this big black secret hole... with no ending in sight... or any idea of what was on the other side of side 'plans'. Much like the Iraq situation now... other than those of us with knowledge of the PNAC and the behind the scenes New World Order. I doubt very much the troops today has a clue to any of that at all.

Glad you chimed in Doc, I know very little about the procedure or structure of the Medical Corps of either the Army or the Navy.

I googled the fellows name and he is one of the darlings of the antiwar movement, the problem I noted was when they would taut his credentials as the expert on depleted uranium it was very inconsistant.

This is an ongoing problem the antiwar movement has had since Vietnam, they fail to pay attention to if their story is capable of holding water. The VVAW had people claiming to be Vietnam Vets who turned out tho be neither a Vet or had ever been any where close to Vietnam.

It would be nice if DU is a health risk if the antiwar people would stop trotting in phonies so a real expert are not doubted when they speak.

It does not take an expert to know that when you breath in DU dust it does not improve your health.

Not only that David, but it's same same action with the Agent Orange during Vietnam, by the similar Neocons of today (much like whose present in this thread) who are also suppressing efforts to expose DU. That's all that's happening here David in this thread and many other threads in this forum that exposes the operations of BushCo, Republicans and Neocons of today about such information that even goes as far back to when we were schoolkids. Whenever we present information that exposes what ppl are being exposed to and must face, the suppression starts. It's far from being simple denial, for this suppression has it's own purpose. To protect today's BushCons and Neocons... and to hold down dissent against this corrupt regime.

As I previously listed in this thread, suppression is alive and very strong in this lost nation of ours.

[John Hanchette, editor of USA Today from 1991 to 2001, in a recent interview with anti-DU activist Leuren Moret, said he had written several news stories about the effects of DU on gulf wars veterans. Every time he was ready to publish a story about the devastating illnesses afflicting soldiers, however, the Pentagon called USA Today and pressured him not to publish the story. Hanchette was eventually replaced as editor and now teaches journalism to college students.]


Just wait until some of these Neocon's own kids or grandchildren start puking blood up approx 10 years from now... if not already, only then will they begin to wake up... which in their case, is always too late. There's not much ppl can do about deliberate ignorance as they hide behind their secret ignore buttons in forums.



http://www.defensetech.org/archives/001231.html

VETS BATTLE MYSTERY SICKNESS

A pointer to this Reuters article landed in my in-box with the subject "Gulf War II Syndrome?" That's probably a little premature. But this is weird, weird stuff, nonetheless.

An unexpectedly high number of U.S. soldiers injured in the Middle East and Afghanistan are testing positive for a rare, hard-to-treat blood infection in military hospitals, Army doctors reported on Thursday.

A total of 102 soldiers were found to be infected with the bacteria Acinetobacter baumannii. The infections occurred among soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany and three other sites between Jan. 1, 2002, and Aug. 31, 2004.

Although it was not known where the soldiers contracted the infections, the Army said the recent surge highlighted a need to improve infection control in military hospitals.

Eighty-five of the bloodstream infections occurred among soldiers serving in Iraq, the area around Kuwait and Afghanistan, the U.S. Army said in a report published on Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Military hospitals typically see about one case per year.

If there is a Gulf War II syndrome, it may have the same roots as the mystery illness that struck the veterans of Gulf War I: depleted uranium, or D.U. That's the ultra-hard, apparently toxic material American forces have been using for years in their anti-tank shells.

Vanity Fair chronicles how soldiers who have been exposed to the stuff in Iraq have been coming back in bad, bad shape.

At first, Terry merely had the usual headaches, body pain, oozing rash, and other symptoms. But later he began to suffer from another symptom which afflicts some of those exposed to D.U.: burning semen. "If he leaked a little lubrication from his penis, it would feel like sunburn on your skin... In England, Malcolm Hooper, professor emeritus of medicinal chemistry at the University of Sunderland, is aware of 4,000 such cases. He hypothesizes that the presence of D.U. may be associated with the transformation of semen into a caustic alkali.

"It hurt [Terry] too. He said it was like forcing it through barbed wire," Riordon says. "It seemed to burn through condoms; if he got any on his thighs or his testicles, he was in hell." In a last, desperate attempt to save their sex life, says Riordon, "I used to fill condoms with frozen peas and insert them [after sex] with a lubricant." That, she says, made her pain just about bearable. Perhaps inevitably, he became impotent. "And that was like our last little intimacy gone."

By late 1995, Terry was seriously deteriorating. Susan shows me her journal-she titled it "The Twilight Zone"-and his medical record. It makes harrowing reading. He lost his fine motor control to the point where he could not button his shirt or zip his fly. While walking, he would fall without warning. At night, he shook so violently that the bed would move across the floor. He became unpredictably violent: one terrible day in 1997 he attacked their 16-year-old son and started choking him. By the time armed police arrived to pull him off, the boy's bottom lip had turned blue. After such rages, he would fall into a deep sleep for as long as 24 hours, and awake with no memory of what had happened...

Even after he died, on April 29, 1999, Terry's Canadian doctors remained unable to explain his illness. "This patient has a history [of] 'Gulf War Syndrome' with multiple motor, sensory and emotional problems," the autopsy report by pathologist Dr. B. Jollymore, of Yarmouth, begins. "During extensive investigation, no definitive diagnosis has been determined.... Essentially it appears that this gentleman remains an enigma in death as he was in life."

The article never quite gets around to what D.U. exposure really does to a man. Is it burning semen? Bone cancer? Psychotic breaks? Lung problems? All of the above? But the amount of stories and studies accumulated leads to only one conclusion: that D.U. is somehow linked to a whole bunch of soldiers getting sick. And the Pentagon doesn't seem to be in any particular hurry to figure out why.

Ghost, DU is not only slightly raidoactive but is a toxic chemical in its own right. Enough of it in your lungs and then in your blood stream will possibly destroy your health. Even lead is toxic to humans. DU is just up the periodic chemical table from lead. Soldiers are morons to beleave this "expletive deleted" is safe. It is a heavy metal which is dangerous to living things.

Got ya David. Du is simply a poisoning to one's body.... like other materials used on troops in the military's past. Soldiers are mostly unaware of such 'going ons' for the most part... until it's too late. I never was aware of Agent Orange until after my first infectious attack 5-6 years back in the states. Now there are those who are in the upper ranks who are aware of the harmfull effects of such stuff and cover it up. Only some soldiers are aware when as they become directly involved with such operations... and learn about the effects. Sadly, most troops will do what Uncle Samuel wants them to do (while keeping their mouths shut as to not draw attention to such operations and or effects of war introduced by our dear Pentagon) without question. Remember what some lifers will say even in this forum.... "It is not for the soldier to question their orders". That's the sad part of our military David..... it's nothing but a brainwashing group of a-holes that uses ppl to do anything that it's told to do..... without question. One really should look at that method of thinking.

There it is.... crushing of dissent and truth. Supression of the truth lives in many who supports BushCo. We see it here often in the propaganda efforts of those who support this current corrupt regime today. It's deliberate ingnorance that really has no real soul or a mind of it's own left from being lead around by a ring in it's nose. Suppression reaches out everywhere.... our news media.... and especially the internet... and forums. Where ever communications are available, suppression will be right there. Whats also bad is, like in my case upon returning back from a lie war, I, as an individual, allowed the public to suppress what I knew... as I sought isolation in this society. I let wrongdoings of such a lie war to be burried as I dealt with the guilt that it all brings. I suppose that's why I am here now... to make up for what I was pushed into... forced to be, while running from the real truth. I let the govt off the hook back then... and they grew into more larger horrible sleezbags that they are today. I then came under fire from those Bush supporters here... which brought me to this section in this forum to further expose the truth. As you will see, truth is not well accepted by some in here. They represent well why the real system has broken down.... real democracy. They caught many aleep at the wheel, and they slimmed their way into control.... just as the Bushies have done. They have worked hard to suppress information.... to resist dissent based on truth. They have become an enemy from within, and that my friends, will be what we will face in the future.

Below will be the start of taking the BushCons apart. World Tribunal.... never let this organization down. Stand behind it strong... hard and firm! Seek true justice until all govt corruption is gone!

http://www.sonoran-sunsets.com/g8.html

FROM IRAQ TO THE G8: THE POLITE CRUSHING OF DISSENT AND TRUTH
John Pilger

Over the past two weeks, the contrast between two related "global" events has been salutary. The first was the World Tribunal on Iraq held in Istanbul; the second the G8 meeting in Scotland and the Make Poverty History campaign. Reading the papers and watching television in Britain, you would know nothing about the Istanbul meetings, which produced the most searing evidence to date of the greatest political scandal of modern times: the attack on a defenceless Iraq by America and Britain.

The tribunal is a serious international public inquiry into the invasion and occupation, the kind governments dare not hold. "We are here," said the author Arundathi Roy in Istanbul, "to examine a vast spectrum of evidence (about the war) that has been deliberately marginalised and suppressed, its legality, the role of international institutions and major corporations in the occupation, the role of the media, the impact of weapons such as depleted uranium munitions, napalm, and cluster bombs, the use and legitimising of torture . . . This tribunal is an attempt to correct the record: to document the history of the war not from the point of view of the victors but of the temporarily anguished."

"Temporarily anguished" implies that, even faced with such rampant power, the Iraqi people will recover. You certainly need this sense of hope when reading the eyewitness testimonies which demonstrate, as Roy pointed out, "that even those of us who have tried to follow the war closely are not aware of a fraction of the horrors that have been unleashed in Iraq."

Now here's a fine fat Republican rat right out of Texas now back in the news after being indicted for some of his few crimes known to man. Here's another chickenhawk loser who avoided military seevice and war, yet look what his corrupted life has brought him under the GOP umbrella. Now pay attention to how they work hard to suppress the truth during these investigations and his trail. This is how full blown suppression works in America today! Follow this texas rat's story as it unfolds... watch how they protect the fat rat from Texas.


http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/...estigation.html

Indicted DeLay Steps Down From House Post
By LARRY MARGASAK
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON — House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was indicted by a Texas grand jury Wednesday on a charge of conspiring to violate political fundraising laws, forcing him to temporarily step aside from his GOP post. He is the highest-ranking member of Congress to face criminal prosecution.

A defiant DeLay said he had done nothing wrong and denounced the Democratic prosecutor who pursued the case as a "partisan fanatic." He said, "This is one of the weakest, most baseless indictments in American history. It's a sham."
(enlarge photo)
Representative Tom Delay, R-Tex., leaves a Republican Conference meeting on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2005, after resigning as House Majority Leader following his indictment by a Texas grand jury on conspiracy charges. DeLay said he plans to retain his congressional seat. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook)
Listen Now: Bohannon reports that DeLay says prosecutors have already talked to him. (requires Real Player)

Nonetheless, DeLay's temporary departure and the prospect of a criminal trial for one of the Republicans' most visible leaders reverberated throughout the GOP-run Congress, which was already struggling with ethics questions surrounding its Senate leader.

Republicans quickly moved to fill the void, while voicing polite support for DeLay. Speaker Dennis Hastert named Missouri Rep. Roy Blunt to take over most of DeLay's leadership duties.

Ronnie Earle, the Democratic prosecutor in Austin who led the investigation, denied politics was involved. "Our job is to prosecute abuses of power and to bring those abuses to the public," he said. He has noted previously that he has prosecuted many Democrats in the past.

DeLay, 58, was indicted on a single felony count of conspiring with two political associates. The two previously had been charged with the same conspiracy count. They are John Colyandro, former executive director of a Texas political action committee formed by DeLay, and Jim Ellis, who heads DeLay's national political committee.

DeLay's successor, Blunt, also has a connection with Ellis, federal records show.

Since May 2003, Blunt's political action committee, the Rely On Your Beliefs Fund, has paid at least $88,000 to Ellis' firm, the J.W. Ellis Co., for political consulting and fundraising. The spending figures were compiled from government records by the nonpartisan Political Money Line, a campaign finance tracking service.

The indictment stems from a plan DeLay helped set in motion in 2001 to help Republicans win control of the Texas House in the 2002 elections for the first time since Reconstruction.

The grand jury accused the men of conspiring to route corporate donations from DeLay's Texas committee to the Republican Party in Washington, then returning the money back to Texas legislative candidates. It was a scheme intended to evade a state law outlawing corporate donations going to candidates, the indictment said.

The indictment also mentioned another Republican figure, President Bush's campaign political director Terry Nelson, though it did not charge him with any wrongdoing.

The grand jury alleged Nelson received the money — along with a list of Texas lawmakers who were to get donations — from the Texas committee while working at the Republican National Committee. Nelson did not return calls to his office seeking comment.

DeLay and others conspired to "engage in conduct that would constitute the offense of knowingly making a political contribution in violation" of Texas law, the indictment charged. However, it did not specify how DeLay was involved.

Then along with chickenhawk Delay, we can add to that list chickenhawk J. Danforth Quayle.... of which I have said recently, that GW 'Goober' Bush is only one knotch above or smarter than Quayle.



http://gaytoday.badpuppy.com/garchive/viewpoint/040802vi.htm

And then there's Tom DeLay, a Texas "Chicken Hawk" who avoided military service in Vietnam and who suffers from foot in beak syndrome. According to a recent BuzzFlash Editorial, DeLay, the Republican Party's Majority Whip in the House, also known as "The Exterminator," accused Senator John Kerry (D-Mass) - who fought in Vietnam - of betraying his country by raising questions about the direction of the president's "war on terrorism."

A reader wrote BuzzFlash.com:

"This morning (3/9), I was sipping tea and watching CNN when Tom Delay came on to speak about wonderful GW. He was asked about Kerry's mild rebuke of him and he came out with the most outrageous comments. I think he should be censored.

"He said that Kerry fought in Vietnam and came back to protest against it and it was people like him that gave aid to the enemy and undercut our soldiers over there and that people like him caused us to lose the war. Then he said that if GW had been president we would have won that war. I think I have lived long enough to be totally disgusted by the revisionist history of Vietnam by people who ducked and hid." ... and John Ashcroft ...

Knowing that Tom DeLay is a big blowhard, I assume the BuzzFlash reader got DeLay's remarks accurately. Most people who know anything about President George W. Bush's military service would either recoil in embarrassment or crack-up at DeLay's absurd remarks.

Bush's service record can probably best be summed up with the question, "Where's George?" He did join the Texas National Guard and instead of serving in Vietnam, he worked for an Alabama senatorial campaign. There are troubling reports about his record as a National Guardsman - did he really disappear for a while and yet still manage to receive credit for service. For more on this see the Boston Globe's May 23, 2000 story at http://www.georgebush2000.com/ One_year_gap_in_Bush_s_Guard_duty%2B.shtml

DeLay's current comments reminded freelance writer William Pitt of an incident at the time of the 1988 Republican convention. DeLay was dispatched by party leaders to meet the press and "defend the military service record" of George Herbert Walker Bush's Vice Presidential pick, J. Danforth Quayle, who instead of going to Vietnam, served in the Indiana National Guard.

According to Pitt, DeLay told the gathering that Quayle was prevented from going to Vietnam because too many minorities had volunteered ahead of him. For the complete Pitt story at truthout.com, see: http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/03.14B.WRP.Out.htm

Cpt Off Topic with more of his pathetic BushConic comics.

Speaking of suppression, more than what Cpt Off Topic floods the boards with, here is a nice article about the World Health Organization suppressing the info about DU. Know and understand who the real enemies of our societies are... those who lies for corrupt govts.



http://www.notinourname.net/war/du-study-22feb04.htm

WHO 'suppressed' scientific study into depleted uranium cancer fears in Iraq?

"There is increasing scientific evidence the radio activity and the chemical toxicity of DU could cause more damage to human cells than is assumed."

Rob Edwards
Sunday Herald (UK)
February 22, 2004

Radiation experts warn in unpublished report that DU weapons used by Allies in Gulf War pose long-term health risk

An expert report warning that the long-term health of Iraq's civilian population would be endangered by British and US depleted uranium (DU) weapons has been kept secret. The study by three leading radiation scientists cautioned that children and adults could contract cancer after breathing in dust containing DU, which is radioactive and chemically toxic. But it was blocked from publication by the World Health Organization (WHO), which employed the main author, Dr Keith Baverstock, as a senior radiation advisor. He alleges that it was deliberately suppressed, though this is denied by WHO.

Baverstock also believes that if the study had been published when it was completed in 2001, there would have been more pressure on the US and UK to limit their use of DU weapons in last year's war, and to clean up afterwards.

Hundreds of thousands of DU shells were fired by coalition tanks and planes during the conflict, and there has been no comprehensive decontamination. Experts from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) have so far not been allowed into Iraq to assess the pollution.

"Our study suggests that the widespread use of depleted uranium weapons in Iraq could pose a unique health hazard to the civilian population," Baverstock told the Sunday Herald.

"There is increasing scientific evidence the radio activity and the chemical toxicity of DU could cause more damage to human cells than is assumed."

Baverstock was the WHO's top expert on radiation and health for 11 years until he retired in May last year. He now works with the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Kuopio in Finland, and was recently appointed to the UK government's newly formed Committee on Radio active Waste Management.

While he was a member of staff, WHO refused to give him permission to publish the study, which was co-authored by Professor Carmel Mothersill from McMaster University in Canada and Dr Mike Thorne, a radiation consultant . Baverstock suspects that WHO was leaned on by a more powerful pro-nuclear UN body, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

"I believe our study was censored and suppressed by the WHO because they didn't like its conclusions. Previous experience suggests that WHO officials were bowing to pressure from the IAEA, whose remit is to promote nuclear power," he said. "That is more than unfortunate, as publishing the study would have helped forewarn the authorities of the risks of using DU weapons in Iraq."

These allegations, however, are dismissed as "totally unfounded" by WHO. "The IAEA role was very minor," said Dr Mike Repacholi, the WHO coordinator of radiation and environmental health in Geneva. "The article was not approved for publication because parts of it did not reflect accurately what a WHO-convened group of inter national experts considered the best science in the area of depleted uranium," he added.

Baverstock's study, which has now been passed to the Sunday Herald, pointed out that Iraq's arid climate meant that tiny particles of DU were likely to be blown around and inhaled by civilians for years to come. It warned that, when inside the body, their radiation and toxicity could trigger the growth of malignant tumours.

Supression of speech and our news. America has become a culture of lying... with leaders who lies. Even for vets out of the military, we become suppressed and find it hard to fit back into a society built around lies.

http://www.publicintegrity.org/ga/report.aspx?aid=649

A Culture of Secrecy
What has happened to the principle that American democracy should be accessible and transparent?

"Political language . . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." –George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

By Charles Lewis

WASHINGTON, February 3, 2005 — In the world's oldest democracy, pressure on investigative journalists is usually exerted in sophisticated, non-lethal ways, under the public radar. Every day in Washington, D.C., thousands of government and corporate public relations flaks and lobbyists purvey their "talking points" with a friendly smile, no matter how odious the client, no matter how intellectually dishonest or morally dubious their message. Journalists must trudge through the shameless "spin"-that vanilla word admiringly used these days instead of "lying," which has a harshly judgmental, jarringly rude ring in Washington power circles.

Sometimes the persuasion becomes less subtle. For example, when the Center for Public Integrity obtained and prepared to publish online the secret, proposed draft sequel to the USA Patriot Act, known as "Patriot II," we got calls from the U.S. Justice Department beseeching us not to publish.

Over the years, those unhappy with my investigations have tried just about everything to discourage our work. They have issued subpoenas, stalked my hotel room, escorted me off military bases, threatened physical arrest, suggested I leave via a second-story window, made a death threat personally communicated by concerned state troopers who asked that we leave the area immediately (we didn't), hired public relations people to infiltrate my news conferences and pose as "reporters" to ask distracting questions, attempted to pressure the Center's donors, and even brought expensive, frivolous libel litigation that takes years and costs millions of dollars to defend.

A Culture of Lying

Over the years, I have investigated and interviewed members of Congress, presidential candidates, judges, captains of industry, government spooks, labor union presidents, crooks and terrorists, FBI agents and Ku Klux Klansmen, billionaires and the homeless, brilliant thinkers and the mentally deranged. And it is fair to say that I have been lied to by people in virtually every part of the United States, in swank marble buildings, smoky bars and dusty local jails, eyeball-to-eyeball and by phone, fax, email and hand-delivered letter, in all kinds of imaginative ways, almost always with a straight face.

The line between truth and falsehood-between the facts and a veneer of verisimilitude-has become so blurred as to be indistinguishable. Increasingly, what the powers that be say has become the publicly perceived reality, simply because they say it is so.

Take the war in Iraq. According to national election polling, a majority of voters for George W. Bush believed that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq, and months earlier, more than half of the nation thought Saddam Hussein and Iraq had close ties to Al Qaeda or were directly involved in the attacks that brought down the World Trade Towers on September 11th. How could most Americans be so tragically misinformed, when official U.S. and international government investigations, widely reported by the news media, concluded otherwise?

Between 1999 and mid-2004, there were more than 700 specific utterances by George Bush or Dick Cheney mentioning Iraq, often banging the war drums in ominous tones; interestingly, there was not a single sentence explicitly linking Saddam Hussein to September 11. Instead, that was often slyly implied contextually. At the same time, with some notable exceptions such as Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker and Walter Pincus of the Washington Post and the Knight Ridder's duo of Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel*, investigative news coverage before March 2003 of the Bush administration's ramp-up to the war in Iraq was underwhelming, to say the least. Daily coverage of government policy pronouncements and rationales was largely uncrit