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Panelists say care for vets is flawed UMass audience urged to lobby for improvements
Kristin Palpini, Daily Hampshire Gazette, February 28 2007 www.dailyhampshiregazette.com/storytmp.cfm?id_no=31545 AMHERST - While serving in the Iraq war as an U.S. Marine Corps officer, it was Tyler E. Boudreau's job to identify the enemy and give orders to kill.
"It was my job to say that's a bad guy and when someone got shot that was unarmed, it was my job to say 'don't worry about that because he could have killed you.' It was my job to make sure he felt OK about it," explained Boudreau, a University of Massachusetts graduate student who spoke Monday at a panel discussion about the war in Iraq. But while Boudreau made killing in Iraq acceptable for his soldiers, something started to not be right for him.
Boudreau, 35, began looking critically at the war and the mission of the U.S. military in Iraq. He eventually resigned his command.
"I had to order them to do it, to kill and it pains me to - I had to leave, I had to resign," Boudreau said, biting his lip. "I couldn't head back to Iraq and effectively drive them into Iraq. Because of my ambivalence, I would have cost lives.
"When I came home I started looking closely at the things we do," Boudreau said. "There is a great disconnect between the doctrine, the liberation, the idea of gaining popular support and what we are actually executing."
On Monday night at the UMass Campus Center, Boudreau sat on a panel with a handful of Iraq and Vietnam war veterans and veterans' family members. They spoke about the lasting emotional and physical effects of war on soldiers and their loved ones. Panelists seemed to conclude that what veterans need most when they come home is understanding and adequate mental and physical health care.
This need may soon become apparent. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs predicts it will need to treat 5.8 million patients next year, including 263,000 Iraq and Afghanistan vets returning with serious injuries requiring expensive care.
Of these soldiers, one in three will return from active duty in Iraq in need of mental health treatment, according to a report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Monday's event was organized by the Veterans Education Project of Amherst and co-sponsored by the UMass Antiwar Coalition, the Graduate Student Senate and the Graduate Employees Organization.
Joining Boudreau on the panel were Joyce and Kevin Lucey, parents of the late Cpl. Jeff Lucey, who committed suicide in his parents' Belchertown home after serving in Iraq; Andy Sapp, an Iraq war veteran; Anne Sapp, Sapp's wife; and George Williams, a Vietnam war veteran with the VEP.
"Unless a person is in a military family or is a vet serving, then they really don't understand what is involved in this thing we call war and what is involved in coming home," said Robert Wilson, Director of the VEP, a nonprofit that organizes a speakers bureau and works to secure services for veterans.
The evening tackled soldiers' issues including post traumatic stress disorder, depression, suicide, a lack of appropriate health care services for veterans and readjusting to civilian life. Veterans said it can be difficult to readjust to life as a civilian after spending a year or so in a combat zone. "A lot of the skills you learn in Iraq have no meaning when you come back home," said Andy Sapp, a 20-year member of the military who spent a year in Iraq.
For many, it is difficult to give up the state of constant vigilance learned in war. It is not easy to believe, after living a year surrounded by potential enemies, that someone isn't still attempting to do harm. Sapp can attest to this problem. After receiving psychological help from a veterans affairs center, Sapp said he is still awoken by nightmares two or three times a week. Sapp suffers from post traumatic stress disorder.
Sapp got help. The Luceys wish their son had been so fortunate. Jeff Lucey killed himself in June 2004 after coming home from Iraq and enduring months of depression fueled by alcohol and post traumatic stress. Lucey had tried to seek help, his parents said. He had gone to the VA clinic, but they would not admit him into the post traumatic stress disorder program until he quit drinking. Kevin Lucey said his son could not give up the one drug that was helping him cope with his problem.
"How was he supposed to get sober? What was he supposed to do? Give up the only medication he had? It just didn't seem like an option for him," Lucey said.
The Luceys and other members of the panel said what veterans may need most upon their return from active service is a better health-care system. Veterans and their families testified to a lack of attention for soldiers who are mentally injured. Their words were supported by a recent report in the Washington Post that revealed problems at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center near Washington, D.C.
"This is the support we give to our troops? If this is it then I am ashamed," Kevin Lucey said.
Panelists implored the audience to write and call their state and federal representatives and ask for improvements in veterans health care - and for a stop to the war.
"When I talk with senators and their aides they always tell me, they need to hear from people, they need the numbers," Anne Sapp said. In the meantime, veterans said people can help returning veterans life by simply saying, "Welcome home."
"Sometimes just being welcomed home can make you feel better, like you're a part of this place," Williams said.
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Anti-war coalition holds protest
Derrick Perkins, Collegian Staff, Issue date: 2/21/07, Daily Collegian
http://media.www.dailycollegian.com/media/storage/paper874/news/2007/02/21/News/AntiWar.Coalition.Holds.Protest-2732534.shtml Members of the University of Massachusetts Anti-War Coalition (AWC) held a protest on Tuesday against the War in Iraq and the on-campus presence of United States military recruiters.
Along with affiliated members of the UMass Radical Student Union (RSU) and International Socialist Organization (ISO), the AWC protesters wielded placards and formed a picket line in front of a National Guard recruiting table in the Campus Center.
"It is part of an ongoing campaign to get the recruiters off campus," said Jack Hawkins, a member of the RSU. Hawkins said that it was the job of the recruiters to sell military service and the aim of the protesters was to fully inform the people targeted by recruiters about military service.
Members of the protest handed out brochures with information on military enlistment from the National Youth and Militarism Program of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) to students who approached the recruitment table. The AFSC is an international group founded by Quakers to provide conscientious objectors with an opportunity to aid civilian war victims, according to their Web site. The National Youth and Militarism Program aims to stop the spread of the U.S. military in education.
Charles Peterson, a member of the ISO, held a protest sign and called upon passing students and visitors to help bring the troops home now.
"This is a place of higher learning, not a place to be conscripted for Halliburton," he said. "We have talked to a lot of people here who are equally disgusted."
The National Guard had begun setting up a regular recruiting table in the Campus Center only since last Friday, according to Master Sergeant Kittredge, one of the three recruiters present. The table received about a half-dozen visitors with serious interest in joining the National Guard daily, according to the recruiters.
"I think that everybody should have all the information that they can get," said Kittredge on the protestors. "They have the right to picket as long as they do it peacefully." Last week a complaint was filed against the AWC with the Dean of Students over a possible violation of the Code of Student Conduct during a protest in front of the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) booth at the campus job fair on Thursday.
Lieutenant Colonel David Vacchi, head of the UMass ROTC program, told the Daily Hampshire Gazette that the protesters did not clear away for students trying to get information about the program and took a list of personal contact information of interested students from the ROTC booth.
Members of the AWC protesting in the campus center on Tuesday denied the allegations.
Peterson, who had attended the previous protest at the job fair, called the allegations a "complete and utter falsehood."
"Any institution that loses $8 billion in Iraq makes it easy for me to believe that they could lose a single sheet of paper," said AWC member James Fiorentino.
According to the Student Code of Conduct, students have the right to demonstrate on campus as long as they do not interfere with class work or University business, block the free movement of individuals around campus, interfere with the freedom of speech of any other member of the campus or incite a dangerous or violent activity.
"The complaint is under review by the Dean of Students office and she will decide if any sanction is appropriate under the Code of Student Conduct," said UMass spokesman Ed Blaguszewski. "He did not know which party had filed the complaint with the Dean of Students."
The students who had allegedly violated the code of conduct could face anywhere from a reprimand to expulsion from the University, according to Blaguszewski. There is no time table for when the final decision would be made by the Dean of Students.
"I hope that people realize that there is a difference between questioning a political policy and questioning the troops," Kittredge said.
Derrick Perkins can be reached at
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UMass to review protest
Kristin Palpini, Daily Hampshire Gazette, February 17, 2007
List of names said taken from military recruiters www.dailyhampshiregazette.com/storytmp.cfm?id_no=30114 AMHERST - University of Massachusetts students could face penalties over an anti-war protest at a campus job fair Thursday.
About 25 members of the student group UMass AntiWar Coalition formed a picket line in front of the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) recruitment booth during a Summer Co-op and Internship Opportunities Fair in the Campus Center.
Coalition member and UMass graduate student Justin Jackson said the group did not infringe on the ROTC's recruitment efforts. However, Lt. Col. David T. Vacchi, head of the ROTC program at UMass, said one of the picketers took a list of students who requested more information about military careers from the ROTC booth. The list contained student names and contact information.
"We defend freedom of speech, but this was disappointing," Vacchi said. "They crossed the line when they took the list of personal information and they did not clear the way for students trying to get information."
Edward F. Blaguszewski, director of news and information on the Amherst campus, said a complaint has been filed against the UMass AntiWar Coalition with the Dean of Students over a violation of the Student Code of Conduct.
"There is going to be a review of what happened at the fair and it will be decided if any sanctions are appropriate," said Blaguszewski, who did not know who filed the complaint.
Jackson decried the complaint against the coalition and said he was unaware of any member of the group taking the list. "We didn't obstruct recruitment, we merely formed a picket line. We did not keep people from talking to recruiters.
"Clearly, any individual's behavior does not represent the policies and wishes of the AntiWar Coalition," Jackson said, when asked about the missing list.
Under the Student Code of Conduct's rules on picketing, students are prohibited from disrupting class work or other university business or invading the rights of others. Students are barred from blocking a person's mobility and cannot interfere with the freedom of speech of another individual. Violations of the code may lead to expulsion or a lesser sanction.
Jackson said the coalition talked to students and recruiters about military careers. He said the group was trying to counter military recruitment efforts and "misinformation" provided by recruiters with information about "what really happens" when a person joins the military.
Jackson said his group told people that the military does not always provide training that is useful to future non-military careers and explained the physical and emotional scars of war.
Vacchi said the picket line was disruptive.
"We paid for our booth just like anyone else," Vacchi said. "I know Justin, he is an intelligent man, I don't know why they had to act like this."
Despite the complaint, the AntiWar Coalition will continue to protest military recruitment on campus.
"Wherever there are recruiters on campus we are going to actively oppose these representatives and ask them to leave. It's what we've done in the past and what we'll do in the future," Jackson said.
===================================== Student war veterans attempt to expel military stereotypes
Massachusetts Daily Collegian
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
By JOHN FENUCCIO
Former and current University of Massachusetts student veterans agreed Monday that the key to expelling stereotypes and misconceptions of those enlisted in the armed services is through discussion.
“The issue at hand is opening the paths of communication. There’s not a lot of veterans who’re willing to speak and a lot of that is from fear of judgment,” said U.S. Navy Veteran and UMass student Lyle Phipps.
Phipps is one of six student veterans asked to speak in an open forum at the Campus Center Monday evening to discuss experiences coming home from war and returning to college. Phipps discussed the added difficulties student veterans face in the Pioneer Valley.
“Students coming back from war are often ostracized by the community here in western Mass. because it’s a very liberal community,” said Phipps. “A lot of people around here will turn their heads if you said you’ve been in the military.”
A graduate [sic] student before enlisting in the U.S. Army in 1964, John Fitzgerald shed a different light.
“I thought it was very therapeutic to have interaction with graduate students. I did not encounter any real hostility, it was curiosity, people had serious questions about the war,” said Fitzgerald.
Many of the speakers said some of the stereotypes veterans face is that they are pro-war.
“I really want people to understand that regardless of what your views are about the war, about the government, that you’re an individual with a soul, with a heart, with mixed feelings of confusion” said U.S. Army Veteran and [former] UMass student Nicole Darden.
Speakers discussed the decision to enlist not based on personal politics, but rather out of necessity.
“I challenge you not to look at them as people who had a choice not to go because let me tell you, when you sign up for the military, you’re taking an oath of duty, you’re swearing to follow the orders that you’re given. You’re giving up your rights as an American citizen,” said Daren [sic].
“I had been out of high school for a year and a half and I had looked at going into the military to find a way to pay for my education at the time,” said Gulf War Veteran Roderick Anderson.
Anderson raised importance to a growing proportion of enlistees who’re joining in order to make a living and avoid falling into a life of crime.
“Often times peoples’ economic ability to actually pay for school on their own was either for you to sell drugs or not go anywhere in your community,” Anderson said.
Each offered a unique perspective into the choices they faced in enlisting and the lives they subsequently led.
Eileen Stewart, who works in the Department of Veteran Affairs Office at UMass, summed up the event’s initiative. “The purpose of this forum is to focus on issues of our military students, that is people who have served in the active military.”
Aspiring UMass student, United States Sergeant and member of the 94th Military Police Unity, Nathan Luisgnan, who’s gone through one tour already in Operation Iraqi Freedom, shared his insight on the subject.
“It’s hard to go back to school when you’ve had such a dramatic taste of reality.” However, due to his military obligations, he’ll be attending a Joint Readiness Military Training program that’s required by the Army prior to deployment, preventing him from attending the University.
The event ended with a question and answer portion where other UMass student veterans asked questions. One student spoke about the soldier’s eagerness to go home after deployment that during demobilization, when asked about health problems endured during service, they’d often answer with nothing simply to go home quicker. That same student, whose friend within the same unit lost his sight, suffered a stroke in a family with a no history [sic] of strokes.
Veterans and Service Members Association of UMass, UMass Veterans Affairs Office, the Veterans Education Project, Students Against the War, and the UMass Anti-War Coalition sponsored the forum.
===================================== UMASS to host Veterans panel
WAMC Northeast Public Radio
Monday, December 12, 2005, By JESSICA BLOUSTEIN
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wamc/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=853601
AMHERST, MA (2005-12-12) The University of Massachusetts at Amherst will host veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the Vietnam and Gulf Wars from throughout the Pioneer Valley this evening. They will discuss issues affecting veterans as they return home from combat. The gathering is the first of its kind, and organizers hope it will act as a forum to open the public's eyes to the reality veterans face.
WAMC's Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Jessica Bloustein reports. Bloustein: The focus of tonight’s forum is on the experiences encountered by veterans seeking to obtain degrees in higher education upon their return from war. Event co-sponsor Justin Jackson, a grad student at UMass who comes from a family of veterans, says education is an issue of great importance for veterans.
JACKSON: I think veterans have a whole, face a whole bunch of issues when they come back from war and they want to get an education, anything from getting financial aid to possible post-traumatic stress disorder or other kinds of medical challenges. Also, we do have students who have been called back to duty after they return from Iraq or Afghanistan in the middle of the semester.
BLOUSTEIN: Jackson, a member of the UMass Anti-war Coalition at the helm of the event, says the main objective is to let the public in on the challenges veterans face and foster a cross-dialogue. It is not to force a partisan viewpoint. The event is also sponsored by the Veterans Affairs Office at UMass, as well as the Veterans Education Project and the UMass Veterans and Servicemen’s [sic] association.
Rob Wilson, director of the Veterans Education Project in Amherst, says the opportunity to share experiences is as much a benefit to the veterans themselves as it is to the public.
WILSON: It’s a very healing thing for veterans to engage in this kind of dialogue and to be listened to by the public because those of us who aren’t veterans really don’t understand these issues and veterans can explain these things to us and in the process receive a lot of validation from us.
BLOUSTEIN: Wilson’s organization is devoted to educating the public about veterans’ issues. He says tonight’s forum is a productive way of doing just that.
WILSON: Our veterans talk about their military experience and about their wartime experience with the idea of educating young people about the realities of war and violence, and we try to de-glorify both. We’re not trying to be pro-military or anti-military, we’re basically speaking what the truth is about war, which—young people are getting most of their material from movies and comic books and video games, and we’re trying to give them a realistic view of that.
BLOUSTEIN: The forum will feature veteran speakers who are or have been students, as well as speakers like Vietnam vet David Bressem, the team leader for Springfield Veterans Center. The panel will begin at 7pm in campus center room 101.
===================================== Anti-war group plans forum for veterans
Springfield Republican
Monday, December 12, 2005
By DIANE LEDERMAN,
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http://www.masslive.com/hampfrank/republican/index.ssf?/base/news-2/1134376973208261.xml&coll=1 AMHERST - After an anti-war program at the University of Massachusetts last month, members of the University of Anti-War Coalition said they realized they weren't doing enough for returning veterans on their campus.
The events last month that drew Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in Iraq in April while serving with the U.S. Army, also drew others including veteran Jon Zagami, a 21-year-old sophomore at UMass. He spoke about the need for understanding and support on campus.
That got members of the anti-war coalition thinking, said organizer Justin Jackson. And veterans also came to them asking for help.
The forum tonight, which will feature veterans from the Vietnam and Gulf wars as well as from Iraq and Afghanistan, will look at "how can we support veterans at schools," Jackson said.
College poses different challenges for veterans than traditional students.
"It's such a challenge to be around young people who have no concept of what you've gone through. We're trying to break that down to create a dialogue that it's OK for them to share that experience," Jackson said.
He said veterans go from a command-based system to one in which there's no one telling them what to do.
They have issues with financial aid as well as the chance of redeployment. Plus, he said, they have to deal with the questions of the ongoing war and the debate about whether how or when to end it.
"We're trying to raise awareness and provide space" for veterans and nonveterans to get to know each other. "We feel UMass has a responsibility to create that space," he said.
"There's a lot of hesitation for veterans to speak publicly of their experiences," he said.
The event - which he said is nonpartisan, neither an anti-war or a pro-war event - is also being sponsored by the UMass-Amherst Veterans Affairs Office, the UMass Veterans and Servicemen's Association, and the Veterans Education Project.
Speakers include:
David Bressem, a Vietnam veteran and a counselor who is team leader at the Springfield Veterans Center. He will talk about the center's special support and counseling services for Iraq/Afghanistan.
John Fitzgerald, a Vietnam war veteran and a retired Longmeadow High School teacher.
Roderick Anderson, a Gulf War veteran and UMass student.
Jackson, who said there are between 200 and 300 returning veterans on campus, said he wasn't sure yet who will speak about experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The event begins at 7 p.m. in Campus Center Room 101.
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Growing ranks of students return from war with needs
Daily Hampshire Gazette
December 10, 2005
BY TOM MARSHALL
AMHERST - As American military operations in the 'global war on terrorism' enter their fifth year, the number of students whose college life has been interrupted by combat is rising at the University of Massachusetts.
Around 280 UMass students now receive veterans' benefits and more than 60 have withdrawn for military service since the fall of 2001, said Eileen Stewart, assistant dean of students and director of the campus veterans' affairs office.
And as those battle-hardened veterans return to college, they will bring a range of needs that haven't been seen on campus in large numbers since the Vietnam War, said officials and veterans' advocates.
'We know there are students who are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and a whole range of health issues that may not be getting addressed by the university,' said Justin Jackson, a graduate student in history from Jefferson, Maine. 'We have a responsibility to help our student vets after they come back.'
Helping those war veterans cope with the stress of returning to civilian life and make the most of college is the focus of a forum Monday at 7 p.m. in Room 101 of the Campus Center. The event, which is open to the public, has been billed as nonpartisan.
'It's not pro-war, it's not anti-war,' said Jackson, a forum organizer who grew up in a military family.
Veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as earlier wars, will talk about their experiences returning from combat and going back to school. The aim is to raise campus awareness of veterans' issues and the need for support programs.
Interrupted studies
Most direct veterans' services are offered at places like the U.S. Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Northampton rather than at UMass, said Stewart, who will be a panelist at Monday's forum.
She said she believes more could be done on campus to address the unique needs of student-veterans, citing the example of one student who had his studies interrupted twice after being recalled for a second combat tour last year.
'He came back in December and re-entered school,' Stewart said. 'And boom, he's off again. It's pretty hard to finish your degree at that rate.'
Lt. Col. David Vacchi, who served a year-long tour in Iraq during 2003 and 2004 and now runs the Army ROTC program at UMass, said he hasn't personally seen veterans on campus who show overt signs of post-traumatic stress disorder or combat fatigue.
But he has witnessed the frustration that often accompanies the transition from war to civilian life. For example, some student-veterans have experienced problems negotiating the financial aid system.
Returning from his own tour of duty, Vacchi said his unit went through a detailed debriefing process in which soldiers were told of the problems and stresses they might encounter.
'And I'll tell you, most of the things they said would happen to me, happened to me,' he said. 'The loud noises made me jump.'
Vacchi said he is talking with officials and veterans' groups about the need for more comprehensive support services.
'We messed this up returning from Vietnam rather dramatically,' Vacchi said, referring to the harassment and neglect veterans of that conflict experienced at home.
And the current war might represent the last chance to change that pattern, he said. 'If we mess it up here in the next couple of years, it's going to be permanently messed up.'
The forum is co-sponsored by the UMass-Amherst Veterans' Affairs Office, the UMass Veterans and Servicemen's Organization, the Veterans Education Project, and the UMass Anti-War Coalition.
Tom Marshall can be reached at
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===================================== Walking by empty shoes
Massachusetts Daily Collegian
By Debbie Friedman, Collegian Columnist, November 28, 2005 http://www.dailycollegian.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/11/28/438a667a94e3b
This country is numb to numbers. We have to be. If we were able to grasp the magnitude behind the numbers being fed to us today, people would be moved to action. For instance, we are in an $8 trillion deficit right now. Can you even comprehend how large a number that is? The government should be glad that we cannot, otherwise people would be storming the black iron gates of the White House demanding some financial competence. Once you get over a billion, people seem to lose all interest. Eight trillion is just two little words that do not hold as much weight as they should, and it's sad.
What is sadder however, are the numbers of caskets coming home from Iraq. The ones we don't get to see because our media is coerced into babying the American public's innocent, naive little minds.
While walking by the campus pond a few weeks back, I stumbled across some numbers that I could not ignore. It was a traveling exhibit of soldiers boots used to represent the 2,000 some odd deaths that have occurred from the war in Iraq. Each boot had a nametag with the age and state of each fallen soldier along with flowers and notes from family. It littered the lawn between the campus pond and the library. It caught my attention from very far away because I saw the usually empty grass filled with debris. Two thousand, two hundred sixteen was the number of boots lying on the ground and for the first time I saw that number in the way it is meant to be seen. It was no longer a neat little combination of symbols on a piece of paper or a television screen. This time it was as if 2,216 bodies were lying on our campus. This time it was so much more real. It was boots that used to be filled by a living body. It was boots attached to a name, a family and a life now gone, and it was horrible.
As I turned to walk away I realized that to my left there were more shoes, but they were not boots. They were the flip-flops, sneakers and loafers that represented the innocent, harmless Iraqi men, women and children who lost their lives for no reason what so ever. Of course this was only a small sample of the Iraqi civilian casualties because if they were to represent every one, the campus would be filled with shoes from the Mullins Center to Orchard Hill.
I bent down and looked closely at a tiny purple Velcro shoe that had a tag attached reading, Nahir, age two. At that moment I couldn't help but think about how many little children would never get to grow up, partly because of the boots sitting across from them. Partly because of the people who were walking all around me, and partly because of me.
I know that no one wanted any of those shoes to be lying there. But they were there, and everyday there are going to be more piling up until someone yells, stop. I wonder, who will be the one to yell it or if anyone ever will? I am worried that everyone is so desensitized to numbers that the higher they go, the less it means. When the first 20 soldiers died, people were talking about it because you could grasp that amount. Yet as it leaps into the thousands, does anyone really understand it?
Maybe it does not matter how you come to understand the numbers, so long as they don't directly affect you. If you lost a loved one in the war, that one is going to carry the weight of a million strangers. If you lost $1,000 of your own money, it's going to sting a lot worse than hearing about how the government lost eight trillion. I guess I can't speak for everyone, but it sure seems like numbers are all relative.
What I liked about this shoe display was that it took these distant numbers and put them right in everyone's faces. It made people notice them and relate to them. It stopped people dead in their tracks and gave people a mental idea of what it would be like to step into the shoes that were lying all around them. It made me realize that those empty shoes also meant empty seats at Thanksgiving dinners all around the country. The most important thing that this exhibit gave to me was the ability to know exactly what I was most thankful for this year. While I deeply sympathize with the people all over this world who are dealing with empty shoes and seats in their life, I am so thankful for the fact that all of those things are full in my life. ===================================== Democrats hold Progressive Public Policy Conference
Massachusetts Daily Collegian
By Christina Baron, Collegian Staff, November 14, 2005 http://media.www.dailycollegian.com/media/storage/paper874/news/2005/11/14/News/Democrats.Hold.Progressive.Public.Policy.Conference-1560997.shtml ===================================== Sheehan voices opinions in one-on-one interview
Massachusetts Daily Collegian
By Matt Pilon, Collegian Staff
November 14, 2005 http://www.dailycollegian.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/11/14/437806f148e38
The greenery of a Texas field can be seen in the background. The camera slowly zooms in on the weary face of a 48-year-old woman. Her message, like the setting, is simple.
"You were wrong about the weapons of mass destruction, you were wrong about the link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda. You lied to us. And, because of your lies, my son died."
The face belongs to Cindy Sheehan, who first entered the media limelight in early August this year when she camped outside President Bush's Crawford, Texas vacation ranch to protest the U.S. invasion of Iraq and demand a meeting with the president.
Her son, Army Specialist Casey Sheehan, was killed in Baghdad on April 4, 2004.
The film excerpt described above is from an ad filmed in Crawford and run by Gold Star Families for Peace. The GFSP, an organization started by Sheehan, is opposed to the Iraq War on the basis that the Bush administration authorized an invasion under false pretenses.
For more than 19 months, Sheehan has become a media anti-war figurehead through public appearances at anti-war rallies and stints like the one in Crawford. She gave a speech last Friday at the Student Union Ballroom as a part of the "Week on the War" series set up by the American Friends Service Committee in partnership with many other local organizations.
Cindy spoke with the Daily Collegian by phone prior to her UMass speech as she and her sister drove through New York en route to a speaking appearance. This is the transcript of that interview:
Q: What is your overall goal in your public campaign?
A: To bring the troops home and make sure that our military is never used so recklessly, irresponsibly, and carelessly again.
Q: If the administration pulled troops out of Iraq this week, would you have enough peace of mind for your quest to be over?
A: I can't stop there because, like I said, we can't ever let this happen again. We have to make sure we never get involved in another war of aggression based on lies and have our young people killed again.
Q: What is the most common criticism you hear other than "You don't support the troops?" How do you respond?
A: People say I'm a traitor and I say that, you know, what I'm doing is the American thing to do. It's my First Amendment right; it's my right as a citizen of the country to try to improve our country if I see something wrong and if I see a leader that's leading our country so terribly.
Q: Describe how you see the current state of political dissent in the United States. How do you explain the difference in ferocity from Vietnam era protests?
A: I think that the dissent is growing and I think it's different because we don't have a draft, and in Vietnam there was a draft, and that's why a lot of college students were involved. I think it's just different. Our lives are a lot different now. It takes a lot more for people to be involved than it did back then, but I see more and more people becoming more and more involved all the time.
Q: Democrats have demanded an inquiry into pre-war intelligence. A report is due back November 14. What do you see as your role in this attempt to exact information from this presidential administration?
A: I don't really think I have a role, because that was something that was promised before the election last year. This has been over a year after the election and its way past due. I want to put pressure on the administration and put pressure on Congress and put pressure on the media to do their jobs to investigate what's going on.
Q: Describe media coverage of the Iraq War. In your view, have news organizations been diligent enough?
A: I believe that the administration is using the news media as propaganda tools for their lies, and like in Judith Miller's case, was willingly complacent in the lies. In other cases, they just don't investigate, they don't ask the hard questions, and they aren't reporting at all. This is America. We have freedom of the press. Why can't we show pictures of the coffins coming home? Why can't we tell the truth about what's going on in Iraq? If we didn't have the progressive media, we wouldn't know anything.
Q: Do you feel as if the media was not critical enough when evidence surfaced that there were almost certainly no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Could that have been a larger turning point?
A: Well actually, I think the media should have been asking the questions before we even invaded Iraq. They should have been asking all the questions instead of following it. I didn't follow it. I was a mom in California and I didn't believe anything the administration was saying. I think if the media had done their jobs maybe this war could have been avoided.
Q: What, in your opinion, will it take for this administration to admit to their mistakes and pull U.S. troops out of Iraq?
A: I don't think this administration can do that. That's why we have to work really hard at getting them out. They won't do it no matter how many of them are indicted.
Q: What will it take to get people to care enough to actually act?
A: The majority of Americans already care about this and they already want the war to end. We just have to get our elected officials to come along with us.
Q: You've pulled together a community of parents who have lost a son or daughter in the Iraq War. Describe the partisan split among those parents who agree with the war and those who do not. What can you find in common?
A: We have a lot in common. We have more in common than not. We all have wonderful loved ones who served their country and were killed. And whether or not you agree with the mission, it doesn't change the fact that our children are heroes and that our children were killed in Iraq, and I give them the space they need to grieve the way they need to. I think it would be nice if they would give me the same space.
Q: What will be your main message for the Amherst community?
A: Just take back responsibility for being a citizen of the United States of America and work to change things. One person can make a difference. ===================================== Sheehan visits UMass; urges crowds of supporters to end the war
Massachusetts Daily Collegian
By Katie Huston, Collegian Staff
November 14, 2005 http://media.www.dailycollegian.com/media/storage/paper874/news/2005/11/14/News/Sheehan.Visits.Umass.Urges.Crowds.Of.Supporters.To.End.The.War-1560995.shtml ===================================== Peace activist speaks at UMass about Iraq
Boston Globe, November 13, 2005, Associated Press http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/11/13/
commissioner_otoole_reportedly_in_crash/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+--+City%2FRegion+News
Peace activist Cindy Sheehan told University of Massachusetts students in a Veterans Day speech Friday that government officials who don't have family serving in the Iraq War ''have nothing at stake" so ''it is no problem for them to say we need to wait for the next election, for a better time" to end the war. Sheehan, whose 24-year old son, Casey, died in Iraq last year, spoke as part of the university's ''Week on the War" program, organized by student groups and the American Friends Service Committee. She received a standing ovation from an over-capacity crowd of several hundred as others watched on her television in a neighboring room. Sheehan brought attention to the antiwar effort last summer by camping outside President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas. (AP) ===================================== Marchers protest against Iraq war
Springfield Republican
Sunday, November 13, 2005, By STEPHANIE BARRY -
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http://www.masslive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1131871573103360.xml?nnmw
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