Gulf War Syndrome: Killing Our Own Part 10 of 12

[Video] American Veterans: Discarded and Forgotten - The Lecture Series

This is a playlist containing the three part lecture from Gary Null at the premiere of his documentary, American Veterans: Discarded and Forgotten.

Gloria Goodale - Memorial Day: Among post-9/11 veterans, deepening antiwar sentiment

Despite the end of the Iraq war and the scheduled drawdown in Afghanistan, this Memorial Day arrives against a backdrop of deepening – and some say more troublesome – antiwar sentiment among military veterans.

One of the most vivid and replayed images of protesters at the NATO summit last weekend in Chicago was a group of some 40 vets lined up to toss their war medals over the chain link fence to protest what former naval officer Leah Bolger calls “the illegal wars of both NATO and America.”

According to a recent Pew Research Center study, 33 percent of post-9/11 veterans say that neither the war in Iraq nor in Afghanistan “were worth the cost,” and this among a highly motivated cohort who chose to serve.

What this means, says retired US Army Col. Ann Wright, who resigned from a State Department post in 2006 over US policies in Iraq, is that there is a widening gap between the government, military policies, and the soldiers that carry them out.

“Military personnel know America will always have a military, but there is growing concern over the way it is being used,” says the 29-year veteran, adding that an increasing list of concerns include “the use of torture, illegal detentions, and both soldiers and the public being lied to about the actual reasons for going into combat.”

But in contrast to the extremely vocal and visible antiwar movements of the Vietnam War era, many veterans in the all-volunteer military have found it harder to mobilize effective actions, says Cameron White, a former Marine who served two tours in Iraq before joining “Iraq Veterans Against the War.”

Read More:

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2012/0526/Memorial-Day-Among-post-9-11-veterans-deepening-antiwar-sentiment

Jon Mitchell - U.S. Veteran Exposes Pentagon’s Denials of Agent Orange Use on Okinawa

Thousands of barrels of Agent Orange were unloaded on Okinawa Island and stored at the port of Naha, and at the U.S. military's Kadena and Camp Schwab bases between 1965 and 1966, an American veteran who served in Okinawa claims.

In a Jacksonville Florida interview in early April with The Japan Times and Ryukyu Asahi Broadcasting Co., a TV network based in Okinawa, former infantryman Larry Carlson, 67, also said that Okinawan stevedores were exposed to the highly toxic herbicide as they labored in the holds of ships, and that he witnessed it being sprayed at Kadena Air Base.

Carlson is one of only three American servicemen who have won benefits from the U.S. government over exposure to the toxic defoliant on Okinawa — and the first of them to step forward and reveal that massive amounts of it were kept on the island.

His claims, which are corroborated by five fellow soldiers and a 1966 U.S. government document, directly challenge the Pentagon's consistent denials that Agent Orange was ever stored on Okinawa.

Read More:

http://www.nationofchange.org/us-veteran-exposes-pentagon-s-denials-agent-orange-use-okinawa-1336665501

Andy Kroll - How Rick Santorum Ripped Off American Veterans

Like any good presidential candidate, Rick Santorum heaps praise on America's soldiers and veterans. He's pledged [1] to "make veterans a high priority" if elected president, adding, "This is not a Republican issue, this is not a Democratic issue, it is an American issue." But as a US senator, Santorum engineered a controversial land deal that robbed the military's top veterans' home of tens of millions of dollars and worsened the deteriorating conditions at the facility.

The Armed Forces Retirement Home, which is run by the Department of Defense, bills itself as "premier home for military retirees and veterans." The facility sprawls across 272 acres high on a hill in northern Washington, DC, near the Petworth neighborhood. The nearly 600 veterans who now live there enjoy panoramic views of the city—the Washington monument and US Capitol to the south, the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception to the east. At its peak, more than 2,000 veterans of World Wars I and II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War lived at the Home.

Read More:

http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/01/how-rick-santorum-ripped-off-american-military-veterans

Call to Action - Bill of Rights Defense

On today's Gary Null Show, we spoke with Shaheed Buttar, the executive director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee and the People’s Campaign for the Constitution which aims to defend civil liberties, constitutional rights and the rules of law threatened by the war on terror. You can hear the full episode below:

Please visit the BoRDC sub-site specifically targeting the National Defense Authorization Act and join the fight against this travesty:

Our nation celebrates Bill of Rights Day every December 15, the anniversary of the ratification of the first ten amendments to the Constitution.

But on December 1—just two weeks before Bill of Rights Day—Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The NDAA allows the indefinite military detention of US citizens without trial. It contains the most oppressive national security powers we’ve seen in our lifetimes, easily worse than any Bush administration policy.

Join the Bill of Rights Defense Committee in standing against the military detention provisions of the NDAA.

Take action on the NDAA

1. Sign our petition

Add your voice to the thousands of Americans saying "NO!" to indefinite detention without trial.

Sign our petition against the NDAA.

We also have a special petition for military service members, veterans, and retired officers because those voices are uniquely important on this issue.

2. Learn more about the NDAA

Our toolkit on the NDAA includes information on why the NDAA is so dangerous, talking points about the bill, and ideas for anti-NDAA events and actions you can hold in your community.

3. Hold an event in your community

Bill of Rights Day is just around the corner: Thursday, December 15. Standing up for the right to trial, separation of powers, and presumption of innocence is a great way to celebrate the Bill of Rights.

Local actions can help demonstrate widespread opposition to this dangerous law and shift the discussion in Washington. Our toolkit offers a wide range of ideas about what kinds of events you might host.

Tell us about your event and we'll help publicize it!

We also have a full-page flier and quarter-page flier you can use to publicize your event.

Eric Newhouse - Half of Vets Returning From Iraq and Afghanistan Need Medical Attention

Wednesday 16 November 2011

by: Eric Newhouse, Truthout | Report

http://www.truth-out.org/half-vets-returning-iraq-and-afghanistan-need-medical-attention/1321369149 

More than half of America's former warriors are returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan with medical and mental problems that need treatment, according to new statistics from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

"These are unprecedented numbers," said Dr. Sonja Batten, assistant deputy chief of patient services care for the VA Mental Health Division.

But they're surprising numbers, in some ways.

While they bear out the controversial 2008 Rand Report that one soldier in three will return home with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), major depression and/or traumatic brain injury (TBI), the TBI component is dramatically less than predicted.

Click to read more ...

NEW ORIGINAL SERIES: American Veterans: Forgotten and Discarded - Episode 1: "Afflicted"

This Thanksgiving, remember our vets who have returned to a country that so easily forgets them. 

In a follow-up to the heart-wrenching series, "Who Is Killing Our American Veterans?", Dr. Gary Null exposes the continued epidemic of homelessness affecting our American Veterans today. Thousands of Veterans are mired in poverty, suffering with physical and psychological illnesses and are living on the streets and in the woods throughout America. See the tragic story of these forgotten men and women and the few dedicated people who are committed to helping them in their plight. 

Senior Executive Producer/Writer/Director: Gary Null Ph.D.

Executive Producer/Co-Director: Richard Polonetsky   

Producer: Shannon Burnett   

Editor: Michael Palmerio   

Camera: Florian Boehm

A Progressive Radio Network Original Series

We would like to give a very special thanks to the organizations listed below.  Please visit their websites to see how they are helping homeless Veterans and how you can help support their efforts.

National Veterans Homeless Support [http://www.nvhs.us/]

Veterans Transitional Facility

Vietnam and All Veterans of Brevard Inc. [http://www.vietnamandallveteransofbrevard.com/]

Community Legal Services of Mid-Florida, Inc. [http://www.clsmf.org/index.php/services/vlap]

Daily Bread Inc. [http://www.dailybreadinc.org/]

Tents in the Woods: The New Reality of Being Poor in America

"Mercedes Diane" - Veterans protesting at Smithsonian met with pepper-spray

• By Mercedes Diane ..., DC Civil Rights The Examiner
• http://www.examiner.com/civil-rights-in-washington-dc/veterans-protesting-at-smithsonian-met-with-pepper-spray

Washington, DC -- All too often, when there is criticism of U.S. military actions it is the service members who receive the force of the backlash.  They are called criminals, they are accused of being brainwashed, and it is they that are punished when something goes wrong.  However, many sometimes feel that when they do speak out against U.S. military action, they do so without support and with the threat of being accused of being traitors hanging over their heads.  Veterans, on the other hand, are better positioned to be the voice of military personnel.

By giving first hand accounts of atrocities they’ve witness and the perceived senselessness of those atrocities, they leverage the fact that they have followed orders and have fought to defend freedom of speech and the right to protest.  Nevertheless, yesterday, activist where shocked and outraged to learn that not even veterans are safe from police aggression when employing their Constitutional rights, the very rights they had once laid their lives on the line to protect.

Approximately 50 members of Veterans For Peace (VFP) participated in a march this afternoon from Freedom Plaza to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum on the National Mall.  The museum was featuring an exhibit on unmanned drone bombers that a group of about 250 people from the October2011.org encampment at Freedom Plaza intended to protest.

'We had marched from the Freedom Plaza and McPherson Square occupations, taking over the streets of DC.  The museum knew we were coming.  Some of our group got in and dropped a banner.  Hundreds of us did not.  Instead, we were greeted at the door with cans of pepper spray.'  We intended to hold signs and sing inside the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, protesting its promotion of unmanned drones, missiles, and bombs, including its sponsorship by and promotion of weapons corporations.  We don't have any museums promoting health coverage or education or retirement security.' This was the statement given by David Swanson is the author of 'War Is A Lie.'

VFP Acting Director Mike Ferner said, 'I was at the first entranceway, holding the door open for people to enter. I saw a police or security officer in a white shirt hold his hands up, telling people to stop. The marchers continued and the officer began pepper-spraying everyone. From everything I saw until that moment, there was no reason for the pepper-spraying. The door of the museum clearly said 'free admission.' It did not say 'Free admission if you are quiet' or 'Free admission unless you have opinions contrary to government policy.’

Click to read more ...