Mumia Abu-Jamal -- Dead Soldiers and Dead Dreams!

Statistics are one way to tell the story of the approximately 1.4 million servicemen and women who've been to Iraq and Afghanistan. According to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2004, 86 percent of soldiers in Iraq reported knowing someone who was seriously injured or killed there. Some 77 percent reported shooting at the enemy; 75 percent reported seeing women or children in imminent peril and being unable to help. Fifty-one percent reported handling or uncovering human remains; 28 percent were responsible for the death of a noncombatant. One in five Iraq veterans return home seriously impaired by post-traumatic stress disorder.

Words are another way. Below are the stories of three veterans of this war, told in their voices, edited for flow and efficiency but otherwise unchanged. They bear out the statistics and suggest that even those who are not diagnosably impaired return burdened by experiences they can neither forget nor integrate into their postwar lives. They speak of the inadequacy of what the military calls reintegration counseling, of the immediacy of their worst memories, of their helplessness in battle, of the struggle to rejoin a society that seems unwilling or unable to comprehend the price of their service. Strangers to one another and to me, they nevertheless tried, sometimes through tears, to communicate what the intensity of an ambiguous war has done to them.

One veteran, Sue Randolph, put it this way: "People walk up to me and say, 'Thank you for your service.' And I know they mean well, but I want to ask, 'Do you know what you're thanking me for?'" She, Rocky, and Michael Goss offer their stories here in the hope that citizens will begin to know.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17997.htm

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• War
• Iraq
• Vietnam
• 9/11
• Empire
• Terrorism
• Imperialist
• Bush
• the
• King

[RevolutionaryJam]

I love Mumia

[DSQrn]

Dude, he's not saying soldiers are evil you tard. He's saying the government uses the military not as a means of protecting the people, but enforcing its corporate interests upon other populations under the guise of protection.

[kingofae]

bread and games is how i prefer to translate it. this was real good. free mumia

[hunhunter777]

they will never free mumia,,hes too inteligent,,,and to much a threat to thier agenda

[getyoasshome]

@Ts0usermax because their government treats them like pawns in a chess game and dont take care of them when the war is over.

[getyoasshome]

@redcobra93 wroooooonnnnnngg!!!!!! the army has nothing to do with the constitution or the bill of rights. the army was not created for that.

[jasonbravo77]

@getyoasshome I'm sorry, what?

[getyoasshome]

mumia does more for the minds of the intelligent while he is incarcerated than 100% of you idiots who have nothing good to say about him do for people while you are free....

[getyoasshome]

@sgtpepper33 yep we support a cop killer....just like you support a government that lets cops kill innocent people....you lose...mumia pulls the pants of the U.S. down every time and spanks its ass with a leather belt.

[getyoasshome]

@jasonbravo77 you lose....

[getyoasshome]

@redcobra93 you big ass dummy the military has 0 to do with the constitution or the bill of rights...go read about daniel shays's rebellion and you will see what the military was built for....fuckin idiot.

[Checo384775]

so true