Dear Common Dreams Readers:
Rory Fanning
Rory Fanning walked across the United States for the Pat Tillman Foundation in 2008–2009, following two deployments to Afghanistan with the 2nd Army Ranger Battalion. He is a housing activist living in Chicago, Illinois and the author of the forthcoming book, Worth Fighting For: An Army Ranger’s Journey Out of the Military and Across America (Haymarket, 2014).
Articles by this author
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Views Thursday, December 08, 2016 The Antiwar Tour A vibrant antiwar movement is blooming in Japan right now. Trade unions, civic groups, and an overwhelming number of young people are galvanizing the country around Article 9 of the Japanese constitution — the article that has kept Japan out of war for the last seventy years. Each weekend since... Read more |
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Views Thursday, April 07, 2016 The Wars in Our Schools Early each New Year’s Day I head for Lake Michigan with a handful of friends. We look for a quiet stretch of what, only six months earlier, was warm Chicago beach. Then we trudge through knee-deep snow in bathing suits and boots, fighting wind gusts and hangovers. Sooner or later, we arrive where... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, January 13, 2015 Letter to a Young Army Ranger (From an Old One): 'Why the War on Terror Shouldn’t Be Your Battle' Dear Aspiring Ranger, You’ve probably just graduated from high school and you’ve undoubtedly already signed an Option 40 contract guaranteeing you a shot at the Ranger indoctrination program (R.I.P.). If you make it through R.I.P. you’ll surely be sent off to fight in the Global War on Terror. You’... Read more |
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Views Monday, October 27, 2014 Why Do We Keep Thanking the Troops? Last week, in a quiet indie bookstore on the north side of Chicago, I saw the latest issue of Rolling Stone resting on a chrome-colored plastic table a few feet from a barista brewing a vanilla latte. A cold October rain fell outside. A friend of mine grabbed the issue and began flipping through it... Read more |
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Views Thursday, June 12, 2014 Friendly? All Deaths Are Shameful in a War That Shouldn't Be Twenty-four hours after reading the news that five U.S. soldiers were killed in yet another friendly fire incident in Afghanistan, I fear this response is already old news. And it is old news, Pat Tillman was killed by friendly fire 10 years ago last April. It has been 12-years since the first... Read more |