The invasion of Afghanistan's ninth anniversary passed in DC this week with hardly a notice.
Media
desperate to illustrate the story flocked to a small demonstration of
less than two dozen veterans of the so-called global wars on terror. A
rag-tag group of angry, disillusioned and, most of all, disappointed
vets gathered in front of Walter Reed Army Medical Center where
thousands upon thousands of service members have returned from war to
treat their wounds.
The veterans there for the demonstration held a
ceremony at the gates of the iconic hospital and placed nine yellow
roses - one for each year of the war in Afghanistan - with almost
military precision, the occasional salute replaced with a peace sign,
before setting off on a six-mile march to Capitol Hill.
The
occasion marked the first salvo in Operation Recovery, an effort by the
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Against the War to urge the United States
to stop redeploying soldiers who have been identified as suffering
trauma - either post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury,
military sexual trauma, or others.
It's a sensitive topic for the
military these days as five soldiers are on trial at Fort Lewis,
Washington, for being part of what many are calling a hit squad that
killed Afghans for sport. One of the soldiers, whose confession tape was
leaked to the media, was prescribed and presumably taking a cocktail of
psychotropic drugs for repeated concussions at the time of the alleged
murders.
Said Ethan McCord, who served in Iraq in 2007:
"This
is what happens to the traumatized soldiers that have gone on multiple
deployments and we send them to Afghanistan into the same environment
that traumatized them to begin with and you place them on psychotropic
drugs and then you hand a weapon to them and turn them loose on the
streets. What do you expect?"
McCord was famously
captured in a video released by Wikileaks earlier this year trying to
rescue two children from a van which had been struck by a missile from a
US helicopter. Also during his tour, his spine was shattered by an
IED.
He bears the physical and emotional scars of the war with
metal rods in his back and a sorrowful gaze in his eyes. He was
discharged from the military without benefits because they determined
his medical condition was pre-existing. In other words, the military's
official position is that he somehow went to bootcamp and made it
through infantry school with a shattered lower spine.
It's a
jaw-dropping declaration for which, as McCord explained, there is no
appeals process. So McCord receives no medical coverage from the
military for the injuries that rendered him unable to walk with others
to the Capitol.
While it was disheartening to hear McCord's
story, and those of his comrades, saddest of all is that no one, save
the handful of reporters looking for a story on the anniversary of the
war, was there to listen. That is, except for the Capitol Police who
threatened to arrest the veterans as they stood on the steps of the
Russell Senate Office Building. Not that any senators were present as
congress is in recess.
As a female marine stepped to the mic and
began a slow and painful account of how the military treated her after
she was raped by a fellow marine in Iraq, Officer Dan Turner of the
Capitol Police was busy threatening representatives from the group that
he was about to arrest everyone, including the media.
Turner, who
refused to comment for this piece, told organizers that a gathering of
more than 20 people on Capitol grounds constitutes a demonstration and
the group lacked the proper permit to demonstrate. Pleas from the
veterans that their gathering consisted of a mere 15 members on the
steps did little to change Turner's mind as a police paddy wagon pulled
up to the sidewalk.
It seems he considered media part of the
demonstration. This inclusion was surprising and went a long way toward
explaining why he was so hostile to my request for a statement. Turner's
threats to arrest reporters for standing on a public sidewalk observing
and recording the incident felt like a shortsighted attempt to halt
coverage of an unsightly event for the US.
I contacted the US
Capitol Police in an effort to seek clarity on their demonstration
policy. Turner was correct, a permit is required for groups of 20 or
more. However, the woman I spoke with explained that reporters are not
included in the headcount unless they become actively involved in the
event. I would love to share her name with you as a source, but she
refused to give it.
The disappointing dissolution of this
gathering of veterans seemed almost fated. No one really wanted to hear
what they had to say. Their proclamations were meant for a crowd that
wasn't there.
The enormous throng of the fed-up and angry that
filled the National Mall to hear Glen Beck was missing on this occasion.
Passersby kept passing by, no one lingered. And all too quietly,
Capitol Police marked the solemn anniversary by shoeing the vets from
the very steps of government they volunteered to serve.