Veterans symbolically discard service medals

wiseones2cents said:
I'm surprised no one posted this. These soldiers know that they are just expendable pawns to protect elite interests.

http://news.yahoo.com/veterans-symbolically-discard-medals-anti-nato-rally-235355143.html

I read another article stating more then 1/2 the veterans coming back are on disability.
Click to expand...

I'm surprised you missed this:

\\()// said:
Veterans, many wearing military uniform shirts over black anti-war t-shirts, choked back tears as they explained their actions.


Others folded an American flag while a bugle played "Taps," which is typically performed at U.S. military funerals.


"The medals are supposed to be for acts of heroism. I don't feel like a hero. I don't feel like I deserve them," said Zach LaPorte, who served in Iraq in 2005 and 2006.


LaPorte, a 28-year-old mechanical engineer from Milwaukee, said he enlisted in the Army at 19 because he felt there were few other options. At the time, he could not afford to stay in college.


"I witnessed civilian casualties and civilians being arrested in what I consider an illegal occupation of a sovereign nation," LaPorte said.


He said he was glad the United States had withdrawn its combat troops from Iraq, but said he did not believe the NATO military alliance was going to leave Afghanistan.


On Sunday, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen opened the two-day summit of the 26-member alliance saying there would be no hasty exit from Afghanistan.


A veteran from New York who only gave his name as Jerry said: "I don't want any part of this anymore. I chose human life over war, militarism and imperialism."


The veterans had hoped to present their medals to a NATO representative. The closest they could get was the fence ringing the McCormick Place convention center about a block from where U.S. President Barack Obama and other leaders were meeting. The veterans threw their medals toward the convention center.


Matt Howard, 29, who served in the Marines from 2001 to 2006, said the rate of suicides among veterans returning from the wars is high.


"These medals are not worth the cloth and steel they're printed on. They're representative of failed policies," said Howard, a spokesman for Iraq Veterans Against the War.


Former U.S. Army Sergeant Alejandro Villatoro, 29, of Chicago, served during the Iraq 2003 invasion and in Afghanistan in 2011.


He said he suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome and depression and gave back three medals - one "War on Terrorism" medal, one for participating in the Iraq war and a NATO medal from the Afghanistan war. He said he wants the war in Afghanistan to end.


"There's no honor in these wars," said Villatoro, before he threw away his medals. "There's just shame."



http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/20/us-nato-summit-veterans-idUSBRE84J0D520120520
Click to expand...
 
To me all medals are is a thank you(very small gesture) from the elites for risking your life protecting their wealth. Then they discard them like used tissue paper! Look how many are homeless and unemployed!


"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship ... Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger."

Top Nazi leader and Reischmarshal...Hermann Goring

Sound familiar Republicans?

U.S.M.C.Major General Smedley Butler
“War is just a racket,” “A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.”

I'd only accept a medal if it was for defending my country.
 
Rightwingers only care about unborn people and millionaires, it seems.
 
\\()// said:
I'm surprised you missed this:
Click to expand...

I looked to see if it was posted. I guess I missed it. I post it on another board and had these things brought to my attention as far as General Butler. This guy seems to be one of the very first Occupy wall street guys! A true patriotic serviceman!!

Here is more on Butler. A shame he died so young.........

He became widely known for his outspoken lectures against war profiteering, U.S. military adventurism, and what he viewed as nascent fascism in the United States.

In December 1933, Butler toured the country with James E. Van Zandt to recruit members for the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW). He described their effort as "trying to educate the soldiers out of the sucker class." In his speeches he denounced the Economy Act of 1933, called on veterans to organize politically to win their benefits, and condemned the FDR administration for its ties to big business. The VFW reprinted one of his speeches with the title "You Got to Get Mad" in its magazine Foreign Service. He said: "I believe in...taking Wall St. by the throat and shaking it up."[50] He believed the American Legion was controlled by banking interests. On December 8, 1933, explaining why he believed veterans' interests were better served by the VFW than the American Legion, he said: "I said I have never known one leader of the American Legion who had never sold them out–and I mean it."[51]

In addition to his speeches to pacifist groups, he served from 1935 to 1937 as a spokesman for the American League Against War and Fascism. In 1935 he wrote the exposé War Is a Racket, a trenchant condemnation of the profit motive behind warfare. His views on the subject are summarized in the following passage from a 1935 issue of the socialist magazine Common Sense:

I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

Here is another name that was brought up in the discussion.

I looked up David Hackworth and it seems he went after alot of war heroes with fake war medals(best elite money can buy accompanied by fake stories of heroism).

He was responsible for the suicide of an Admiral Jeremy Michael Boorda. Who he claimed falsified his medals to maintain his high position. Dont know if he was connected to the elites. All I know is that he was Jewish, born in Illinois with a Ukrainian background......
 
wiseones2cents said:
To me all medals are is a thank you(very small gesture) from the elites for risking your life protecting their wealth. Then they discard them like used tissue paper! Look how many are homeless and unemployed!
Click to expand...

Yeah, even one homeless or unemployed vet is too much.....but remember, ObamaOsama won't be president forever.....
 
Explain what those who fought and died in Iraq and Afghanistan made their sacrifices for, Blabo.

Poor Blabo.
 
bravo said:
Yeah, even one homeless or unemployed vet is too much.....but remember, ObamaOsama won't be president forever.....
Click to expand...

You think this has to do with Obama or the elites behind the war that was caused while a Republican president was in power? What an idiotic comment.

The elites dont care if their puppet is republican or democrat.
 
wiseones2cents said:
You think this has to do with Obama or the elites behind the war that was caused while a Republican president was in power? What an idiotic comment. The elites dont care if their puppet is republican or democrat.
Click to expand...

Blabo doesn't think. He reacts reflexively.

Poor Blabo.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top