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Among combat veterans acronyms possess an almost prophetic identity. The very spare lettering conceals the pain and spiritual agony once the meaning is clear. BNR(body not recovered), KIA (killed in action, MIA (missing in action), WIA (wounded in action) and SIW (self inflicted wound) are all standard military connotations dealing with casualties of war. As a combat medic in Viet Nam I had total responsibility for the lives under my hands and none of the power to save them. The current wars are invisible to the American public, just as we the warriors are. This detachment from the killing ground, this abandonment of us is the root cause of the suicide epidemic among returning Iraq and Afghan veterans. It has also re-invoked the ghosts of Viet Nam and as a national remembrance fired the discussion of the Civil War.

The American Civil War (1861-1865) happened as a result of the self inflicted wound crippling the nation at birth. The US Constitution enshrined chattel human slavery in its document and thus knowingly and consciously prepped us for bloody conflict. James Madison, a

founding father and President remarked that slavery was a time bomb waiting to explode. The explosion when it came was almost apocalyptic for the nation. The highest loss of life in any American war, 625,000 dead and the first total war waged not only on the battlefield but in the towns and cities. Washington DC, Richmond, Atlanta, Vicksburg and Fredericksburg all were besieged and shelled. On a single day in September of 1862 at Antietam (Sharpsburg) Md. 23,000 Americans killed each other. It is still the greatest loss of life in battle for Americans of any war. Like many Americans raised in the crucible of war time I visited Civil war national battle fields as a child with my family. Gettysburg was one. As an adult and father I took my children to Manassas (Bull Run) and Antietam. These visits were after my own participation in war. It was Bloody Lane at Antietam that conjured the ghosts of Viet Nam. I could hear the cries of the dying and see the faces of the dead I knew. It is these wounds that never heal.

In my unit during my tour in Viet Nam we had several suicides and self inflicted wounds. The SIW’s were done in the attempt to get home, alive. One of my comrades pointed the muzzle of an M-16 at his foot thinking to blow off just the little toe. He failed to remember that the rifle barrel is beveled to cause the round to tumble and inflict maximum damage. It took his foot off. I am confounded by the psychology of maiming oneself to escape untenable conditions, but I have seen it over and over. Pain, physical or spiritual, can cripple our thinking, and thus magnify injury. In order for us to heal there has to be an admission of wrongdoing. We have to look in the mirror of our history and accept that the Constitution was warped and that we need to set it right.

Dave Ionno
Veteran for peace and against all wars

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Every Friday at noon a small group of peace activists gather in front of the federal building in downtown Hartford to condemn war.  Led by members of the Hartford Catholic Worker, these vigils are about 20

years old.  Every Friday for 20 years someone is there.  Sometimes a group of 10 or more people, sometimes just one.  But bearing witness to the atrocities of American foreign policy warrants at least this small public gesture.  Does it agitate?  Does it help recruit new members to the movement?  Maybe not, but it’s become a fixture of public dissent in a city like so many others in the country – preoccupied with the day-to-day struggles and grinds.

The second longest running such public gesture in Hartford is Hope Out Loud Peace and Music Festival (HOL).   Sunday September 19 marked the ninth year for HOL.  Started as a peaceful memorial to the horrific violence of 9/11, it exists like a living monument not only to the horrible violence of that day and the violent response to that day, but also to the battered and weary peace movement in the United States.   Like any monument, it has become weathered with time – the height of anti-war activism seems to have peaked somewhere around 2005 or 2006; many progressives and liberals saw it more fitting to embrace Obama the candidate, now president, as a hope for peace than the arduous, constantly defeating work of peace activism; the ultimate modern symbol of US aggression and war-mongering, the Bush administration, has quickly and happily faded from the forefront of the activist’s mind.  In some ways, it’s amazing that Hope Out Loud still exists at all. (full disclosure: I was at one time a very active participant in HOL organizing, but haven’t been in recent years)

Hope Out Loud has evolved from a concert to more of a peace bazaar.  Tables from activist groups and organizations are a close second to the main stage where music, poetry and speakers address the crowd.  A smaller music tent, the coffeehouse tent, features music between main acts.  The atmosphere used to be much more like a soapbox, where the converted hoped to inspire other converted and convert others who happen to pass by.  But this year it was different: fewer speakers, more mingling, more conversation and networking among groups.

Much criticism exists about events like HOL.  It’s not doing enough to recruit people into the movement.  It’s not doing enough civil disobedience.  It’s not making enough connections between the peace movement and other social justice struggles.  It’s not, it’s not, it’s not. . .   These are fair concerns; however, they are most often made by people who have not been on the inside of HOL.  While that doesn’t not make these concerns illegitimate, it does make me wonder if a peace and music festival, and the activists who create it, should be seen as less valuable to social justice in general.  I walked around Sunday afternoon, and I saw many people I haven’t seen in a long time: Emily Chasse, social justice storyteller who works at the kids section of the festival sharing timeless fables that teach about cooperation, mutual aid, and compassion; Jill Freedman, singer, songwriter and musical activist from Bread and Roses and the People’s Music Network (which is coming to Hartford in January 2011); MIRA, spoken word artist by night and social worker by day; Marla Ludwig, one-woman activist powerhouse who founded Bright Star Vision; members of SEIU 1199 on strike from Spectrum Care now for over five months.

Maybe it’s not the end all be all of CT peace activism.  Maybe it could/should do more.  But as a monument, it should at least do what other great monuments do: bring people together, inspire them, cause them to reflect and connect.  Hope Out Loud has value because it provides a public space for dissent and progressive ideas, a community of activism, and it has become a reminder that the desire for peace can endure if we want it to.

“Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.”
- Saying attributed to the Old Man of the Mountain, leader of the assassins, the Hashishin

The events in Manchester Ct. at Hartford Distributors on August 3rd and what happened on September 11th in New York are bound together by a history of violence. The history in question is the past history of this nation, my nation, America. Born out of Revolutionary War and having waged the longest guerrilla war against the native indigenous people, 300+ years, we were born out of violence. As a young male during the 50’s and 60’s, Viet Nam was where I was going. I was raised inside the war machine as a military dependent (Army brat) for 14 years and on my 18th birthday in 1969 enlisted and volunteered for Viet Nam. I was born and bred for war, fed a daily diet of war programs disguised as high school sports. Filled with pride in our always victorious results we were suckled at the teats of wolves on the milk of violence.

This early psychological conditioning has been augmented by the use of even more intrusive and ubiquitous technology, the Internet, cell phones, i-pods and Black Berry’s. War games and interactive video have taught the bravery of being out of range and fed the vicarious hunger of voyeur killers. Americans have been conditioned to respond to any threat, real or perceived with violence.

There is a correlation between the rise in violent actions within society and the return to society of millions of veterans bringing their wars home with them. Civil society is pressured when our leaders respond with military actions by stoking fear and paranoia. Fear and suspicion is visible in every workplace, security officers are now the fastest growing career and the Office of Homeland Security by its very title reflects that paranoia. Do not think that our children do not see how we respond. They watch us and emulate us.

The Teeth of the Dragon is a reference to mythology. The Greek Jason of Argonaut and Golden Fleece fame, was tested by the King of Colchis. He was given the ensorcelled teeth of a dragon to plant on a field of battle. From the bloody soil sprang full grown warriors that he must then destroy. The test required violent response to violence conceived. This is the never-ending forever war that leaders of our nation nurture. It is replicated in society at large. One of my brothers-in –arms from Viet Nam says it succinctly, “What you do, you become.”

Dave Ionno
Veteran for Peace and Against the Wars

This article by Ryan Harvey of the Civilian Soldier Alliance raises some insightful points about what we are really celebrating on Independence Day. Thanks to Dave Ionno for the tip.

Pastor James Lane and Victoria Christgau of the CT Center for Nonviolence discuss their ongoing work and the upcoming summer institute on Kingian nonviolence.  See CTNonviolence.org for more information.

Click here to download the MP3

Five to one, Baby
One in five
They got the guns
We got the numbers
Doors Jim Morrison

The muted rumblings in Greece, site of the Athenian Acropolis and birthplace of democracy, precedes the perfect political storm.  Olga Stefan, a 20 year old Greek university student thinks her government is in ..“someway afraid of us.  There are too many of us.”   This simple equation will soon reach critical mass across the industrialized developed world.  The concentration of wealth in the United States has become an obscenity.  The top 4% own outright 55% of the wealth.  This was not accumulated by hard work and savings over time.  This wealth was taken by stealth and force and generated by insider Wall Street stock market access and high speed computer trading in bogus derivatives (Whiskey Tango Foxtrot).  What The Fuck are they?  A tsunami of rage is coming.

The Doors song, “5 to 1” is prophetic.  Jim Morrison was the son of a career Naval officer, a military brat like myself.  The Doors music along with Jimi Hendrix, an Airborne veteran, was the sound track of the GI’s in Viet Nam.  We killed and died as the blood and wealth of the nation was soaked up on foreign ground in Viet Nam.  Martin Luther King Jr., an American hero, said it clearly, “ The Great Society has been shot down on the battlefields of  Viet Nam.”  Today, now as we breathe, our future and our children’s future is being shot down on the battlefields of iraq and Afghanistan.

The American middle class, built out of the GI Bill after WW II and inherited by the sons and daughters of the “Greatest Generation” has been eviscerated by the Wall Street and Pentagon ghouls  in their multinational corporate star chambers.  We are like a snail crawling along the edge of a straight razor, unable to see it and unwilling to drop off.

The so-called wealth generators in their gated communities are beginning to tremble in fear. The wars and the warriors are coming home.  Those of us in the public sector unions, those of us in the working class jobs, those of us who are small business owners, we fought your wars for you and we kept that knowledge.  If we send men off to war, don’t be surprised when they come home talking dirty.  Be careful how you vote.

Dave Ionno
Viet Nam Veteran for Peace against the Wars