Gulf War – I Ain't Marching Anymore

On Colin Powell

Sculpture of Powell and his UN Assembly speech about Iraq, by sculptor Goshka Macuga.

The first mention of Colin Powell in Ain’t Marching is about My Lai, about “the massacre’s initial whistleblowers [including]Thomas Glenton, who’d first tried the chain of command and been blown off by Major Colin Powell.”

And so it goes.

There’s the just-passed 30th anniversary of Operation Desert Storm, about which I managed to write exactly nothing and for which I now defer to Kelly Kennedy’s plangent memoir at The War Horse, which ends with Gulf War Syndrome but not before conveying so much more. There’s the 50th anniversary of “The Pentagon Papers,” as the New York Times tagged Daniel Ellsberg’s leak about U.S. misconduct in Southeast Asia. 50th anniversaries are particularly frequent, since 50 years ago the movement against the Vietnam war was at its height.

As “Veterans Day” week closes, Honoring Veterans and their Work to End Systemic Racism

The Wall of Vets in Portland. They were active nationwide as Election Defenders too.

From William Apesss in 1813 to Jon Hutto and Aimee Allison in 2020, veterans have been fighting for racial justice as part of the oath they took to defend the Constiution.

Why Bradley Manning belongs here

I’m already getting assailed for including in my title Bradley Manning, who so many have already branded a traitor — even some vets who are themselves in the book draw the line at what he’s done. But as mesmerized as I am by the case, I’m even more mesmerized by the way it’s galvanized soContinue reading “Why Bradley Manning belongs here”

Howard Zinn

One of the things that makes me personally sad about Zinn leaving us when he did is that I’d hoped, when Ain’t Marchin’ was published, to introduce him to Garett Reppenhagen (left), president of Veterans Green Jobs and former president of Iraq Veterans Against the War. The latter had told me, when I interviewed himContinue reading “Howard Zinn”