is there anything the u.s. army won't do to its troops?

Jailed for performing a song, forced to go AWOL to get help for PTSD, separated from an infant baby... is there anything the US military won't do its troops?

I don't know if many of you get email updates from Courage To Resist. Courage is one of the principal organizations supporting military resisters in the US, and lately they've sent some really interesting information.

  • Marc Hall, an Army Specialist who was stop-lossed, was put in jail for speaking out against the policy that involuntarily re-upped him. As hip-hop artist Marc Watercus, Hall has written an angry and explicit song about stop-loss (listen here). Military personnel are not supposed to forfeit their First Amendment rights - and certainly not while off-duty.

  • Erick Jasinski was forced to go AWOL - to get treatment for his Iraq-related PTSD.
    "In late 2008 they stop-lossed me, and that pushed me over the edge," Jasinski told IPS, "They were going to send me back to Iraq the next month."

    During his pre-deployment processing "they gave me a 90-day supply of meds to get me over to Iraq, and I saw a counsellor during that period, and I told him "I don't know what I'm going to do if I go back to Iraq."

    "He asked if I was suicidal," Jasinski explained, "and I said not right now, I'm not planning on going home and blowing my brains out. He said, 'well, you're good to go then.' And he sent me on my way. I knew at that moment, when they finalised my paperwork for Iraq, that there was no way I could go back with my untreated PTSD. I needed more help."

  • Alexis Hutchinson, a 21-year-old Specialist from Oakland, California, continues to live under restriction, and still faces court martial for choosing her infant over deployment. Alexis was not refusing to deploy. She was not speaking out against the war. She was asking for more time to find someone to care for her 11-month old son Kamani. Within a few days, however, the Army had tossed Alexis in the stockade and turned Kamani over to the Chatham County (Georgia) foster care system.

    After the case garnered some media attention and a few congressional inquiries, the Army backed off - a little. But she's still in restricted custody and she still may be court martialed and forced to deploy.

    You can read more about these soldiers, and what you can do to support them here.

    • Comments

    Post a Comment

    Popular posts from this blog

    not so fast

    Not everyone thinks the Conservative government is a lock. Canada's opposition Conservative Party, which is set to bring down the minority Liberal government later this week, was hit by a new opinion poll on Monday that showed it was trailing in the country's most vote-rich region. The Leger Marketing poll for the Sun chain of newspapers put support for the Liberals in the powerful central province of Ontario at 43 percent compared with 31 percent for the Conservatives. Ontario, a Liberal stronghold at the federal level for the past 12 years, accounts for 106 of the 308 seats in House of Commons, and no party can hope to form a government without doing well there. . . . Prime Minister Paul Martin's Liberals have been badly hurt by a corruption scandal and Conservative leader Stephen Harper says the government must be defeated as soon as possible. The Leger figures, however, suggest there is no guarantee Harper can end 12 years of Liberal rule. Thanks, ALPF! I must say, I...
    Read more

    dipstick

    So there won't be an election yet. Talk about a squeaker . Feel free to tell us how you feel about this, unless it's all been said already, then feel free not to. ALPF mustered his courage and sent more links, so I have some good commentary to post. I found this Macleans story on the Conservative party's reaction to Stronach's decision - and public reaction to that reaction - very interesting. Canadians seem almost universally turned off by the name-calling and sexist slurs. On the other hand, when a certain governor made his "girly men" pronouncement, his constituency howled with glee. (Which is not to say the rest of us weren't appalled.) The Macleans article also notes that not all the sexism came from politicians: Some of the most sexist characterizations of Stronach didn't come from her political adversaries, but from media. Montreal's La Presse newspaper ran a cartoon of Martin leaning out his car window to solicit a street-walking Stronach...
    Read more