| Speaking Schedule |
[26 Apr 2004|01:32am] |
For those of you that are interested I do alot of speaking about the War in Iraq up and down the east coast and I'll keep my schedule posted on here. This is what I have so far.
May 4th- Rochester Inst. of Technology go here for details http://calendar.wootang.net/event.php?ID=6&Date=2004-05-04
May 8th- Philly Veterans for Peace Banquet, May 8th at 6pm in the Down Home Cafe, 1515 Fairmount Ave, Philadephia, PA $40 single plate, $70 a couple
May 11 or 12 Harvard University more info as soon as I get details
June 17 -20- International Socialist Organization "Socialism 2004" Chicago, IL Go here for info http://www.internationalsocialist.org/
Thats if for now I'll keep this list updated and probably repost it with updates once a week.
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| More of the weekend |
[26 Apr 2004|01:08am] |
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mood |
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 cynical |
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music |
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Portishead- Mysterons |
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Karen and I spent last night at her mothers house. I never sleep there since it's only a single bed and having two people in it doesn't work to well and with what I found out earlier in the day I wasn't in the best mood. As usual when I don't sleep I started thinking about Iraq and two things I had almost forgoten came back to me. The first was early in the war.
We where going through a village in what had previous been the teritory of the marsh arabs till Saddam drained the marshes. All thats left now is some crumbling villages and vast fields of unusable mud. This was the first time we had seen a large number of Iraqi's and it was horrible. The road was lined with children begging for food. The three other guys in the back of the humvee with me asked if we could hand out the humanitarian rations we had but I said no since we hadn't been told to break them out yet. I changed my mind quickly. I looked out and amongst all the begging children was one little girl probably eight or ten years old just standing there. Not begging just looking at me with this sorrow in her eyes that was indescribable. I felt horrible and grabbed the rations so that we could hand them out. This went on for about five minutes till I got a call on my radio from one of the officers in our convoy telling me to stop handing out the rations. I asked if we where waiting for more TV cameras for our humanitarian actions but never got an answer.
The second thing I remebered was on May 1st. I remeber the day since it happened as I was crossing the border back into Kuwait. There was a small dusty village on the border and as usual it was lined with kids begging for anything we would give them. Suddenly a boy with out a shirt ran in front of our humvee and started shuffling around forcing us to stop. Ratterman, the driver, started to freak not know if he should just run him down or actually stop. Then another kid ran to the back of the humvee and tried to grab someones cd player and one of his friends reached in through the passanger window where I was trying to grab anything. I almost butt stroked him. Christ he couldn't have been more then 15. Ratterman gunned the engine and the kid acting as the road block jumped out of the way quickly getting his point. My final thought as we crossed the border was that we had finally brought capitalism to Iraq.
I'm gonna go watch the news and think about why I hate my own country some more.
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| Bad weekend |
[26 Apr 2004|12:52am] |
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mood |
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pissed off |
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It's been a very long weekend. Saturday Karen and I were on our way back home to do a picnic with her family when my father called my cell to let me know that my grandfather's, who passed away about five years ago, second wife, Jane, had died over night. That wasn't a terrible blow I know it sounds bad but I never knew her that well.
Karen went to the picnic with out me. She doesn't deal with death that well which I totally understand. So after talking to my parents I found out that for some strange reason Jane's cleaning lady had power of attorney and a copy of her will. Also the will she had written was no longer in possesion of the lawyer her and my grandfather had used for years. The new will was written by the cleaning ladies nephew. I know it sounds like a bad mystery novel. Well all this wouldn't be such a big deal but after my grandfather died Jane got everything with the understanding that it would be split three ways between my dad and his brothers since Jane had no family. This throws all that in to question. I'll call my parents tomorow to find out how the reading of the will went.
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| Show |
[24 Apr 2004|12:52am] |
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The Strike Anywhere show was incredible. When ever I feel doubt about my activist activites all I need to do is see them or Anti-Flag and I leave re energized. I'll probably write some more about it when I have some real energy tomorow.
Before I go everyone that gives a damn about anything should read this it killed me inside but it's important to see.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/aldon/74121.html
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| Sleep |
[23 Apr 2004|01:57am] |
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mood |
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 depressed |
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music |
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Windows Media Player |
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I really should sleep but I don't want to. Having one of those nights again. Tired but kinda of pumped not in a good way though. The last journal entry I wrote got me thinking about bad things again. I drive Karen nuts when I get like this. At least I can look forward to the Strike Anywhere show tomorow night. Hope it goes better then the Asbury Park show last weekend. I couldn't handle being in that crowd for some reason. I started to freak out. Some one told me that PTSD is made worse in some people in crowds. Guess I'm one of them.
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| Intro |
[23 Apr 2004|01:01am] |
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I haven't done this in a long time but it seemed to be a good idea considering everything that has happened to me in the last year and what I am doing now. I have to wonder if any of my old LJ friends will find this well at least besides the ones I tell. Well now to get some things out of the way. I was in the Marines until August of last year when I was honorablly discharged. I did serve in Iraq and well I'm dealing with the consequenses of that day by day. No I wasn't physically wounded but I took part in the destruction of a country and its peoples something that shouldn't sit well with anyone and it most definatly isn't with me. Even writing that is hard for me. Maybe doing an LJ again will help me sort some of this out and take some stress off my wife. Yes I am married now to my HS sweetheart (well sort of) and best friend. What more could anyone ask for. Back to what I was talking about. Since my discharge I have become one of the most vocal opponiants of the war. I am a member of Veterans for Peace and work closely with Military Families Speak Out. I have been speaking about the war, my thoughts on it, and what it's like to be fighting there all over the east coast and this summer I will also be going out to Chicago. Wow for my first LJ entery this is getting pretty long. Guess I'll try to conect with some of my old LJ buddies. To all in the struggle, Keep up the fight.
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