"child at the tomb of the unknown soldier"

being born in angst lends
fodder
for crusades; better to be unknown

as fragmentary proxy pieces of
homer’s
body than to be your self

back in the cave: plato and
socrates
demanding blithe explanation

from Diothema: it is about what is
good
for rando humans

socrates a soldier: peloponnesian
war
probably had PTSD and/or epiphany

child’s sources known
to be
born of war and circumstances

branded
guilt complex for
episodic fortune, beginning to cut

then there’s the shame of
being sliced by expectation

buying POWMIA
t-shirt –
ritualistically tattooing the guilt

dog tags are meant to be
jammed
in a bodies’ teeth with a boot to mark

neuro-typical bible names:
data
to identify through personality’s

cults where selves are
shadows
of the humans’ state sewn like

peter pan’s first rendezvous
with
wendy in the london fog

after systems are done with you –
nothing
is left but a plaque

when there is nobody to
claim
your body’s remaining fictitious facts

all flags are symbolic of war;
symbiotic
with violent demonic pride

all war memorials celebrate war:
the named are sequential becoming

part of a larger book where their
names came from originally

war simulacra
pyrotechnics:
grateful dead and hells angels

war can create nothing but suffering;
weapons
create nothing but death

child escorted by their
sources
demanding explanation from monument

these are fighters who perceived
but
nobody cared about them

people want to be
loved
but they can’t stomach loving

shiny boots, buckles, pompous hats:
the changing of the guard

protecting sacred
anonymity
from fragile personhood

unmarked grave would
prefer
to denote armistice than memorial day

uniforms are clown
costumes
in rando humans’ dark closets

This poem originate as an essay on this website:

https://www.soldiersforthecause.org/tag/unkown-soldier/ and was first printed in volume 13 of Laurel Review: Proud To Be https://laurelreview.org/proud-to-be. I am not sure why parents found it necessary to show me these monuments as we transitioned through host countries as refugees but I wish it had prevented my enlistment. POW MIA has proven to be cold war propaganda.

"Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird announced the existence of from 500 to 1,300 of what he termed “POW/MIA’s.” Those three letters—“MIA”—are familiar to us now. The term, however, was a new, Nixonian invention. It had used to be that downed fliers not confirmed as actual prisoners used to be classified not as “Missing in Action” but “Killed in Action/Body Unrecovered.” (The new designation was a propaganda scam.) https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/enduring-cult-vietnam-missing-action/

There were far more MIA after WWII and the insuation is that leftists kept prisoners up until today. The tomb of the unknown soldier might be the same kind of scam. There is historical precedent for veteran artists – WWI traumatized by the trenches – seeking recompense by creating outside war.

I am proud to announce the publication of two my chapbooks The Airplane Game finaled and secured publishing through 2024 Moonstone Chapbook Contest and Saturday Morning Crusades from Finishing Line Press. This poem is included in The Airplane Game along with antiwar and pro immigration works. Here is the press release. The manuscript will be available through Moonstone's website or signed for presale through the link below for $11 plus $2 shipping or email karololesiak@soldiersforthecause.org.

An elegy for a dear friend that appears at the end:

This is only a sample this chapbook contains volumes:

by Matthew Bow

Service Background

I joined the Army in March 2004. I served in the 101st Airborne Division in both my deployments in Iraq, from 2004 to 2005, and from 2007 to 2009, I also worked desk-side Information Technology (IT) support and as a secure communications specialist. I was tasked with fixing computers. As an IT guy, I have had unique experiences, whether working Operations in Battalion, or working with the Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) and Sergeant Major (SGM).

Expectations vs. Reality

I am a Veteran who has been deployed to Iraq twice. I am currently receiving my primary health and mental health care via the VA – I was promised aftercare for my combat deployments via the VA. I was expecting healthcare due to the sacrifices I and my fellow veterans had performed. The system is opaque at best, which, in turn, drives the anxiety of the patient. I was looking for clear directives and medication management that will actually help. Instead, I received care with doctors not being forthright about why I can't receive certain care.

System, Structure and Complexity

President Herbert Hoover created the Veterans Administration through Executive Order S.398 in 1930 – it was re-established as the Department of Veterans Affairs on March 15, 1989.

What makes the VA so murky is that it's a state-ran, federally-funded program. The states can add regulations to the national VA guidelines. There's no way of knowing which type of treatment options are available for you, because that information is not made public. They don't tell us the process or the reasons and it feels like they keep it intentionally opaque. This all adds anxiety in the process of getting health care, which is not helpful if you already live with anxiety, as I do.

Mobility

Since individual states have rights over the VA, they can add regulations. So, they can change healthcare policies. If you move, you have to completely restart your healthcare. You have to wait for your initial primary care doctor visit – you can't receive healthcare until you've met with the primary care provider, and that can take a long time. Your health care suffers during this time because you can't get meds, physical therapy, prosthetics, or any health care. All your health care stops once you move until you have a primary care doctor. That causes a lot of strain, mentally and physically, for Veterans trying to advocate for themselves while trying to get healthcare in the VA.

Hidden Programs

The VA's processes are so murky that it oftentimes leads to people not receiving the care that they deserve. Say you're homeless and you don't know about the HUD VASH program, which is administered jointly with the Department of Housing and Urban Development – it gets you into a house within 4-6 months. The Veteran contribution in HUD VASH goes as low as $50, but most of the time, you have to pay your portion of the rent and electricity bill, and it's all based on your disability. The VA doesn't really advertise it, though – they have their website but you have to search for things and it's not easily accessible.

Medication Access

Because of how the organization is structured, the VA fails to meet certain levels of care. You can't really research the healthcare regulation for the VA, because of the national and state-level standards, so you can't see why certain meds can't be prescribed, even if you are diagnosed with ADHD.

As someone diagnosed with PTSD, and disabled, I know I need strong meds, but I have had trouble getting the meds I need. I am also diagnosed with ADHD in the VA system, but they won't give me Adderall, because that's one of their drug no-nos. The VA overprescribed pain pills for years in the 1990s and early 2000s, according to the Wall Street Journal. According to the Wall Street Journal, the VA was even targeted by drug companies in 2009 to boost opioid sales. Afterwards, the VA also grouped stimulants as well as opioids into a new class of medications where you would need a doctor's override in order to receive medication. Stimulants and opioids are grouped together as drugs of abuse in the VA, which makes it tough to get ADHD meds.

Trust and Respect

In order for the patient to be helped, the doctor has to trust the patient. When the doctor denies you medication, despite your diagnosis, it makes you feel infantile, like you're not a full adult. Overall, you feel like you're being treated like a child. If you question the doctors a lot, some will give you an attitude. I am an expert on my body and it's the doctor's job to fix me based on self-reporting.

In the Army, I was in charge of a million dollars worth of equipment, plus personal equipment, and put into a position of trust when it came to my job, which required a security clearance. At the VA, I feel a lack of trust – like the doctors don't trust me enough to prescribe me medication. They deny me medication based off of others' mistakes, unrelated to me. This leads Veterans into gaining medications through specialty clinics and outside agencies, as I did. This forces Veterans to advocate for themselves outside of the VA, since they are not listened to inside the VA.

Standard of Care

A lot of the doctors don't approach the patient with enough respect; more or less, you feel like you are in a bean counter type of doctor's office where the doctors rush through the appointment. On top of that, you have a lot of young doctors overseeing your primary care, which could lead to mistakes in care overall. I know you have to learn medicine by practicing it, but the preponderance of risk by young doctors is kind of outrageous.

Vets have the right to choose their VA doctors, especially when they try to stick you with residents. The VA does allow choice of doctor; if, for some reason, you feel your doctor isn't listening to you, there's a process to change your primary care manager, which is your doctor. The VA has contact lines and an ombudsman – one for each VA – who can switch your doctor to another doctor.

Misinformation

The doctors seem scared to give me what I need because of policies unknown to me. The VA doctors literally told me they could not prescribe me Adderall because of the policies – they said Adderall was listed under prescriptions of abuse, or something like that.

Doctors also do not listen to me and do not take the time to explain side effects. Around 2018, a young doctor lied to me about a med and it cost me a semester of school. They told me that it did not have the side effect of brain fog, and then when I called her saying I had diarrhea, she said it was not a known side effect, either, so I kept taking it. I learned that diarrhea was, in fact, a side effect of the antidepressant Topamax when I talked to a nurse. Topamax was an antidepressant but also linked to weight loss. I had to get an appendectomy because of gastrointestinal issues, so I did not do well in university. The surgery's anesthesia gave me memory loss that made it impossible for me to catch up with work after I got my appendix out.

Profiling & Stigma

I'm a big man with PTSD who is scared of what happens to big men when others are scared. I also found out that Wellbutrin causes me to be angrier. I can't be angry – I'm built like an offensive lineman. If I'm angry in public, bad things happen to me due to my sheer size because people are scared of me. They are scared of someone big like me being angry.

Involuntary Hospitalization

I think it is because of a VA social worker's fear of me that the VA institutionalized me when I was seeking anti-anxiety meds during an anxiety attack that was caused by a close friend's personal situation. It happened so long ago, perhaps 2022, that these days, I could not even place a name with a face, but as I recall, the social worker recommended me for five days of an involuntary inpatient stay for mental health care. The social worker – not even someone with a psychology degree – accused me of being manic and a bunch of other stuff. I said, "no, I'm just very upset, and I talk very fast when I am upset, and when I talk fast, people think I am crazy."

Institutionalization

In inpatient care for mental health, the care team analyzes you, and they start you on meds the first day. That's also when you meet your care team, which is overall in charge of your care and discharge. There's a lot of homeless Veterans who voluntarily commit themselves and do nothing but sleep. Sometimes, homeless Veterans also try to get committed to detox themselves from drugs.

Over five days in inpatient, you participate in groups, even if you think the groups are stupid. The groups are usually psychotherapy groups or recreational therapy groups or other types – these are meant to give you more tools in your toolbox to tackle and improve mental health. It's a multi-functional team with physical therapy, covering mental and social and other aspects to get you back to being functional. You play the game, so to speak, or they keep you there longer.

Program Access

The VA is weird because they may have a thousand different programs, but they never advertise them – you almost have to have a social worker who is looking for programs for clients in order for you to find out things. You have to really seek out the information. A lot of the programs are hard to access, even if you know about them. The average time for caregiver support is five to 10 years, and that is just one example.

Regional Care Variants

VA healthcare should be a federal program that is the same across states. Different states have different levels of health care. 

The best VA health care I ever received was in Phoenix in 2020. I had a med doctor and I could get my meds sent to me within three days and I could talk to my doctor every two weeks so I could dial in the medication right and do it fast. When I had bad side effects, one of the meds I was taking was causing me to sweat too much, and so she took me off of it. At the Phoenix VA, they actually put me on an actual anti-anxiety med, Klonopin, a really long-acting benzodiazepine sometimes prescribed for anxiety. The current VA policy is to avoid prescribing benzodiazepines except for high-risk patients. 

The VA lacks continuity of care among the different VAs. You have to start over and get your primary care assigned each time you go to a new VA, and that could take months. The other thing is that your care might not be the same – you might have been going to a chiropractor in AZ, but in OK they put you in physical therapy. In essence, every time you move, you start your care over. 

Oklahoma ranks among the worst VA health care I have ever received – that's where I was involuntarily admitted because I was asking for an anti-anxiety med since I got triggered.

The Paradox of VA Care

There are some bright sides to the VA. There are doctors and nurses who seem to really care, but the intentional opaqueness of the system drives the anxiety of the patient they are trying to help. A lot of volunteers work at the VA and they help patients navigate the buildings. The building is set up weirdly, so you end up having to ask for people. Another shoutout goes to the nurses, who will at least listen to you and give you solid advice, because you do not spend a lot of time with the doctors. 

Bio: Matthew Bow is a veteran of the United States Army as part of the 101st Airborne Division. He served two tours in Iraq from 2004-2005 and 2007-2009 for a total of 27 months in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Lindsey Graham referred to himself in his official biography and elsewhere as “an Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm veteran.” The truth came out in 1998, while then-Rep. Graham was working hard to impeach Bill Clinton. The Hill newspaper broke the story that he was calling himself a vet despite not being one. Graham insisted he had never explicitly said he served overseas or saw combat, but any reading of his official bio made it obvious that he wanted to people to think he did. And it worked!  Almost all of the standard political biographies about Graham describe his military record inaccurately. Although Graham said he is not responsible for the inaccurate portrayal , he does acknowledge providing the information for his web site and other biographies that list him as a war veteran.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) military service during the Vietnam War have been floating around Washington for years and were reported in print at least as far back as two campaigns ago. A letter was found in the personal letters of U.S. Sen. John Sherman Cooper, a Republican from Kentucky. It was written to Maj. Gen. A. D. Surles, commanding general of Fort Knox. McConnell enlisted in March of 1967 and was abruptly discharged four months later for a minor medical condition, optic neurosis. During a time of war, one might appropriately presume the armed forces would want to minimize the number of departing soldiers.

Late House Speaker John Boehner graduated from high school during the Vietnam War in 1968. Then Boehner enlisted in the Navy. Because of a bad back he was honorably discharged after eight weeks. Boehner decided to attend college, though it took him seven years to graduate, working different jobs to pay his way through.

It was 1959 when Dick Cheney, then a student at Yale University, turned 18 and became eligible for the draft.  Eventually, like 16 million other young men of that era, Mr. Cheney sought deferments. By the time he turned 26 in January 1967 he was no longer eligible for the draft He had asked for and received five deferments, four because he was a student and one for being a new father.

 The NRA’s Wayne LaPierre is not a true “gun man” in the classic sense. He doesn’t have a military background and he does not come from the rural heartland that generates much of the NRA’s core membership. So what is he? He is a professional bureaucrat that was brought up in Roanoke, Virginia and received an MA in government from Boston College. This suggests his passion isn’t guns or the Second Amendment; it’s the machinations of power. Just like the other tough guys, LaPierre figured out a way not to go into the military and avoid combat experience.

The New War Hawk Class: Advocates for Conflict Without Combat Credentials

As new geopolitical conflicts unfold—from Ukraine to the Middle East—a new generation of war hawks has emerged. Many of these figures are loudest in their calls for confrontation but, like their predecessors, have little or no military experience of their own.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) does break the mold somewhat. A Harvard-educated Army veteran, Cotton served in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, his record has often been used to bolster extremely aggressive foreign policy stances, including support for preemptive strikes on Iran and opposition to nearly all diplomatic efforts with adversaries. His hawkishness is not rooted in naiveté, but it remains deeply controversial.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) presents himself as a defender of American might and morality, often criticizing perceived weakness in U.S. foreign policy. Yet, he has no military background. His posture is often combative, especially in criticizing U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan or responses to China, but he has avoided personal service or sacrifice.

VP J.D. Vance (R-OH) served in the Marines, giving him military credibility, though he has more recently adopted an “America First” posture skeptical of foreign entanglements—especially aid to Ukraine—breaking with traditional neoconservatives.

Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), a Green Beret and current Army National Guard colonel, is among the few members of Congress with active military experience who also espouses hawkish views, especially regarding China and terrorism.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), a former Navy SEAL who lost an eye in combat, strongly supports an interventionist U.S. military role globally, and often targets isolationist sentiment within his own party. Unlike most hawks, Crenshaw’s advocacy stems from direct battlefield experience.

On the other hand, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) have both been vocally in favor of projecting U.S. power—particularly against China and in the Americas—despite no service of their own.

Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, another outspoken advocate for aggressive U.S. military posture (especially against Iran and China), has no military service. Her foreign policy positions, especially during the 2024 presidential primaries, were often indistinguishable from those of Cold War-era neoconservatives.

Ron DeSantis, Florida governor and former presidential candidate, served as a Navy JAG officer with deployment to Iraq, giving him some military legitimacy. However, his political messaging is often far more combative than his operational role ever was.

Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host turned geopolitical influencer, is another important figure in shaping modern war discourse. While often associated with anti-interventionist rhetoric, Carlson has selectively amplified hawkish stances, especially when they intersect with culture war narratives or China skepticism. He has no military background. While interviewing Ted Cruz recently he did pushed back against the bombing of Iran with bunker busters.

President Trump, having avoided the draft with claims of bone spurs and while campaigning as the peace president. Committed war crimes by assassinating Gen. Solomani, bombed Iran with bunker bombs, and threatened nuclear war on social media on several occasions    

The Broader Pattern

These cases reveal a recurring pattern in American politics: the gap between public persona and private reality when it comes to military service. During the Vietnam era, many young men found ways to avoid service, which was legally permissible but politically problematic in later careers. The challenge for politicians has been how to address this history honestly while still appealing to voters who value military service.

The politicization of military service has only intensified in recent decades. Veterans running for office often emphasize their service records, while those without military backgrounds must navigate carefully to avoid appearing weak on defense issues. This dynamic has created incentives for some politicians to exaggerate their military connections or to present their service in misleading ways.

What's particularly striking is how these military service issues have affected politicians across the political spectrum. Republicans, who typically champion strong defense policies, have been especially vulnerable to criticism when their own service records don't match their hawkish rhetoric. The contradiction between advocating for military action while having avoided service themselves has become a persistent source of political vulnerability.

The cases examined here illustrate how military service—or the lack thereof—continues to shape American political discourse. Whether it's misrepresenting the nature of one's service, receiving convenient medical discharges, or simply avoiding service altogether, these stories reflect the complex relationship between personal history and political ambition in modern America.

Conclusion:

A clear pattern emerges among many American war hawks: while championing military interventions, they themselves have either avoided service or crafted public images that distort their records. Whether it's through deferments, medical discharges, or biographical sleight of hand, these figures often position themselves as defenders of American might without bearing the personal risks that come with warfare.

As the U.S. grapples with new global conflicts and an evolving military posture, the question remains: who pays the price when the loudest voices for war have never worn the uniform?

Just because something is historic doesn't mean it's effective. The No Kings protests drew crowds comparable to the anti-war demonstrations during the Bush era, yet their impact on policy or meaningful change remains questionable. Having been part of the generation that protested that war while simultaneously serving in the military, I can attest that both forms of disillusionment—civilian and military—are existentially agonizing experiences that demand more than symbolic gestures.

The disconnect between historical significance and actual effectiveness becomes clearer when we examine the personal transformations of those who participated in earlier movements. My friend's parents, who were hippies during the Vietnam era before easing into libertarianism, revealed themselves to be fundamentally horrible people—and now I understand why. Their political evolution exposes the shallow nature of their original commitment to peace and justice. They were attracted to the spectacle and social identity of protest rather than its transformative potential.

The Weekend Warrior Problem

Protests must happen during the week and disrupt commerce to be effective. The comfortable rhythm of weekend demonstrations, like the May Day solidarity events, does nothing to address the real structural problems that require sustained economic pressure. These feel-good gatherings serve more as social validation than political action, allowing participants to maintain their sense of moral superiority while avoiding the personal costs that real resistance demands.

One particularly striking observation from the Los Angeles No Kings protests was the mixture of Palestinian and Israeli flags, as if the two sides had somehow come together to agree that fascism was the primary threat. This strange convergence revealed how easily diverse grievances can be absorbed into a generic anti-establishment aesthetic without addressing the specific contradictions and conflicts that define each struggle.

The Carnival of Ineffectiveness

Perhaps if No Kings Day had been organized as a "No War with Iran" protest instead, the bunker buster bombs would not have been dropped by B-52 bombers. But the carnival atmosphere I witnessed left me with an overwhelming impression of ineffectiveness. The festive, almost celebratory nature of these gatherings seems designed to dissipate rather than concentrate political energy.

After my involvement in Occupy Wall Street and subsequent political education, I came to understand this pattern as inherent to many contemporary protest movements. The carnival atmosphere serves as a form of political theater that channels genuine anger and frustration into harmless spectacle. It's a way of making participants feel they've "done something" without actually challenging the systems that create the problems they're protesting.

The Anti-War Movement's Disinformation Trap

Every administration has tested the waters on war with Iran, and the anti-war movement that was defanged by Barack Obama's election was always diligent about mobilizing whenever rumors of Iranian conflict surfaced. After witnessing this pattern repeatedly, I began to suspect that these rumors might themselves be a form of disinformation—a way to keep the "screaming grannies" occupied with reactive responses rather than proactive organizing.

This dynamic reveals how protest movements can become trapped in a cycle of perpetual reaction, always responding to the latest crisis rather than building the sustained pressure necessary to prevent such crises from occurring. The government learned to manage dissent by giving it predictable outlets and keeping it focused on symbolic rather than material targets.

What Actually Works: Economic Disruption

The tactics that actually work are those that directly threaten economic interests: walkouts, boycotts, and general strikes. These methods force decision-makers to confront the material costs of their policies rather than simply weathering a storm of public disapproval. When protesters get arrested as part of organized civil disobedience campaigns, they can become part of class action lawsuits that often result in financial settlements. This money can then be donated back to the movement, creating a sustainable cycle of resistance.

The key difference is that these tactics impose real costs on the system rather than merely expressing opposition to it. They transform protest from a form of political theater into a form of economic warfare, which is the only language that power truly understands.

The Need for Serious Leadership

What's needed now is leadership that embodies the gravity of our situation—someone like Minister Louis Farrakhan leading the charge in a bow tie and tuxedo, projecting dignity and seriousness rather than carnival energy. The contrast couldn't be starker: even the QAnon Shaman during January 6th thought the appropriate approach was to embody a carnival atmosphere, complete with costumes and theatrical gestures.

This reveals something troubling about contemporary American political culture—both left and right have become infected with the same performative impulse that prioritizes spectacle over substance. The result is a political discourse that resembles entertainment more than serious engagement with power.

The Fiscal Carnival

There's a deeper irony at work here: while protesters organize carnivals in the streets, there's an actual fiscal carnival happening in Washington—efforts to cut spending on everything except the military. The real carnival is the one being performed by politicians who slash social programs while expanding defense budgets, creating genuine scarcity for ordinary people while maintaining abundance for the military-industrial complex.

This juxtaposition reveals the fundamental mismatch between the tactics of contemporary protest movements and the nature of the system they're trying to change. While protesters engage in symbolic politics, their opponents engage in material politics—actually redistributing resources and restructuring institutions to serve their interests.

The Path Forward

Effective resistance requires abandoning the comfort of carnival and embracing the discipline of sustained economic pressure. This means organizing workplaces, not just demonstrations. It means building alternative institutions, not just expressing dissent. It means accepting the personal costs of real resistance rather than seeking the social rewards of performative activism.

The lesson of both the anti-war movement and contemporary protests is clear: without the willingness to impose material costs on the system, political movements become little more than elaborate forms of therapy for their participants. They provide emotional relief without political change, allowing people to feel they've done their civic duty while the actual machinery of power continues unchanged.

The choice facing any serious movement is whether to remain trapped in the carnival of ineffective protest or to embrace the harder work of building genuine political power. History suggests that only the latter path leads to meaningful change, but it requires abandoning the comfortable illusions that make protest movements feel good rather than making them actually effective.

Real change demands that we move beyond the weekend warrior mentality and commit to the sustained, disciplined work of building alternative power structures. This isn't as emotionally satisfying as a carnival, but it's the only approach that has ever succeeded in fundamentally altering the balance of power in society.

The question isn't whether we can organize historic protests—we clearly can. The question is whether we're willing to organize effective ones, even when they're uncomfortable, inconvenient, and require genuine sacrifice from their participants. Until we can answer that question honestly, we'll continue to mistake the sound and fury of carnival for the patient work of revolution.

Amidst the no kings protest anti war vets took their stand in DC leading to the arrest of an 87 year old veteran who came out to protest the militarization of American streets.  John Spitzberg of Gainesville, FL crossed police lines along with 60 demonstrators – mostly veterans and military families – allegedly pulling down bicycle rack barricades and sitting on the capitol rotunda steps. The action was organized by About Face: Veterans Against the War and Veterans for Peace (VFP). 

The protest came the evening before the Army’s 250th anniversary parade—a major national event in D.C.—criticized by the demonstrators as a $45–50 million show that detracts from essential services. Veteran speakers emphasized their service values: prioritizing constitutional integrity, veteran benefits, and public welfare over spectacle.

John Spitzberg was escorted away with zip ties restraining his arms behind his back. His walker trailing behind him with it’s own escort. The protesters started to chant to restrain him from the front. 

Spitzberg had also been arrested back in 2012 outside a veterans’ memorial in New York City. That protest was part of a vigil marking the anniversary of the start of the Afghanistan War. 

At that time, police issued warnings over a loudspeaker before leading him away in the rain, cuffed along with five other veterans, amid chants of “Shame” from onlookers.

In October 2022, during a national board meeting of Veterans For Peace, John Spitzberg proposed that the organization should call for a six‑month truce—pausing missile strikes, bombings, and arms transfers. His motion was part of broader VFP discussions on de-escalating global conflicts 

sources:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/06/13/veterans-arrested-capitol-demonstration-army-parade

https://www.amny.com/news/veterans-keep-fighting-against-curfew-for-memorial-2/

In this podcast produced by Sheeva Azma, Chalin Askew interviews former war journalist Andrew MacGregor Marshall about his coping mechanisms with dealing with PTSD acquired while working in Iraq. Marshall is a Scottish national who ran amiss of the Thai government for lèse-majesté among other things. Max Blumenthal from the Gray Zone has accused Reuters along with the National Endowment for Democracy as being CIA cutouts.

Manufacturing consent was a concept created by Alex Carey, an Australian social psychologist. Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky dedicated their book by the same title to Mr. Carey. Manufacturing consent means being a mouthpiece for the government and the main feature is the worthy victim. Media exaggerates stories of select victims while burying the stories that don’t fit the narrative. One prominent example given in the book is the framing around the rise of Pol Pot.

The problem with mindfulness as an orientalist panacea for PTSD is that it opens one up to dark nights. Dark nights are essentially the opposite of a religious experience. The idea of “dark nights” originates from a poem by 16th-century Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross. The poem is a rejoicing in the dawn after a dark night of the soul. Anyone who has experienced ego death from hallucinogens can relate. My point is that these experiences are necessary. Some people would gladly take a pill to get rid of their PTSD, if that was an option. I am not one of those people. I think people have to work through their trauma by reconciling with the initiating event.

Vicarious PTSD is by far the most common at this point. This is the kind of PTSD we get by being infected with stories from people that are around us regularly. This is why it’s not politically appropriate to use the term “military brats” anymore. We know that people get PTSD from operating drones or moderating graphic videos. According to the U.S. Gallup, and census data published Sept. 20 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: “Nearly one-half of all Black Americans reported feeling angry or sad in the wake of Floyd’s death, and nearly one million more Black Americans screened positive for depression…”

War journalists are intermediaries in a cycle of passing trauma on from war zones directly to consumers of news, reporting to an increasingly anxious and traumatized news audience. Central to this process of newsgathering, reporting, and consumption is the idea of “vicarious trauma,” which is trauma that may not be experienced directly but that can cause anxiety and even PTSD. Amidst 2+ ongoing wars, there’s often not too much good news on TV, and amidst it all, we must reflect on what that’s doing to our brains, as well as the brains of people regularly bringing us war news.

War journalists’ PTSD rates match those of combat veterans, even though they are not directly involved in combat (though they can be targets of violence in warzones). Working with The Delve Podcast, I wrote and researched a podcast episode called “The Mental Impacts of War” exploring this subject. The Delve’s host, Chalin Askew, spoke with Andrew MacGregor Marshall, who served as Reuters Bureau Chief in Iraq during the violent insurgency in 2003 and was diagnosed with PTSD after reporting from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other places devastated by conflict. Though Marshall now goes by the moniker of “Zen Journalist,” he took a long path of self-discovery and recovery to get to that point, and was indelibly changed by his experiences as a wartime journalist in many ways. In the podcast, he states that he wondered whether his war reporting made a difference in bringing justice to light in the war, and says he now prefers what he calls “activism journalism.”

By the way, a community of practice is slowly emerging to study PTSD in journalism, including Columbia’s DART Center and the Journalism Education and Trauma Research Group. I am also conducting research as a Seeds of Science Research Fellow on PTSD and what it looks like in war journalists. I would love to see the neuroscience of trauma in journalism grow into an established community of practice with journalists, neuroscientists, and others involved.

Sheeva Azma, multimedia science journalist and independent neuroscience researcher

I got a call one day when I was navigating a housing shortage in the bay area. It was a friend of mine, let’s call him Mike. Mike claimed that he had been sexaually assaulted by a doctor at the VA and I didn’t know how to help him. His story seemed surreal but the VA system is just that like a Dali painting full of torture and melting clocks.

Men don’t report sexual assault almost at all. It’s a black hole in military sexual trauma scholarship but men are raped all the time. We don’t expect that this could happen to service members after they get out but that is exactly what my friend said happened to him at the hands of a doctor. I believed him when he told me but all I could do at the time was put him in contact with an attorney. But I know what it’s like to be traumatized. It stands to reason that such an experience could make one erratic.

Even though I tried to be there for him I was not strong enough. He was irate back then and called a lot of our service member buddies and blamed us, all of us too far away to help him. I contacted another shipmate to reach out to him because I really felt powerless. His account of what happened and his subsequent institutionalization horrified me. After his wife left him the veterans administration became his power of attorney or so it seems.

He claimed that I had let him down – he used some analogy about being a man left behind – a man overboard. I was really struggling myself sparing you the details. But I could identify with him ever since I left the navy. I feel like I was on a simulated ship. Like a fish out of water always flopping around waiting to flop around some more.

With everything we know about vicarious PTSD the VA should be a defunct organization instead of neglect acting as a hazing to retraumitize the vulnerable. Not just him but anyone he was close to. This is more of a confession than a call for action. It’s been some years since this happened. Maybe he’ll read this and forgive me for not getting him the kind of help that he needed.

All the doe eyed neoliberals who think that the VA is the best health care out there don’t see the harm it does to the people it is supposed to serve. When my friend came to me with his trauma the people that would usually care were so enraged by the republican president that it wouldn’t have registered with them. The VA is a chess piece for democrats and republicans to arbitrate power.

The department of veterans affairs was created to give benefits to Confederate, Union, service members and their families after the Civil War. Since it became a monument to the Gilded Age and a warehouse for the detailed data (including DNA) of those who served. The relationship between the medical establishment and war is symbiotic this data is the foundation of modern medicine.

After the invention of helicopters during the Korean War medical evacuations became possible triage was revolutionized. The VA acts as continuing care from the most severe trauma that can be inflicted on humans making the research dollar invaluable. However, the VA system gives training dollar away to colleges that charge for it.

There is a sea of residents making the possibility of my friends sexual assault very possible. They are under very little supervision from attending physicians. The performity and esteem of being a doctor acts as a kind of mob mentality. These attendants will always side with residents because the veteran is the unwashed other.

As veterans we are discouraged to complain about the VA even by other liberal leaning veterans – labeled as spoiled or ungrateful. We talk about Military Sexual Trauma as if a VA hospital is sanctuary – it’s not. In 2019 Andrea Goldstein, a congressional aid and USN LCDR, reported a sexual assault at a VA hospital and VA attempted to discredit her according to the inspector general. According the VA 1 in 4 female veterans experience sexual harassment at the VA. As far as I know no data exists for men.

As a prison abolitionist solitary confinement of JanuarySixers weighs heavy on my heart but also on my pride. Calling a riot a insurrection is so dubiously political. After the Occupy camps were swept by Obama in conjunction with major city mayors it was proof of how scared this foundational movement made the neoliberal establishment. In the wake of scrubbing OWS off the google sphere FaceBook also enacted its pay model to replace the landscape that made Occupy possible. After the RussiaGate conspiracy justified Hillary Rodham Clinton’s loss to a gameshow host. FaceBook started restricting anything that can be construed as political after that. Occupy was apolitical by credo as were we never endorsing any candidates.

I think anyone involved in any mass movement expects it to succeed. Biden’s campaign promise of student debt cancellation echoes the demands of zuccotti park. While the language of Occupy has been commodified by the DNC I think the insurrection language would have been more freely used by occupiers. I for one wished for radical change that the Obama administration had not delivered. The definition of radical might have differed but it was a common sentiment amidst #OWS influencers. It’s well documented that the greater left uses Occupy as an anthem while at the same time condemning the JanuarySixers for being less sophisticated.

The logic progression after #OWS camps were swept was prison abolition for me. I was late to the protest on BLM because life had become too complicated for me to keep up with news. I ended up in Detroit where the corruption of police had reached monumental proportions. The constant reminder cemented that the project of abolition as one with enough legacy to succeed. If we are to accept that our prison system is an extension of the slavery system then we must not allow the DNC to deliver a commodified version of prison abolition. That means litmus testing values when they apply to the opposition.

One of the reasons why #stopthesweeps is a subject that is dear to me here where I live in San Francisco. Why I support the Coalition on Homelessness here correlates with the heartbreak of watching Occupy camps swept in a coordinated fashion across the country. But yeah, to be honest we were insurrectionists, we meant peaceful overthrow of a deceptive presidential regime. I personally benefited from this election bingo stemming from the post 9/11 gi bill and expansion of the VA. However, the education I received made me less arbitrary.

We should aspire to safety for everyone especially for dissidents with the wherewithal to hit the streets. Jacob Chansley, the qanon shaman, is a Navy veteran and while I do not believe in his cause I think he has been wrongly imprisoned and abandoned because he became a meme. We should be ashamed of ourselves for making an example of that kid who was obviously duped by some psyop. Solitary confinement is abhorrent especially to someone vulnerable enough to fall for QAnon drops. I’ve yet to see any veterans organizations claim this guy — many veterans were swept up by Ron Watkins and the paper red wave.

I was not in the capital but I watched the riot live so Tucker Carlson’s release security footage drop didn’t change my mind. I always believed that it was a riot and not an insurrection. However, the videos how Chansley being walked around by multiple security guards does not match his 4 year sentence. In the modern age insurrections don’t look like the JanuarySixers. They look like OWS. Modern protest movements are peaceful. Especially with modern crowd control weapons. Society of Spectacle has done it again.

Chansley, who says he is a practitioner of ahimsa, an ancient Indian principle of non-violence toward all living beings, was not accused of assaulting anyone. He was diagnosed in prison with transient schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression and anxiety.

https://consortiumnews.com/2023/03/06/chris-hedges-lynching-the-jan-6-deplorables/

I did a lot of driving around the country after I got out of the Navy. I would see Ron Paul signs in rural places where it didn’t seem like people cared about politics. While I was running the Facebook for soldiers I saw how supportive Paulbots were in the Bush era antiwar movement and the Occupy era that we were a part of. If there’s one thing that most Americans can agree upon is support against war.

On an episode of GrayZone with Jimmy Dore they make numerous great points about why you should support the Ron Paul’s Rage Against The War Machine Rally on February 19th in Washington DC. According to them Medea Benjamin dropped out because of Jackson Hinkle who at times says insensitive things about LGBTQ. This reminds me of how influential Alex Jones was in the Bush era antiwar movement. I was in the Navy at the time and I thought that the antiwar movement was ineffective but at least they tried. Nuclear proliferation reaches across party lines. After we have been at war for 30 years we must stop our further participation in this proxy war as nuclear winter looms on the horizon.

Soldiers for the Cause would like to express full support for the Rage against the War Machine rally in Washington DC. We don’t rubber stamp the coalition or the speakers but we do see it as the best chance to prevent nuclear annihilation. There will be sister protests happening all over the country. I will be at the one here in San Francisco. The War in Ukraine should have never happened but as American citizens we have to petition our government to stop provoking Russia by fueling the proxy war in Ukraine.

Oki’s Weird Stories finally made a documentary that’s relevant to us. The youtube channel has produced documentaries such as Thierry Hill cult, The Secret Space Program conspiracy theory, and the “gay frogs” rabbit hole. Jonathan “Jack” Idema’s was heavily influenced by Soldier of Fortune Magazine. Idema accredited the magazine for having become a green beret. We here strive to be the opposite of fetishized toxic masculinity like Soldier of Fortune.

Jack Idema was convicted by the Afghanistan government of torture and false imprisonment when he was granted amnesty he refused to leave prison. The American government distanced itself from Idema in the wake of Abu Grav. What Oki’s documentaries do well is uncover the anthropological significance of the cult of personality surrounding a story. Oki’s most successful documentaries revolve around cults and this one reveals a micro religion that commodifies the military industrial complex as an reverberation of a performative crusader mentality spinning into spectacle.

Idema died in 2012, Bacalar, Quintana Roo, Mexico his occupation was vigilante but Oki’s documentary suggests he was more of a swindler in collusion with an offset of the military industrial complex — having had a relationship with Soldier of Fortune Magazine’s leadership. Idema was responsible for Hoax Al Qaeda Training footage played across major news platforms. His influence on the War on Terror cannot be understated.

A large part of the documentary is devoted to interviews with Idema’s girlfriend: Penni Allesi who claims he knowingly gave her HIV. In the documentary she also claim false imprisonment and battery. Idema had many supporters who circulated revenge porn to her family after she left him. Irony being Ms. Allesi started out as one of these supporters who contacted him while he was imprisoned for war crimes. Oki’s documentary unveils the fog of war the way few others can.

The accidental shooting on set of a western movie by Alec Baldwin could be an opportunity for him to truly do something great, an incredible occasion to do something more than the regular paltry gestures of actors like Sean Penn. A connection between violence in movies and violence in reality is absent save the disproportionate amount of violence in media.

Apropos safety on movie sets due to the Alec Baldwin Affair we should also be talking about reigning in the violent movie industry. There is no proven relationship between real world violence and violence in media. Violence in media is a perpetuation & free propaganda for the military industrial complex. Children would stop playing war games if adults did the same. Even though I was not on the front lines of war l don’t watch war movies. When we were conducting flight ops, bombing targets in Iraq the videos were broadcast all over the ship. Trophy footage of carnage is a thing of the past or should be. I don’t tell war stories. Most vets I know that served in times of war don’t watch war movies. I am sure this isn’t a wholesale fact but I want it to be.

There is no visible connection to the war like culture the Buffalo shooter came from or the nazi azov battalion that his government has armed. Why is it so hard to face who we are? Those who do not hunt find it easy to absolve themselves as if voting democrat makes one a conscientious objector.

The nihilistic digital stream of consciousness is hard to pin down to deconstruct. That’s why curbing violence in video games was a dismal failure in the 90s. The warning label system only works for parents who are responsible. As an outcrop of the military industrial complex it’s easy to see how urban warfare franchises act as training simulators for would-be mass shooters. Spike Lee’s movie Clockers portrays 90s  video games as urban warfare simulators. When I was playing the original Grand Theft Auto in the 90s the rampage mode was the most attractive feature. While being a mass shooter was not a mission in the game the architecture both rewarded the mayhem and deployed escalating battalions of police. Video games are reflections of reality, not the source of it. The rampage mode provides cross roads where militarization meets the prison industrial complex. As art video games reach their mark here and I do not believe this causes violence but it should teach us something.

The phenomenon of cop shoot cop or suicide by cop always facinated me and provided me with an avenue to understand myself. Suicide is not easy, so some, or arguably all, try to do it by the hand of authority. Pointing a toy gun at the police unbeknownst to them with the intention of suicide. Coming to the resolution while being pursued in place of arrest and incarceration. Cop shoot cop is in the performance art of children trying to get attention from their parents by misbehaving. I knew I was delinquent because of cop shoot cop, but, even though I could see it, I had no power to control myself.

Powerlessness is the human condition. After one goes to war and sees the massive machinery of it. This idea that we can legislate our way out of school shootings is a part of the fiction of non-participation in the sins of our government (as the Russians are learning now). Alec Baldwin this might be your moment to do something that really matters. Launch a campaign against violence in media using your tremendous clout. We are all cogs in the machine, relieve yourself of your guilt. Join us!

The economy of crisis has at its godhead the looming effects of protoindustrial culture. Rebranded PSAs by focus groups to address a predicted catastrophe to come. Climate Change like Ukraine shares the same result: displaced peoples needing resources and new homes. The most effective martial art is parkour because running to safety is superior to fighting when faced with fight or flight. Even if the left doesn’t support stand your ground when it comes to personal defense they support sending defensive weapons to Ukraine. We do not celebrate deserters but we should and maybe this is why refugees have nowhere to go.

When the world trade center towers fell there were people who instead of running away were filming. We celebrate them by airing their footage when running away is what we should encourage. Not to demean the heroes that at risk to their own health rescued people but the ability to run away when needed is clutch to the human condition.

The left weaponizes the idea of refugees but the United States is accepting 100k refugees from Ukraine dwarfed by the influx of “defensive” weapons. Just like climate change where the debate is dominated by hegemonic forces and the end result is neocolonialism where NGOs try to solve the third world’s climate impacts. Refugees are more than porn for liberal elites to find their hate again. The rising of tides that is projected means less land to live on. There is also a global food shortage on the rise especially because of the present conflict and rising prices of wheat.

In the states we frame a homeless crisis starting by the Reagan administration’s closures of federally funded mental homes. But that ignores the American history of economic migration that has been pervasive in any era. If the 60s were depression era nostalgia commodified, as Ken Burns suggests, then maybe the nomadic hobo still lives in the American consciousness.

The Treaty of Hidalgo that ended the Mexican American War divided 7 tribes that lived between the two nations – the Yaqui / Yoeme, the O’odham, the Cocopah / Cucapá, the Kumeyaay / Kumiai, the Pai, the Apaches, and the Kickapoo / Kikapú. Before 9/11 indigenous people could cross border unimpeded or that was the way it was supposed to work. “In. 1983, Congress passed the Texas Band of Kickapoo Act, which ensured that. Kickapoo could freely cross the border into Mexico and return at will…”

The situation on our southern border should disqualify us as a moral authority on refugees. I feel guilty of my privileged cold-war-darling immigration status but not grateful for being uprooted. Apparently POC are being put into refugee camps in Poland filling me with shame but not surprise. During the Trump administration immigrant veterans like myself were being deported some of whom still haven’t found their way back. You would think that serving in the military cements your naturalized citizenship but criminality has often been used as justification for deportation. When I was a sailor you would get a medal every three years for good behavior. It was hard to not get into trouble in that environment.

We have to make a decision whether we care more about people or land because land is shrinking. Black bodies are being drowned in the English Channel while settler mentality welcomes Ukrainians with open arms. Settler mentality prioritizes land over people, standing your ground over flight, using lethal force to protect prosperity, from the indigenous it was stolen from.

Europeans stole wealth from Asia and Africa as a matter of standard practice. Collective consciousness stirred by a calibanesque ungrateful incubus drowning in the channel or the Rio Grande feeding an en masse conception of crime. The framing of the climate crisis gaslight reparations for the wholesale transfer of wealth that is colonial history.

Oliver Stone is a paragon of film activism. Former Marine radicalized by The JFK assassination. Stone won his first academy award in 1978 and since then he’s been a leader in films showing the horrors of war and the corruptions of power. His most recent film has received the acclaim of being taken down from YouTube. While he is left, his brand has always been acceptable. Until now when we are trying to manufacture consent against the Russian Federation. Stone did interviews with Putin for showtime after the annexation of Crimea that is referenced in the film.

Both of my grandparents on my mother’s side were born in the Ukraine in what was then a Polish city called Lvov now called Lviv witness to some of the worst pogroms of WWII. It upsets me when westerners mold the narrative into a manichaean formula. The only winners in this scenario are defense contractors Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. Oliver Stone’s voice is a welcome as an antiwar activist and a fellow traveler. Please consider donating to Ukrainian refugees in Poland.

Thankfully Oliver Stone waved his invisible hands to put together what those of us on the far left have already known in a cohesive way only he can. There Is a lot of misinformation out there but hopefully Stone’s credibility can quell some of the war fever.Share it with your friends before it disappears off the Internet.

We here at #SFTC decry war in any form and therefore in response to the Russian Federation invasion of the Ukraine we urge President Zelenski to surrender and step down. National sovereignty is not worth nuclear attack from a security council member. Molotov cocktails will not protect anyone and this is not a movie about the Alamo. We also urge world leaders not to arm Ukraine any further because it might trigger further nuclear escalation. We also accuse NATO of being an outdated organization that should have been decommissioned after the fall of the USSR. We are not expressing support for the Russian Federation in any way. It has become evident that we are now living in a Real Politk world order where countries with nuclear weapons police those without. This outcry to preserve the Ukrainian National State can lead to nothing but catastrophe. That being said, we also acknowledge that this is an information war and we have to assume that cooler heads will prevail in the long run. That Russian Federation is not run by an evil madman. At least not more so than 45 who also threatened the world with nuclear annihilation and was not reelected mostly because of that. Not because he was a Russian Spy but because he was an old grumpy man whose time had come. If you support peace than do so when it calls for you to lay down your own arms. Defunding the police which seems to have lost favor was an effort to demilitarize the streets which we strongly support. Anyone who thinks that the path to peace is demonization misunderstood the assignment.

Our publication is late to the party on this subject. There was a groundbreaking study conducted for the first time at Veterans Affairs last year and many veterans organizations are advocating for hallucinogenic mushrooms as a PTSD cure. Notice I didn’t say therapy because the research is showing repair on damaged neurons is possible. What I can offer here is my personal experience as an amateur mycologist (and even that is a stretch) and someone who has been intermittently self medicating with psilocybin for almost 2 years. 

I hate tripping so I was obviously in a desperate place to try it. After I got over Delta I felt pretty traumatized and was disappointed that I had run out of magic mushrooms that I gathered. I had to wait for the season to return before I gathered more. Mushrooms have been decriminalized across the bay in Oakland but my interest in mushrooms predicated my viewing microdosing as an option. I have gathered mushrooms all over the world. It is a way that I get to know an area

A small dose seems to make tasks more solvable. No one should be operating any heavy machinery even on a microdose. I took a spill on my escooter while learning that lesson. You cannot watch horror movies or the news – you have to seek out positivity. As a matter of practice this is life changing. I’ve realized that a lot of the positive effects have to do with creating new positive memories to replace old negative ones. The first time I took a macrodose I stared at a field of yellow bermuda buttercup flowers and the memory of that color is something I carried with me for weeks. The new memories replace the emptiness associated with grief and trauma. In microdose form one can be still pretty functional within limits. It can also increase empathy and ease uncomfortable social situations in microdose form. 

To say that it has improved my life would be an understatement. When it was time to stop I just intuitively stopped. The only downside is that it makes my hands cold and I have multiple sclerosis which means it is hard to regulate my body temperature. It has to be paired with positive activities. This means either turning off PG-13 and above media or at least changing consumption patterns. Spending time outside immersed in mushrooms can be a welcome change even a solitary activity. 

There is also a deadly look-a-like for wavy cap psychedelic mushrooms pictured above called gallerina margarita. But psilocybin is fairly easy to identify every year I have seen middle-aged hippies in Golden Gate Park searching the piny grass. Dosage isn’t hard to figure out, then again, I’m from an experimenting generation. I usually tear off a piece of the cap or a stem after I eat breakfast.

The sustained good feeling keeps the negative self talk at bay. Hallucinogenic drugs seem to change the resolution of ones perception of light. It’s almost like wearing a pair of blue blocker sunglasses. Rose colored goggles are a pejorative but we have reached the era where some of us have become conspicuously addicted to negativity. It can be like a combat soldier coming home traumatized yet playing violent video games and watching violent movies. Mushrooms won’t let you do that, they are too reflective, at least for me. It’s an odd sensation because our culture is so oriented around negativity. Studies are showing that this is how we can rewire ourselves. More importantly I can testify to the construction of new memories and a sense of hope where there was previously none.

I am weary of the pharmaceutical industry putting it’s greedy claws into the market. A company called Compass attained a U.S. patent on psilocybin even though it had been synthesized by Albert Hoffman, inventor of LSD, a century ago. Ketamine and MDMA are also being considered ways to regenerate neuronal networks on the tail end of research showing that neuronal damage isn’t as permanent as once thought. I can attest to this measuring it against the help I’ve gotten from the health care profession. When I was first diagnosed I thought I was in the process of degenerating when I started taking psilocybin I saw hope and started to challenge myself again. I was losing my voice before that. As much as doctors say they want to empower you there is already a gross imbalance of power that cannot be glossed over with words. They just kept giving me drugs to make me more manageable. But as my relationships dissolved around me I noticed that the people claiming to want to help me had what I would call a fetish for completion. And when the lazy solution they tried didn’t work they would blame the patient. Psilocybin is something that you have to do yourself not as a recreational party but as an act of volition to fix oneself.