Through the Years ....: 2004

Wednesday, December 29, 2004

Jerry Orbach Dead at 69

1010 WINS has learned that "Law and Order" star Jerry Orbach has died of prostate cancer at the age of 69. His manager, Robert Malcolm confirmed Orbach's death this morning. Tony Award winner Jerry Orbach (“Promises, Promises”) earned a reputation as the quintessential New Yorker through his work in such films as “Prince of the City” and “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” as well as for his roles in Broadway’s “42nd Street” and on NBC’s “Law & Order.” Orbach has been honored with the Crystal Apple Award from the New York City Mayor’s Office of Film, Television and Broadcasting for his contribution to the arts, and was presented with a lifetime achievement award from the Friar’s Club of New York.

http://1010wins.com/topstories/local_story_364094126.html

digital satellite photo just before tsunami hits

digital satellite photo taken of tsunami wave coming in

Digital satellite photo of tsunami wave washing over beach inland

tsunami waves come crashing over walls

tsunami wave already inland

tsunami waves coming inland

tsunami wave crashing inland, people running to get out of the path

tsunami crashes over wall

tsunami wave rolling in

Lance happy, New Home for Nutcrackers and other stuff

So Lance, the cat, is happy here. We have bit of a routine going now. I made a place for him on the porch where his food and litter box are conveniently close by but he doesn't have to stay outside. He is in the house mostly, but I put him out regularly and at night time he can be inside, sleeps on our bed.

He is adjusting to the new routine, I think, as he will now indicate to me when he wants to go outside. Jake, our dog, still isn't happy one little bit about sharing porch space with a cat, but sullen as Jake is, he is also adjusting.

My collection of nutcrackers are Very Happy in their new home, and I love the lighted cabinet that sets them all off. They are close by my computer to keep me company, and as the sun goes down, the lighted cabinet also works as a sweet bit of night light.

Sweetie, with his new computer for Christmas, was off work an extra day. He is obsessive about the puter as I am, so we spent a leisurely day, him on his puter, me on "mine". He sits a room across from me where we can both see each other and talk to each other and it is sooooooooo coool. We really are a couple of geeks.

The tsunami news is continuing today, as the death toll rises, and it is so tragic. I was talking to Sweetie, and telling him if we get an earthquake/tsunami here in tsunami county, I'm not sure we really know what to do. From what I hear, there are sensor warnings set across the Pacific Rim = Alaska, Canada, US west coastline and the down the Pacific islands. Supposedly these will signal a problem and the Sensor Watch Center in Palmer, Alaska would send out warnings. Okay...but to whom, and how? On the radio, tv, internet, ham radio? I mean, if I don't have radio or tv on, then how would we know?

So I guess the rule of thumb is if I feel the earth start shaking, I'm to get in the car and get to one of the tsunami direction signs towards high ground. Hmmm, okay, both routes out of here go directly by the water/bay and river. Wonder if I can even get out of here if there would be a tsunami.

Then, we are likely supposed to have an emergency kit with water, raingear, blankets, food. I guess I better get busy and make us an emergency kit to keep in the car. I really think Sweetie and I ought to take this bit more serious and do some more specific planning for what to do .... in case ....

Kerry Files Motion to Protect Ohio Vote Evidence

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/122804V.shtml

Kerry Files Motion to Protect Ohio Vote Evidence

By William Rivers Pitt

t r u t h o u t

Report Monday 27 December 2004

This afternoon, an attorney representing the Kerry/Edwards presidential campaign filed two important motions to preserve and augment evidence of alleged election fraud in the November election. The motions were filed in the matter titled Yost et al. v. Delaware County Board of Elections and J. Kenneth Blackwell (Civil Action No. C2-04-1139) with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. The document is titled "Motion Of Intervenor-Defendant Kerry-Edwards 2004, Inc. For A Preservation Order And For A Leave To Take Limited Expedited Discovery."

The purpose of the motions is twofold: A) To preserve all ballots and voting machines pertaining to the Yost matter for investigation and analysis; and B) To make available for sworn deposition testimony a technician for Traid Systems, the company that produced and maintained many of the voting machines used in the Ohio election. The technician has been accused of tampering with the recount process in Hocking County, Ohio, though other counties are believed to have also been involved. Any officers of Triad Systems who have information pertaining to said tampering are likewise subject to subpoena for sworn deposition testimony.

If the judge in this case allows these motions, and these individuals are served with subpoenas for deposition, the information disclosed under oath could have a major effect on the case. Likewise, judicial approval of these motions will open the door to forensic analysis of both the ballots cast and the machines they were counted on. If tampering took place, such an analysis could reveal it.

The document filed in Ohio reads as follows:

Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26, Intervenor-Defendant Kerry-Edwards 2004, Inc. hereby moves this Court for an order preserving materials from the 2004 presidential election and for leave to take a limited number of depositions on an expedited schedule. The depositions and preservation order sought by Intervenor- Defendant Kerry-Edwards 2004, Inc. are the same as those sought in the motion filed on December 23, 2004 by Defendants NVRI, Cobb and Badnarik. Intervenor-Defendant Kerry-Edwads 2004, Inc. hereby adopts the memorandum and proposed order filed by the Defendants in support of its own motion.

(snip)

The filing by the Kerry/Edwards campaign is significant. The Yost matter deals with a recount of the votes cast in Ohio during the election. In order for a judge to consider such a motion, the plaintiff must be able to prove irreparable harm in the matter at hand, and must also be able to prove a significant chance that the case will succeed on the merits. The stumbling point for the Green Party and Libertarian Party in this matter has been the ability to prove that potential for success, because no recount would deliver an Ohio victory to them. A recount could very well deliver Ohio to Kerry, thus fulfilling the success on the merits requirement.

In the end, this filing amounts to a "Me, too" from the Kerry/Edwards campaign. This case would not exist in any form without the dedicated efforts of Green Party candidate David Cobb and Libertarian Party candidate Michael Badnarik. Though the inclusion of Kerry into this matter strengthens the case significantly, Cobb and Badnarik deserve the lion's share of credit for carrying the matter to this point.

Attorney John Bonifaz serves as general counsel for the National Voting Rights Institute, and is co-counsel for Cobb and Badnarik in this matter. Reached for comment on this Kerry filing, Bonifaz said, "We are pleased that the Kerry Edwards campaign has joined our motion to preserve all of the ballots and election machinery in the presidential election in Ohio and to investigate the potential tampering of voting machines by Triad Governmental Systems, Inc, prior to the start of the recount. We welcome the Bush Cheney campaign joining our motion as well. The integrity of this recount is at stake. All candidates ought to join together in ensuring the proper counting of every citizen's vote."

...see more...http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/122804V.shtml

Lance is Back! Sitting on my lap as I type.

Well, we "placed" the cat Lance, who was "fostering" with us about 2 months ago with my other daughter's family. The "placement" just didn't work out so she brought him back here to us. I'm not disappointed either, as I got quite fond of Lance, so here he is sitting on my lap again as I type.

The trouble with the placement was that my daughter's family has another cat, Georgette, who is kind of a mean cat, but not to them and she and Lance just never did hit it off. So ol' Lance developed some bad behaviour problems, ie, not using cat box at all and staying in his safe zone which was a very limited space. He got fat cause he wasn't running around, just staying in his safe zone under the kitchen table.

I'm gonna have to break him now of his bad behaviour with not using kitty litter box plus run him around outside to work off some of his body weight. They tried, bless their hearts, they tried everything they could think of to get Lance comfortable, but he just wasn't "taking" to the placement at all.

Since they were coming here for a holiday visit, they brought Lance along on that 7 hour trip. And I knew they were bringing him. But I didn't tell Sweetie, cause I knew Sweetie would not want him back and I was trying to figure out a way to tell him I agreed to take Lance back. I couldn't find a good argument or logic for my case, so when the kids arrived and Lance came bounding in, Sweetie was pleased to see Lance. Cause he thought Lance was just along for the ride and they were going to take him back home with them.

They were sorta surprised at how receptive Sweetie was, until he learned Lance was staying, then they were surprised at how Sweetie lost his composure and couldn't find the words. I had to explain to him that I knew but hadn't told him, and they thought I would have told him. Sweetie went off to bed, he just didn't know what to say!

Now it's been 2 days and nites, and we set Lance up on the porch till his cat box behavior can be corrected. Jake, our dog, is very unhappy about it and is pouting big time now. But Lance is so happy to be "home" again and bounding about the house. They told me that he is a completely different cat here than when he was at their house and it is very apparant that he likes it here much better. And I like having him "home".

Merry Kerry Christmas, my christmas present has arrived !!

My long awaited Christmas present this year has arrived. I wanted nothing this year..nothing but one thing and one thing only...and it looks like I'm gonna get it, after all. John F. Kerry, President-Elect, and he's back. This election is a long way from over. See the article below, news today, Dec 23, and you likely won't see it on mainstream media till next week....but you heard it here first. Merry Kerry Christmas everyone!

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/122404Y.shtml

Kerry to Enter Ohio Recount Fray

By William Rivers Pitt

t r u t h o u t Report

Thursday 23 December 2004

Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry will file today, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, papers in support of the Green Party/Libertarian Party recount effort. Specifically, Kerry will be filing a request for expedited discovery regarding Triad Systems voting machines, as well as a motion for a preservation order to protect any and all discovery and preserve any evidence on this matter.

Triad Systems has come under scrutiny recently after Sherole Eaton, deputy director of elections for Hocking County, swore out an affidavit in which she described her witnessing the tampering of electronic voting equipment by a Triad representative. Rep. John Conyers, the ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, has requested an investigation into this matter by the FBI and the Hocking County prosecutor.

Truthout will have more on this specific Triad allegation later in the day.

Previously, the Green Party and Libertarian Party have not fared well in their efforts to get emergency orders regarding this matter in Ohio. In order to pass muster with a judge, the individual or group requesting an emergency order for such a recount must show both irreperable harm as well as a substantial chance for success on the merits. While Green and Libertarian representatives could theoretically be able to show irreparable harm, they could not establish a substantial chance for success on the merits, because no recount would deliver Ohio to either party.

Kerry's entry into this recount effort changes the math on this matter dramatically. He can likewise show irreparable harm, and unlike the Green and Libertarian candidates, he can also prove a substantial chance for success on the merits because he lost the Ohio vote by a statistical whisker.

It should be noted that Kerry's filing of these requests does not indicate his complete entry into the recount process, but does clearly indicate that he is moving decisively in that direction. His previous stance on the matter was based simply on his desire to defend the right to have a recount in the first place. The evidence of election tampering in Ohio, specifically surrounding Triad, has motivated him to actively join the fight. The Democratic Party is also quietly putting financial resources into the Ohio recount effort.

Perhaps the most significant aspect of all this, from the activist point of view, has been the effectiveness of the telephone calls and letters to Kerry. The activist push to get him involved had a very significant effect on his decision to enter this effort. Likewise, calls to other Senators in order to convince them to join House members in challenging the election have likewise had significant effect. If such an effort continues, the activists involved will very likely see the desired result unfold.

William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books - 'War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know' and 'The Greatest Sedition Is Silence.'

Holiday Slideshow instead of Holiday Letter or Card

Tx to Bree, I found this great new blog n slideshow space today. So I spent the entire day creating a Holiday slideshow of our life, family and friends out here in the Village on the Bay where we live. It was a pleasure to build it and a very user-friendly site. I know I already sent out emails to share it with family, and just once more here is the url to go visit the slideshow with now 246 pics in it. Just click on the link below.

Village View

Once you see the Holiday Greeting slideshow from the Ruger's, I'm sure you will want one of your own and I'd love to hear about it if you make one. To see Bree's, as she has included some great family pics in hers, click on link below.

Gurlz Wanna Have Fun

Gonna keep this short, have been painting again, and have done 4 in the last week. Feels good to be painting again after this long dry spell where I focused on election and after election heartbreak. I've worked in the blogger communities now for 6 weeks since election trying to help move along the vote fraud information. But you all know that already.

Sweetie has a better computer than I do, with a bigger screen and it downloads the digital pic card, and now he has the vibrating computer chair. Oh sure, he never checked out why the vibrating chair stopped working and then I give it to him and he makes it work again. I want it back! So he's over there now in his corner working on his own computer with all his projects and we don't have the tv turned on, we have the relaxing Souncscapes music playing which is always nice to have as background when working on the puter.

Tomorrow I need to get some stuff done around the house and have a nice welcome for Lisa's family...they are making the long trip to come spend a day or two with us and I want to make them feel welcome

Weekend before Christmas

Weekend, and we went up north, to see Karl's gallery art showing. Stayed overnight with Mom n Charlie. Got there in time to watch PBS Now, Bill Moyer's last broadcast. He is retiring and this was his last show. He laid it on the line, and it is worth viewing as he outlines the growing merging of mainstream media under fewer and larger umbrella corporations. He indicates his fear of loss of journalism and lays out the challenge to the future for media and integrity in journalism. I will find and save the transcript to one of my other blogs.

Saturday morning, sister, Nita, came over with gift she had for us and we had a YaYa morning, with coffee and sweets, and had her make her hat, inducted her into the Ya Ya sisterhood. I will post the photos on the family site. The gift she had for me is quite unusual, it is a Native American creche which fits well my spirituality in religiosity. She was tickled with herself in having found it at a collectible shop.

Then we went up north, stopping to pick up Cheri, and we went to Karl's gallery. Well it's not his gallery, but he does have a show there once a year and he invited us to come last year and again this year.

We wanted to stop by a Walmart afterwards as they have very good sale on computer. Now we're boycotting Walmart, so this was crossing the line to go there, but the price on computer was too good to miss out.....yep, we didn't hold to the courage of our convictions. We have needed a second computer for months now, as both Sweetie and I use the puter extensively, and we have to save deliberately and carefully when we want to make such a purchase. This was my Christmas present to Sweetie this year.

I've never been fond of going into Walmart, as my daughter can tell you and I took her and kids to Walmart many, many times this past year as she does like to shop there. I find it just too frenetic and have to adjust myself to the huge parking lot, the tons of people in the store and they are always short-handed with help, but the prices are great and there is plenty of all the items families need and use. I just happen to be among those that object to how they are corporatized, and how the short-hour and short-benefit their employees...deliberately. As well, many of the items they do carry come from the third-world countries where labor is exploited at great human expense.

We got into the store, I had my usual disorientation and Sweetie could see it. Found our way over to electronics, and of course, they were "out" of the model we went for and we went for the slightly more spendy model. The help didn't want to help..what's new about that and especially at holiday season. Sweetie knowing my discomfort was ready to leave, but I encouraged him to finish the purchase.

After all we'd already crawled at a snails pace on the ramp to exit the freeway, navigated the parking lot (no fun) and navigated the busy shoppers so it made no sense not to finish what we came for and he wound up carrying his own big box to the counter to check out. So much for the "help", but shrug, it goes with the territory, I guess. I really did want him to have the puter, and he's so reluctant to spend on himself.

We aren't really having Christmas this year, no decor, gifts or presents going out this year. It's an extension of the keen disappointment with the election outcome and spending money in Bush's America doesn't quite fit for us right now. Usually we get gifts for all the kids and grandchildren, and wind up with not much left over to get for each other, so I am happy to see Sweetie get something he really wants and will use this year. He never complains and always remains upbeat, and I so much wanted to gift him this year. Glad we could do this. Now he can work without interruption on his op-eds, his online activities towards trying to preserve our democracy on his very own computer.

We've worked out a sharing of the one puter, and I get it day time, he gets it night time and weekends we share. I spend a large amount of time on puter in my own blogging, op-eds, and family stuff but this last 6 weeks, I've had a full-blown intense project following vote fraud. It has become more difficult for each of us to have satisfying and adequate time with sharing one computer. Needless to say, we've assessed the need to get a second computer, and I'm happy we were able to do so as our Christmas gift to ourselves this year.

Today, then, Sweetie, set up his new puter (it's just like yours, Bree, remember last year at Christmas when you got yours ... same for us this year). He is just tickled with it. He helped me make some slight modifications to our front room where I decided to move my painting studio from upstairs cupola to downstairs. My "studio" has been set up in so many different places in this house, and I haven't been able to get quite comfortable so we are trying yet another place to set it up.

The light in the upstairs cupola is fantastic for paining, but there is inadequate and little ventilation, which doesn't work out as well. The painting paraphanalia is messy and doesn't lend itself well to the home decor, and I've been reluctant to incorporate it into the main areas in the house. We'll see how this works out, and Sweetie is so attentive to accomodating my painting (more so than I am myself). He arranged for good lighting for these short days when the daylight evaporates so quickly.

I painted 2 paintings last week, kind of trial and error on a new project and I can see I will need to work more to get the hang of the new project. Today, after we made the change-over, I painted a new painting taking on a different subject as I knew I didn't have time left in the day to concentrate on the learning curve I need for the new project I'm working on teaching myself.

Sweetie keeps me in coffee and makes dinner when I paint, so we had pizza and are wrapping up the evening with him on his New computer and me on "mine" (guess now that he has his own, this one becomes mine, how about that).

And that wraps up the weekend, except for the call I got from my daughter and they had an unkind holiday experience..... the kind you read about in newspaper or hear on the news every holiday.... they got mugged, wallet and paycheck stolen....there won't be Christmas for them this year. Rotten, rotten, rotten.

Uh oh...Are they moving in?

News going on in our town, the things I don't know unless I get out, geesh. I finally got out of the house yesterday after 3-4 weeks. Went to office holiday party. Well, actually the Union gang holiday party. So I stop for a nice, hot vanilla breve at our favorite espresso stand and she tells me what's been going on in town. Seems there is someone who is walking about distributing flyers for a socialist group with a swatiska emblem on it. She said he freaked her out and had been by 3 different days now. She is there alone and sounds worried.

So are the skinheads scouting out our community as a place to bring in a cell and hide out, I asked her. She says, not sure, the guy didn't look the part, had on heavy old torn coat and cap, looked more like a homeless person. She said she notified the police, though, and they know.

Well I go about my business, driving to the local store to get holiday ornament for gift exchange, then out to the Res. Took ol' Jake with me for his long awaited "go for a drive" and he was in happy dog heaven. He's been kinda wondering if something is wrong with me since we haven't gone for a drive in weeks now.

I get back to town and went to the office holiday party, but I no sooner got there than one of the office staff discovered that those same flyers with the swatiska had been left in the public bathroom. So off she goes to notify the police, who come by and take posession of the flyers. Guess our local police are on the hunt now for this guy. It was in our little local newspaper that these flyers were being distributed around town. So it made the news even, locally.

See what I miss when I don't get out, my goodness, a little tempest in a teapot brewing in our towns out here off the beaten path.

It doesn't sound like the skinheads are coming here, really, but something is up as we've got some guy wandering around town distributing these swatiska flyers. "heads up" eh?

The Power went out, we were flung into darkness

Ahh, the black of night. We experienced it last night when the power went out and our little village was plunged into total blackness. There was no light from anywhere, not the moon, not the stars, and we literally could not see a thing, anywhere but dark blackness. I inched my way to the kitchen to find a candle and a match thinking it was going to take a good half hour to get there at this slow inching along pace. Sweetie was more adept, found our super duper Y2K flashlight (the one with the alarm, radio, and heavy duty 2 way lighting) and shone the light on my dilema.

I made my way to the kitchen then, started lighting the candles, finding all the candles about the house sprinkled into my decor and pulling out those emergency 2-hour candles that I keep on hand for just so an adventure. We had good, old fashioned candlelight all over the house and it was actually quite cheerful. We said to each other, this is what it was like a hundred years ago, when this house was built and it didn't have electricity.

Of course, all our power-operated entertainments, tv, computer, stove, microwave, dishwasher shut off all at once and we found ourselves sitting down and just looking at each other saying well, what shall we do now, with the rest of the night? Fortunately, I had completed the dinner before the power shut off, so we had a meal by candlelight instead of in front of the tv...what a nice change! Then we sat down together and began sharing some stories, and were content to relax and let the next hours unfold.

It occurred to me that in the old days before we had instant in-home entertainment, that folks talked to each other, shared time together, listened to someone play the piano, read poetry, played parlor and board games, and spent more time in each other's company to wile away the hours. It also occurred to me that folks went to bed earlier as the long, winter dark hours stretched out. And they likely awoke earlier too, and used the daytime hours very efficiently and productively since there was so little daylight.

Just as we were settling in for a nice change of pace without electricity, the power came back on and we were actually disappointed. After being disoriented for a bit, we gradually went back to old habits, turned on the computer and tv again and resumed business as usual. But we made a note that the disruption was a wake up call and made a deal with each other to have one night a week without power....or at least a semblance of what would we do if we didn't have power. And I believe, we will learn even more about each other on those special nights. It's interesting how sometimes one has to be in the "dark" before the light goes on and illumination shines through

Rain, rain, winds, and more rain here.

What can I say, we live in the Rain Kingdom, and it's arrived in full force here! I don't have much to report to this blog today because I spent every waking hour yesterday on other blogs, the media news breaking stories on the un-met needs of the troops, which seem to be in a sudden abundance after next to nil reporting this past 20 months. Woo Hoo, it's way past time! Well I'm computered out after yesterday, I did literally spend from 8 am to 11pm on this dang puter. Today I think I'll go find something else to do, maybe towards holiday cheer.

Amputation rate for US troops twice that of past wars

US troops injured in Iraq have required limb amputations at twice the rate of past wars, and as many as 20 percent have suffered head and neck injuries that may require a lifetime of care, according to new data giving the clearest picture yet of the severity of battlefield wounds.

The data are the grisly flip side of improvements in battlefield medicine that have saved many combatants who would have died in the past: Only 1 in 10 US troops injured in Iraq has died, the lowest rate of any war in US history.

But those who survive have much more grievous wounds. Bulletproof Kevlar vests protect soldiers' bodies but not their limbs, as insurgent snipers and makeshift bombs tear off arms and legs and rip into faces and necks. More than half of those injured sustain wounds so serious they cannot return to duty, according to Pentagon statistics.

Much attention has focused on the 1,000-plus soldiers killed in Iraq, but the Pentagon has released little information on the 9,765 soldiers injured as of this week.

Thought the thunder was a tsunami today!

Thank you all for visiting my new blog and leaving a comment, makes me smile Big, cheers me up a lot and I appreciate it very much.

Wow!! It was raining again today, and then flashes of lightening but what followed then blew me away. There was thunder like I've never heard before and it sounded like it was coming from the water on the bay. And it rumbled so loud and so long, I had to hurry over to the windows to make sure a tidal wave wasn't coming at me. Man....that was scarey. Real scarey.

There was no change in the water on the bay though, no tsunami, and I could relax a bit, but the thunder kept rolling Loud and Long and it was unlike any I've heard before. It was awesome and frightening all at once. Jake wasn't too happy about it, so he came inside to hide under the desk where I am busy on computer.

Then it all cleared away and the sun came out for about 20 minutes, just like a summer day. Quickly the sun left though replaced by the gray, but no rain, just those heavy clouds that threaten to drop more rain.

There was windstorm last night, which tv news said was coming, and we know what to expect with windstorms here. But the thunder this afternoon was way beyond normal for around here. I thought the earth was splitting open! Really!

Okay, I declined an invitation from Sweetie today to meet him for lunch cause I knew the Conyers Hearing on Vote Fraud was going to happen today and I wanted to see it. Well geez, I checked into my morning forums, and the DU (Democratic Underground) had fresh post saying that Pacifica Radio (online) was covering it now ... 7 AM. So I quick brought up the audio and listened along, taking notes like crazy.

Then someone posted the C-Span was also covering it, and provided the link to the video/audio so I went and got that and sent out an email 'heads up' to my addy list, + posted to the family sites. And now I have to update all my serious blogs as this is important now as entered into Congressional record, part of American history.

So if you want to follow my activity on vote fraud, see one of my other blogs (links to the left; Blue Tones, On the Horizon, Bludayz...and if you want to follow the war in Iraq, troops, see my blog Dying to Preserve the Lies). I don't want to clutter up this blog with too much of the serious stuff, but it was an important day today with the Conyers Hearing and one I (along with thousands of other online bloggers in the blogosphere working our brains and fingers on vote fraud 2004) have been waiting for now for about 4 + weeks. Since we know mainstream media isn't covering it, we have become the Media. Gram's a journalist now, a reporter..how about that..lol.

Well that's it for today. Thanks everyone for visiting my newest blog here, Gram's Gems. And there are links to the left to other family blogs, Bree, Randa. How come the rest of ya aren't blogging...lol ?

Holiday Season, got to get some stuff done...

So, here it is the holiday season and I don't have a thing done yet. It's been heavy, pouring rain for several days now, no snow here. And Ash has snow, and Rans has snow. Chris does not have holiday plans, so he may come to my house, but if I don't decorate, it won't be very festive. So maybe we will meet up with him midway and have a different kind of celebration this year.

Not sure if Lica's family will be making the drive over the mountains this year, so we could wind up with just the two of us for Christmas this year. Neither of us have had the happy holiday spirit yet, we are both still working hard in blogosphere land on internet trying to help with the vote fraud of this election.

Guess we will take a break though, and try to get more into the family and the season. I better haul myself away from the computer then and get some stuff done.

I have lots of blogs, but they are all serious ones, and so I made this one to just post about my days and that way Ash and Rans can read it if they want and see what Grams is up to or not up to...lol. I hope Ash will make a blog too so I can visit her blog. I visit Randa's blog and Bree's blog and I want to visit Ashley's blog too.

Gonna go make some chicken dinner now, it's time for Sweetie to come home and I haven't started cooking yet. Jake is depressed these days, rainy and I haven't taken him for a Ride for couple weeks now, and he's not happy about it.

Okey dokey then, I'll try to make an entry in this blog often to say what's going on in my daily life.....which is not too much these days. I miss my grandchildren, every one of them and new baby Aislee will be not such a newborn next time I see her.

Former U.S. presidential candidate, Senator John Kerry (D-MA) (standing, R) and Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) (Standing 2nd R) watch alongside family members of U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Dimitrios Gavriel during his military funeral at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington DC, December 2, 2004. Gavriel, from Haverhill, Massachusetts died November 19 while fighting in Al Anbar Province in Iraq and his funeral is the 99th 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. REUTERS/Jason Reed

Reuters - Dec 02 12:53 PM

Former U.S. presidential candidate, Senator John Kerry (2nd L), D-MA, and fellow Senator Ted Kennedy (L), D-MA, carry flowers as they walk to the military funeral of U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Dimitrios Gavriel at Arlington National Cemetery, near Washington DC, December 2, 2004. Gavriel, from Haverhill, Massachusetts, died November 19 while fighting in Al Anbar Province in Iraq , and his funeral is the 99th 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. REUTERS/Jason Reed

Reuters - Dec 02 12:36 PM

Penelope Gavriel (Seated 4thR) receives the U.S. flag that draped the casket of her son, Lance Cpl. Dimitrios Gavriel, from Marine Staff Sgt. Charles Dorsey, as U.S. Senators Ted Kennedy (D-MA- standing C) and John Kerry (D-MA- R) stand alongside other family members his military funeral at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington DC, December 2, 2004. Gavriel, from Haverhill, Massachusetts, died November 19 while fighting in Al Anbar Province in Iraq , and his funeral is the 99th 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. REUTERS/Jason Reed REUTERS

Reuters - Dec 02 12:01 PM

Penelope Gavriel (Seated 4thR) receives the U.S. flag that draped the casket of her son, Lance Cpl. Dimitrios Gavriel, from Marine Staff Sgt. Charles Dorsey, as U.S. Senators Ted Kennedy (D-MA- standing C) and John Kerry (news - web sites ) (D-MA- R) stand alongside other family members his military funeral at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington DC, December 2, 2004. Gavriel, from Haverhill, Massachusetts, died November 19 while fighting in Al Anbar Province in Iraq (news - web sites ), and his funeral is the 99th 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. REUTERS/Jason Reed REUTERS

Former U.S. presidential candidate, Senator John Kerry (news - web sites ) (2nd L), D-MA, and fellow Senator Ted Kennedy (L), D-MA, carry flowers as they walk to the military funeral of U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Dimitrios Gavriel at Arlington National Cemetery, near Washington DC, December 2, 2004. Gavriel, from Haverhill, Massachusetts, died November 19 while fighting in Al Anbar Province in Iraq (news - web sites ), and his funeral is the 99th 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. REUTERS/Jason Reed

Former U.S. presidential candidate, Senator John Kerry (news - web sites) (D-MA), lays flowers on the casket of U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Dimitrios Gavriel during his military funeral at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington DC, December 2, 2004. Gavriel, from Haverhill, Massachusetts, died November 19 while fighting in Al Anbar Province in Iraq (news - web sites) and his funeral is the 99th 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. REUTERS/Jason Reed

Penelope Gavriel (bottom L) kisses the U.S. flag that draped the casket of her son, Lance Cpl. Dimitrios Gavriel, as U.S. Senators' Ted Kennedy (2nd-L), D-MA, and John Kerry (news - web sites) ®, D-MA, stand alongside other family members during his honor guard funeral at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington DC, December 2, 2004. Gavriel, from Haverhill, Massachusetts, died November 19 while fighting in Al Anbar Province in Iraq (news - web sites). REUTERS/Jason Reed REUTERS

Former U.S. presidential candidate, Senator John Kerry (news - web sites) (D-MA) hugs an unidentified member of U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Dimitrios Gavriel's family during his military funeral at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington DC, December 2, 2004. Gavriel, from Haverhill, Massachusetts, died November 19 while fighting in Al Anbar Province in Iraq (news - web sites), and his funeral was the 99th 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. REUTERS/Jason Reed

Bree, you might want to download this emblem.

Welcome, another co-author, Bree

Welcome Bree, our blog here at Wonderwander, hasn't seen much action of late. As a co-author, you can post photos here using the Hello gadget, it works really well for me. And you can put original posts here, too, telling us about life in Germany.

Bush policy in Iraq...never ending war, recycling the same troops over and over and over again. Wondering when those who voted Bush this time will be signing up or sending their kids to do their patriotic part in Iraq. Not really, I want no more carnage of humans in Iraq....but will never, ever understand how people could Vote For War, Killing, Maiming and Death for our young

I feel like voters just signed the death warrant for our kids

It is over, the elections, and apparantly the Voice of America has spoken. We are stunned, in shock and awe, in a most literal sense. We cannot believe what we have just seen happen in our country.We will likely never forget the image map of red states to blue in this election.

Well, I guess we belong in the blue state where we reside and guess there are very few blue states left in this great country. Blue lined up along the west coast and the northern states of the east coast and a few of the Great Lake states. We comprise the perimeter of the country, I guess, and no place else to go but the oceans.

It is now post-election and the ground truth is that there will be 4 more years of Bush and his administration ... unleashed, unchained. We look for and anticipate the literal blood bath that will ensue and while I have had 2 1/2 years now to protest the war while supporting the needs of the troops, there was a degree of comfort that much of our country felt the same. There was a degree of comfort that Bush was thrust upon us in a bad election debacle in 2000, and that could be "righted" with this election.

The Voice of America has said otherwise. I do not know how to "be" just now as an American citizen out of harmony with my own country. I do not know how to explain to our young when they ask me literally, as they have after this election, "what happened to America". I do not know how to respond to our young soldier who says to me after the election "Mom, you know what this means don't you...there will be a blood bath"... to which I can only say "yes, I know....."

I don't know how to reconcile the definitions now that define christian as it seems to have taken on a morality tone of anti-abortion and anti-gay as if that was the entire message of the christian faith. How did the voters who voted morality and faith overlook the first commandment, Thou shalt not kill....? How did the voters reconcile the aborted life of the young troops who have not yet tasted adult life How did christians not separate morality from ethics? Anyway, a discussion for another day...I have no heart for it now.

I'll get my strength back, I'm sure, but I don't know how to depersonalize this election among my country. I feel like voters just signed the death warrant for our kids and I have to find a way within myself to reconcile my feelings with regard to knowing about half of the country voted for Bush. I don't know how to interpret that as other than our country agreeing to the consignment of our children to war, and why? How utterly selfish to put their "fears" above the well-being of the young generation for which us elders have stewardship. But I know I must find a way to reconcile it within myself. It was never just politics for us...we really did feel we were fighting for our country, for our kids.

So, with the ground truth now being that Bush remains the CIC, I will continue in my work as part of the organization Military Families Speak Out (MFSO..http://www.mfso.org/) which has now a membership of close to 2000 military families. It is a non-partisan, non-political organization with one message..Support our Troops. The difference is that it is not a Hooah message as heard from many military families, but one that supports the dignity, honor, ideals, courage and valor of the troops on the ground.

A message that the American people need to do more for our troops and demand more for our troops than to just tell them thank you ... that is not enough. The troops need more, they need all of us now more than ever and they need us to work on the homefront on their behalf, wisely, thoughtfully, intelligently and demand of the administration (no matter who occupies the office) the needs of our troops cannot be explained away as oversights and mismanagement. The needs of our troops are real and deadly and being so poorly managed leaving the troops exposed to danger above and beyond their call to duty. Our CIC owes the troops more..we will demand it.

American Soldier...be well, keep you courage and wits about you in the days ahead.

A proud military family of Iraq veterans,

An old military brat,

A Vietnam era military wife,

Don't even think about challenging my patriotism, it is deeper than platitudes as is my love for the troops and what they represent, what they stand for, what they commit themselves to....as is my love for their families that stand in courage behind the troops.

signing myself; Duty Calls..on the homefront.

Courage doesn't always shout. Sometimes courage is the quiet voiceat the end of the day that says, "I will try again tomorrow."

I feel like voters just signed the death warrant for our kids

It is over, the elections, and apparantly the Voice of America has spoken. We are stunned, in shock and awe, in a most literal sense. We cannot believe what we have just seen happen in our country.We will likely never forget the image map of red states to blue in this election.

Well, I guess we belong in the blue state where we reside and guess there are very few blue states left in this great country. Blue lined up along the west coast and the northern states of the east coast and a few of the Great Lake states. We comprise the perimeter of the country, I guess, and no place else to go but the oceans.

It is now post-election and the ground truth is that there will be 4 more years of Bush and his administration ... unleashed, unchained. We look for and anticipate the literal blood bath that will ensue and while I have had 2 1/2 years now to protest the war while supporting the needs of the troops, there was a degree of comfort that much of our country felt the same. There was a degree of comfort that Bush was thrust upon us in a bad election debacle in 2000, and that could be "righted" with this election.

The Voice of America has said otherwise. I do not know how to "be" just now as an American citizen out of harmony with my own country. I do not know how to explain to our young when they ask me literally, as they have after this election, "what happened to America". I do not know how to respond to our young soldier who says to me after the election "Mom, you know what this means don't you...there will be a blood bath"... to which I can only say "yes, I know....."

I don't know how to reconcile the definitions now that define christian as it seems to have taken on a morality tone of anti-abortion and anti-gay as if that was the entire message of the christian faith. How did the voters who voted morality and faith overlook the first commandment, Thou shalt not kill....? How did the voters reconcile the aborted life of the young troops who have not yet tasted adult life How did christians not separate morality from ethics? Anyway, a discussion for another day...I have no heart for it now.

I'll get my strength back, I'm sure, but I don't know how to depersonalize this election among my country. I feel like voters just signed the death warrant for our kids and I have to find a way within myself to reconcile my feelings with regard to knowing about half of the country voted for Bush. I don't know how to interpret that as other than our country agreeing to the consignment of our children to war, and why? How utterly selfish to put their "fears" above the well-being of the young generation for which us elders have stewardship. But I know I must find a way to reconcile it within myself. It was never just politics for us...we really did feel we were fighting for our country, for our kids.

So, with the ground truth now being that Bush remains the CIC, I will continue in my work as part of the organization Military Families Speak Out (MFSO..http://www.mfso.org/) which has now a membership of close to 2000 military families. It is a non-partisan, non-political organization with one message..Support our Troops. The difference is that it is not a Hooah message as heard from many military families, but one that supports the dignity, honor, ideals, courage and valor of the troops on the ground.

A message that the American people need to do more for our troops and demand more for our troops than to just tell them thank you ... that is not enough. The troops need more, they need all of us now more than ever and they need us to work on the homefront on their behalf, wisely, thoughtfully, intelligently and demand of the administration (no matter who occupies the office) the needs of our troops cannot be explained away as oversights and mismanagement. The needs of our troops are real and deadly and being so poorly managed leaving the troops exposed to danger above and beyond their call to duty. Our CIC owes the troops more..we will demand it.

American Soldier...be well, keep you courage and wits about you in the days ahead.

A proud military family of Iraq veterans,

An old military brat,

A Vietnam era military wife,

Don't even think about challenging my patriotism, it is deeper than platitudes as is my love for the troops and what they represent, what they stand for, what they commit themselves to....as is my love for their families that stand in courage behind the troops. signing myself; Duty Calls..on the homefront.

Courage doesn't always shout. Sometimes courage is the quiet voiceat the end of the day that says, "I will try again tomorrow."

Honor Betrayed

We watched this last night on a channel called Link. We have satellite and my oldest daughter had recommended the channel to me. It is a channel that shows non-commercial media news, the kind of news I'd rather be hearing about.

Last night we watched the video, Honor Betrayed, and are highly recommending it as it delivers the multiple tiers of our message on behalf of our troops.

Nancy Lessin is among one of the speakers, and she always gives such excellent talking points. Each speaker in this video makes valuable contribtuions. I was very impressed with Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director and Founder of Operation Truth.

to learn more about the video; http://www.veteransforpeace.org/Honor_Betrayed/Honor_Betrayed.htm

Better mutiny than 'suicide'

--------------------Better mutiny than 'suicide' --------------------

Dennis Duggan

October 19, 2004

'I'm proud of my son," said Renee Shealey of her 23-year-old son Scott, one of 18 soldiers who defied orders last week to go on what the soldiers termed a "suicide mission," in Iraq.

She and her husband Ricky live in tiny Quinton, Ala., and they have been thrust into the blinding headlights of the media over their son's decision.But like most of the families of the other soldiers involved, the Shealeys are "proud" of their son, who has been in Iraq for nine months.

Mrs. Shealey said she talked to her son this weekend. He told her he was being processed out of the Army and "will be home in three or four weeks.""He told me 'mother, I don't care what happens to me. I know that we saved some soliders' lives by not going on that mission.'"

The Shealeys are a military family and proud of their military background. Ricky Shealey is a retired Marine sergeant. On television yesterday morning, he said that his son was "depressed" about leaving the military soon.

The soldiers crossed a line drawn in the sand by the military. They are risking their careers and their reputations.One can only imagine what Gen. Patton would have said. He called soldiers who were in hospital beds "cowards" and even slapped one of them.

But this is a different generation.Listen to Raphael Zappala of Philadelphia, whose foster brother Sherwood was killed April 26, when his Humvee exploded after being hit by a shell."I am proud of these soldiers," Zappala said of the mutiny.

Sherwood was 30 and had been in the National Guard for seven years before he was called up for active duty in Iraq last year."He was the sort of guy who wanted to help people. He was married and had a 9-year-old son, and we buried him last May, but no one in the Army can tell me anything about the incident," Zappala said.

But someone is going to have to explain to the families of the more than 1,000 dead and the thousands of men and women left without arms and legs why these soldiers weren't trained, why they had such poor equipment and why there is a back door draft making soldiers return to a war few understand."

Sherwood was in site security, and he had to buy his own GPS and a flak jacket with his own money," said Zappala, who thinks President George W. Bush "should be impeached" for taking the country to war in Iraq.

"We've been inundated with e-mails and phone calls," said Nancy Lessin, co-founder of Military Families Speak Out, a 2-year-old anti-war group, which began with two families and now represents 2,100 families. Lessin's stepson Joseph is a Marine who was in the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and so his involvement in the anti-war activity is personal.

She doubts that the Army's spin - that the mutiny is an isolated incident - will be taken seriously by the families of the dead and wounded.It's one thing to stage a private mutiny, but to be part of a platoon of soldiers willing to risk all is far different.

The son of Pat Gunn of Lansdowne, Pa., Jason, 25, was badly wounded earlier this year when a shell hit him while he was in a Humvee convoy in Iraq. His sergeant sitting behind him was killed instantly. "I was duped," she said of the war. "I believed all the reasons we were told why this was necessary. All of them, from the connection of al-Qaida, to the weapons of mass destruction."

Gunn served in the Navy as a recruiter during the Vietnam War and thinks that in this war, there are far more mutinies than what the generals are admitting."I work with a group of Vietnam veterans who were wounded and one of them said over the weekend that talk of mutinies was rife in Vietnam but it was kept quiet."

She makes the point that today's soldier is joined at the hip with the outside world by communication breakthroughs, such as e-mail.Within minutes, the world heard of the 343rd Quartermaster Company's refusal to deliver a shipment of fuel from one air base to another.

Staff Sgt. Michael Butler of Jackson, Miss., told his wife Jackie Butler about the decision to disobey orders within hours of Wednesday's decision to stand down.On Sunday, his wife went to church as usual and told the congregation at the Zion Travelers Missionary Baptist Church about her husband, a 20-year Army veteran, and prayed."Lord, Sister Butler needs you. Her husband, he needs you. All the soldiers in Iraq, they need you."

Copyright (c) 2004, Newsday, Inc. --------------------This article originally appeared at:http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/columnists/ny-nydugg194011774oct19,0,6919415.column?coll=ny-ny-columnists

A Duty to Disobey All Unlawful Orders

http://www.counterpunch.org/mosqueda02272003.html

A Duty to Disobey All Unlawful OrdersAn Advisory to US Troops

by LAWRENCE MOSQUEDA

DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL LAW

As the United States government under George Bush gets closer to attacking the people of Iraq, there are several things that the men and women of the U.S. armed forces need to know and bear in mind as they are given orders from the Bush administration. This information is provided for the use of the members of the armed forces, their families, friends and supporters, and all who are concerned about the current direction of U.S. policy toward Iraq.

The military oath taken at the time of induction reads:

"I,____________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to the regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God"

The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) 809.ART.90 (20), makes it clear that military personnel need to obey the "lawful command of his superior officer," 891.ART.91 (2), the "lawful order of a warrant officer", 892.ART.92 (1) the "lawful general order", 892.ART.92 (2) "lawful order". In each case, military personnel have an obligation and a duty to only obey Lawful orders and indeed have an obligation to disobey Unlawful orders, including orders by the president that do not comply with the UCMJ. The moral and legal obligation is to the U.S. Constitution and not to those who would issue unlawful orders, especially if those orders are in direct violation of the Constitution and the UCMJ.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> snipped <<<<<<<<<

The unelected president will not tell his troops or his commanders that he is issuing unlawful orders. Few, if any, of the top commanders will tell their troops that they are issuing unlawful orders. Those on the front lines, those who fly the planes, those who target Cruise missiles and other weapons of mass destruction need to make decisions. According to International Law, Domestic Law, the Constitution, and various Moral Codes it is not enough to say or believe that one is just "doing their job" or just "following orders." Decisions have to be made.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> snipped <<<<<<<<<<<

At the end of this article there is contact information for organizations that have historically assisted active duty personnel, reservist, or veterans of conscience who desire specific legal, political, or moral guidance in time of war. If possible, these would be good organizations to contact. As the veterans "Call to Conscience" statement notes "if you have questions or doubts about your role in the military (for any reason) or in this war, help is available. Contact one of the organizations listed below. They can discuss your situation and concerns, give you information on your legal rights, and help you sort out your possible choices." These organizations are listed for your information and are not responsible for the contents of this article.

>>>>>>>>>>>>> snipped<<<<<<<<<

ORGANIZATIONS THAT HAVE HELPED GIs IN THE PAST

(Some are religious, some political, some pacifist)

Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors (CCCO) The GI Rights Hotline (800) 394-9544 (215) 563-4620 Fax (510) 465-2459 630 Twentieth Street #302 Oakland, CA 94612 girights@objector.org http://girights.objector.org/whoweare.html

American Friends Service Committee-National 1501 Cherry Street Philadelphia, PA 19102 Phone: (215) 241-7000 Fax: (215) 241-7275 afscinfo@afsc.org www.afsc.org

American Friends Service Committee--New England Region 2161 Massachusetts Ave. Cambridge, MA 02140 617-661-6130 afscnero@afsc.org

Center on Conscience & War (NISBCO) 1830 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20009 Tel: (202) 483-2220 Fax: (202) 483-1246 Email: nisbco@nisbco.org http://www.nisbco.org/

Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild 1168 Union Street, Suite 200 San Diego, CA 92101 619-233-1701

National Lawyers Guild, National Office 143 Madison Ave 4th Fl., New York NY 10016 212-679-5100 FAX 212 679-2811 nlgno@nlg.org http://www.nlg.org/

Northcoast WRL / Humboldt Committee for Conscientious Objectors (NCWRL-HCCO) 1040 H Street Arcata, CA 95521 707-826-0165 HCCO-Help@sbcglobal.net

Quaker House of Fayetteville, NC 223 Hillside Ave Fayetteville, NC 28301 910-323-3912 or 919-663-7122

Seattle Draft and Military Counseling PO Box 20604 Seattle, WA 98102 206-789-2751 sdmcc@scn.org

War Resisters League 339 Lafayette Street New York, NY 10012 212-228-0450 or 800-975-9688 wrl@warresisters.org http://www.warresisters.org/

Veterans Call to Conscience 4742 42nd Ave. SW #142 Seattle, WA 98116-4553 CallToConscience@yahoo.com http://www.oz.net/~vvawai/CtC/

Veterans for Common Sense www.veteransforcommonsense.org

National Contacts http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/contacts.asp

Citizen Soldier 267 Fifth Ave., Suite 901 New York, NY 10016 Phone (212) 679-2250 Fax (212) 679-2252 www.citizen-soldier.org/

Fellowship of Reconciliation P.O. Box 271,NY, NY 10960 845-358-4601 Fax:(845) 358-4924 E-mail: for@forusa.org http://www.forusa.org

Catholic Peace Fellowship P.O. Box 41 Notre Dame, Indiana 46556-004 574-631-7666 info@catholicpeacefellowship.org; http://www.catholicpeacefellowship.org/

Peace Education Office of Mennonite Central Committee MCC US 21 S. 12th Street Akron, PA 17501-0500 717-859-3889 tmp@mccus.org http://www.mcc.org/ask-a-vet/index.html

to see the entire article

(it is quite long) http://www.counterpunch.org/mosqueda02272003.html

Platoon defies orders in Iraq

Platoon defies orders in Iraq

Miss. soldier calls home, cites safety concerns

October 15, 2004

By Jeremy Hudson

jehudson@clarionledger.com

A 17-member Army Reserve platoon with troops from Jackson and around the Southeast deployed to Iraq is under arrest for refusing a "suicide mission" to deliver fuel, the troops' relatives said Thursday.

The soldiers refused an order on Wednesday to go to Taji, Iraq — north of Baghdad — because their vehicles were considered "deadlined" or extremely unsafe, said Patricia McCook of Jackson, wife of Sgt. Larry O. McCook.

Sgt. McCook, a deputy at the Hinds County Detention Center, and the 16 other members of the 343rd Quartermaster Company from Rock Hill, S.C., were read their rights and moved from the military barracks into tents, Patricia McCook said her husband told her during a panicked phone call about 5 a.m. Thursday.The platoon could be charged with the willful disobeying of orders, punishable by dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of pay and up to five years confinement, said military law expert Mark Stevens, an associate professor of justice studies at Wesleyan College in Rocky Mount, N.C.

No military officials were able to confirm or deny the detainment of the platoon Thursday.

U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson said he plans to submit a congressional inquiry today on behalf of the Mississippi soldiers to launch an investigation into whether they are being treated improperly.

"I would not want any member of the military to be put in a dangerous situation ill-equipped," said Thompson, who was contacted by families. "I have had similar complaints from military families about vehicles that weren't armor-plated, or bullet-proof vests that are outdated. It concerns me because we made over $150 billion in funds available to equip our forces in Iraq.

"President Bush takes the position that the troops are well-armed, but if this situation is true, it calls into question how honest he has been with the country," Thompson said.

The 343rd is a supply unit whose general mission is to deliver fuel and water. The unit includes three women and 14 men and those with ranking up to sergeant first class.

"I got a call from an officer in another unit early (Thursday) morning who told me that my husband and his platoon had been arrested on a bogus charge because they refused to go on a suicide mission," said Jackie Butler of Jackson, wife of Sgt. Michael Butler, a 24-year reservist. "When my husband refuses to follow an order, it has to be something major."

The platoon being held has troops from Alabama, Kentucky, North Carolina, Mississippi and South Carolina, said Teresa Hill of Dothan, Ala., whose daughter Amber McClenny is among those being detained.

McClenny, 21, pleaded for help in a message left on her mother's answering machine early Thursday morning.

"They are holding us against our will," McClenny said. "We are now prisoners."

McClenny told her mother her unit tried to deliver fuel to another base in Iraq Wednesday, but was sent back because the fuel had been contaminated with water. The platoon returned to its base, where it was told to take the fuel to another base, McClenny told her mother.

The platoon is normally escorted by armed Humvees and helicopters, but did not have that support Wednesday, McClenny told her mother.

The convoy trucks the platoon was driving had experienced problems in the past and were not being properly maintained, Hill said her daughter told her.

The situation mirrors other tales of troops being sent on missions without proper equipment.

Aviation regiments have complained of being forced to fly dangerous missions over Iraq with outdated night-vision goggles and old missile-avoidance systems. Stories of troops' families purchasing body armor because the military didn't provide them with adequate equipment have been included in recent presidential debates.

Patricia McCook said her husband, a staff sergeant, understands well the severity of disobeying orders. But he did not feel comfortable taking his soldiers on another trip.

"He told me that three of the vehicles they were to use were deadlines ... not safe to go in a hotbed like that," Patricia McCook said.

Hill said the trucks her daughter's unit was driving could not top 40 mph.

"They knew there was a 99 percent chance they were going to get ambushed or fired at," Hill said her daughter told her. "They would have had no way to fight back."

Kathy Harris of Vicksburg is the mother of Aaron Gordon, 20, who is among those being detained. Her primary concern is that she has been told the soldiers have not been provided access to a judge advocate general.

Stevens said if the soldiers are being confined, law requires them to have a hearing before a magistrate within seven days.

Harris said conditions for the platoon have been difficult of late. Her son e-mailed her earlier this week to ask what the penalty would be if he became physical with a commanding officer, she said.

But Nadine Stratford of Rock Hill, S.C., said her godson Colin Durham, 20, has been happy with his time in Iraq. She has not heard from him since the platoon was detained.

"When I talked to him about a month ago, he was fine," Stratford said. "He said it was like being at home."

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041015/NEWS01/410150366/1002

Breaking Ranks, More and More US Soldiers speak out agains the war in Iraq

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2004/11/10_400.html

Breaking Ranks

More and more U.S. soldiers are speaking out against the war in Iraq -- and some are refusing to fight.

David Goodman October 11 , 2004

MIKE HOFFMAN would not be the guy his buddies would expect to see leading a protest movement. The son of a steelworker and a high school janitor from Allentown, Pennsylvania, he enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1999 as an artilleryman to “blow things up.” His transformation into an activist came the hard way—on the streets of Baghdad.

When Hoffman arrived in Kuwait in February 2003, his unit’s highest-ranking enlisted man laid out the mission in stark terms. “You’re not going to make Iraq safe for democracy,” the sergeant said. “You are going for one reason alone: oil. But you’re still going to go, because you signed a contract. And you’re going to go to bring your friends home.” Hoffman, who had his own doubts about the war, was relieved—he’d never expected to hear such a candid assessment from a superior. But it was only when he had been in Iraq for several months that the full meaning of the sergeant’s words began to sink in.

“The reasons for war were wrong,” he says. “They were lies. There were no WMDs. Al Qaeda was not there. And it was evident we couldn’t force democracy on people by force of arms.”

When he returned home and got his honorable discharge in August 2003, Hoffman says, he knew what he had to do next. “After being in Iraq and seeing what this war is, I realized that the only way to support our troops is to demand the withdrawal of all occupying forces in Iraq.” He cofounded a group called Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) and soon found himself emerging as one of the most visible members of a small but growing movement of soldiers who openly oppose the war in Iraq.

Dissent on Iraq within the military is not entirely new. Even before the invasion, senior officers were questioning the optimistic projections of the Pentagon’s civilian leaders, and several retired generals have strongly criticized the war. But now, nearly two years after the first troops rolled across the desert, rank-and-file soldiers and their families are increasingly speaking up. Hoffman’s group was founded in July with 8 members and had grown to 40 by September. Another organization, Military Families Speak Out, began with 2 families two years ago and now represents more than 1,700 families. And soldier-advocacy groups are reporting a rising number of calls from military personnel who are upset about the war and are thinking about refusing to fight; a few soldiers have even fled to Canada rather than go to Iraq.

In a 2003 Gallup Poll, nearly one-fifth of the soldiers surveyed said they felt the situation in Iraq had not been worth going to war over. In another poll, in Pennsylvania last August, 54 percent of households with a member in the military said the war was the “wrong thing to do”; in the population as a whole, only 48 percent felt that way. Doubts about the war have contributed to the decline of troop morale over the past year—and may, some experts say, be a factor in the 40 percent increase in Army suicide rates in Iraq in the past year. “That’s the most basic tool a soldier needs on the battlefield—a reason to be there,” says Paul Rieckhoff, a platoon leader in the New York National Guard and former JPMorgan banker who served in Iraq. Rieckhoff has founded a group called Operation Truth, which provides a freewheeling forum for soldiers’ views on the war. “When you can’t articulate that in one sentence, it starts to affect morale. You had an initial rationale for war that was a moving target. [But] it was a shell game from the beginning, and you can only bullshit people for so long.”

With his baggy pants, red goatee, and moussed hair, Mike Hoffman looks more like a guy taking some time off after college than a 25-year-old combat veteran. But the urgency in his voice belies his relaxed appearance; he speaks rapidly, consumed with the desire to get his point across. As we talk at a coffee shop in Vermont after one of his many speaking engagements, he concedes, “A lot of what I’m doing is basically survivor’s guilt. It’s hard: I’m home. I’m fine. I came back in one piece. But there are a lot of people who haven’t.”

More than a year after his return from Iraq, Hoffman is still battling depression, panic attacks, and nightmares. “I don’t know what I did,” he says, noting that errors and faulty targeting were common in the artillery. “I came home and read that six children were killed in an artillery strike near where I was. I don’t really know if that was my unit or a British unit. But I feel responsible for everything that happened when I was there.”

When he first came home, Hoffman says, he tried to talk to friends and family about his experience. It was not a story most wanted to hear. “One of the hardest things when I came back was people who were slapping me on the back saying ‘Great job,’” he recalls. “Everyone wants this to be a good war so they can sleep at night. But guys like me know it’s not a good war. There’s no such thing as a good war.”

Hoffman finally found some kindred spirits last fall when he discovered Veterans For Peace, the 19-year-old antiwar group. Older veterans encouraged him to speak at rallies, and steadily, he began to connect with other disillusioned Iraq vets. In July, at the Veterans For Peace annual meeting in Boston, Hoffman announced the creation of Iraq Veterans Against the War. The audience of silver-haired vets from wars in Vietnam, Korea, and World War II exploded into applause. Hoffman smiles wryly. “They tell us we’re the rock stars of the antiwar movement.”

Several of Hoffman’s Marine Corps buddies have now joined Iraq Veterans Against the War, and the stream of phone calls and emails from other soldiers is constant. Not long ago, he says, a soldier home on leave from Iraq told him, “Just keep doing what you’re doing, because you’ve got more support than you can imagine over there.”

Members of IVAW led the protest march that greeted the Republican convention in New York, and their ranks swelled that week. But the protest’s most poignant moment came after the march, as veterans from wars past and present retreated to Summit Rock in Central Park. Joe Bangert, a founding member of Vietnam Veterans of America, addressed the group. “One of the most painful things when we returned from Vietnam was that the veterans from past wars weren’t there for us,” he said. “They didn’t support us in our questioning and our opposition to war. And I just want to say,” he added, peering intently at the younger veterans, “we are here for you. We have your back.”

There was no Iraq veterans’ group for Brandon Hughey to turn to in December 2003. Alone and terrified, sitting in his barracks at Fort Hood, Texas, the 18-year-old private considered his options. He could remain with his Army unit, which was about to ship out to Iraq to fight a war that Hughey was convinced was pointless and immoral. Or he could end his dilemma—by taking his own life.

Army private Brandon Hughey is one of six U.S. soldiers seeking refugee status in Canada.Desperate, Hughey trolled the Internet. He emailed a peace activist and Vietnam veteran in Indianapolis, Carl Rising-Moore, who made him an offer: If he was serious about his opposition to the war, Rising-Moore said, he would help him flee to Canada.

The next day, there was a knock on Hughey’s door: His deployment date had been moved up, and his unit was leaving within 24 hours. Hughey packed his belongings in a military duffel, jumped in his car, and drove north. As he and Rising-Moore approached the Rainbow Bridge border post at Niagara Falls, Hughey was nervous and somber. “I had the sense that once I crossed that border, I might never be able to go back,” he recalls. “It made me sad.”

Months after fleeing Fort Hood, the baby-faced 19-year-old still sports a military-style buzz cut. Sitting at the kitchen table of the Quaker family that is sheltering him in St. Catharines, Ontario, Hughey tells me about growing up in San Angelo, Texas, where he was raised by his father. In high school he played trumpet and loved to soup up cars. But when his father lost his job as a computer programmer, he was forced to use up his son’s college fund. So at 17, Hughey enlisted in the Army, with a $5,000 signing bonus to sweeten the deal.

Quiet and unassuming, Hughey grows intense when the conversation turns to Iraq. “I would fight in an act of defense, if my home and family were in danger,” he says. “But Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. They barely had an army left, and Kofi Annan actually said [attacking Iraq was] a violation of the U.N. charter. It’s nothing more than an act of aggression.” As for his duty to his fellow soldiers, he insists, “You can’t go along with a criminal activity just because others are doing it.”

So far, only six U.S. soldiers are known to have fled to Canada rather than fight in Iraq. But in 2003, the Army listed more than 2,774 soldiers as deserters (military personnel are classified as having deserted after not reporting for duty for more than a month), and many observers believe the actual number may be even higher; the Army has acknowledged that it is not aggressively hunting down soldiers who don’t show up. The GI Rights Hotline, a counseling operation run by a national network of antiwar groups, reports that it now receives between 3,000 and 4,000 calls per month from soldiers seeking a way out of the military. Some of the callers simply never thought they would see combat, says J.E. McNeil, director of the Center on Conscience and War. But others are turning against the war because of what they saw while serving in Iraq, and they don’t want to be sent back there. “It’s people learning what war really is,” she says. “A lot of people are naive—and for a while, the military was portraying itself as being a peace mission.”

Unlike Vietnam, when young men facing the draft could convincingly claim that they opposed all war, enlistees in a volunteer military have a tough time qualifying as conscientious objectors. In the Army, 61 soldiers applied for conscientious objector status last year, and 31 of those applications were granted. “The Army does understand people can have a change of heart,” notes spokeswoman Martha Rudd. “But you can’t ask for a conscientious objector discharge based on moral or religious opposition to a particular war.”

Staff Sergeant Jimmy Massey may be the most unlikely of the soldiers who have come out against the war. A Marine since 1992, he has been a recruiter, infantry instructor, and combat platoon leader. He went to Iraq primed to fight. “9/11 pissed me off,” he says. “I was ready to go kill a raghead.”

Jimmy Massey went to Iraq a gung-ho Marine, but returned shaken after killing civilians.Shortly after Massey arrived in Iraq, his unit was ordered to man roadblocks. To stop cars, the Marines would raise their hands. If the drivers kept going, Massey says, “we would just light ’em up. I didn’t find out until later on, after talking to an Iraqi, that when you put your hand up in the air, it means ‘Hello.’” He estimates that his men killed 30 civilians in one 48-hour period.

One day, he recalls, “there was this red Kia Spectra. We told it to stop, and it didn’t. There were four occupants. We fatally wounded three of them. We started pulling out the bodies, but they were dying pretty fast. The guy that was driving was just frickin’ bawling, sitting on the highway. He looked at me and asked, ‘Why did you kill my brother? He wasn’t a terrorist. He didn’t do anything to you.’”

Massey searched the car. “It was completely clean. Nothing there. Meanwhile the driver just ran around saying, ‘Why? Why?’ That’s when I started to question.”

The doubts led to nightmares, depression, and a talk with his commanding officer. “I feel what we are doing here is wrong. We are committing genocide,” Massey told him. He was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and given a medical discharge.

Back in his hometown of Waynesville, North Carolina, Massey got a job as a furniture salesman, then lost it after speaking at an antiwar rally. Two or three times a week, he puts on his Marine uniform and takes a long walk around the nearby town of Asheville carrying a sign that reads: “I killed innocent civilians for our government.” The local police now keep an eye out for him, he says, because people have tried to run him over.

When asked what he would say to someone who thinks the way he did before the war, Massey falls uncharacteristically silent. “How do you wake them up?” he finally responds. “It’s a slow process. All you can do is tell people the horrible things you’ve seen, and let them make up their own minds. It’s kind of the pebble in the water: You throw in a pebble, and it makes ripples through the whole pond.”

Jeffry House is reliving his past. An American draft dodger who fled to Canada in 1970 (he was number 16 in that year’s draft lottery), he is now fighting to persuade the Canadian government to grant refugee status to American deserters.

“In some ways, this is coming full circle for me,” says the slightly disheveled, 57-year-old lawyer. “The themes that I thought about when I was 21 years old now are reborn, particularly your obligation to the state when the state has participated in a fraud, when they’ve deceived you.” A dormant network has been revived, with Vietnam-era draft dodgers and deserters quietly contributing money to support the legal defense of the newest American fugitives.

House’s strategy is bold: He is challenging the very legality of the Iraq war, based on the Nuremberg principles. Those principles, adopted by a U.N. commission after World War II in response to the Nazis’ crimes, hold that military personnel have a responsibility to resist unlawful orders. They also declare wars of aggression a violation of international law. House hopes that in Canada, which did not support the war in Iraq, courts might sympathize with the deserters’ claims and grant them legal refugee status; the first of his cases was to be heard by the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board this fall.

On an August afternoon, I follow House as he darts through Toronto traffic on his way to see a new client—a young American who had been living in a homeless shelter for 10 months before revealing that he was on the run from the U.S. Navy. He disappears into a run-down brown brick building; moments later, a thin, nervous young man in shorts and a T-shirt emerges onto the sidewalk and introduces himself as Dave Sanders. Over dinner at a nearby Pizza Hut, he tells me his story.

Sanders dropped out of 11th grade in Bullhead City, Arizona, in 2001. He got his GED and was hoping to study computers, but couldn’t get financial aid. “The only reason I joined the military was to go to college,” he says. That was late 2002, and I ask Sanderswhether he then considered he might end up in combat. “I was told,” he says, “that everything would be ended by the time I got out of boot camp.”

Dave Sanders, age 20, left his Navy unit because he felt that Iraq was "a very unjust war."Sanders completed boot camp in March 2003, two days before the United States began bombing Iraq. He started training as a cryptologist; in his spare time he surfed the web, reading news from the BBC and Al Jazeera. He was growing skeptical of the administration’s motives in Iraq. “Stuff wasn’t adding up,” he recalls. “Bush was trying to connect the terrorists with Iraq, and there was no proof for that. I was starting to think that we kind of put the blame on Iraq so we could go over there and make money for companies.” He considered what his job might be if he were deployed; as a cryptologist, he could have been handling information leading to raids and arrests. “I didn’t want to be a part of putting innocent people in prison,” he says. “I felt that what we were doing there was wrong.”

In October 2003, Sanders learned that his unit was headed to Iraq. For several weeks he agonized over what to do; then he bought a one-way Greyhound ticket and headed to Toronto. He picked up odd jobs and kept quiet about his predicament, fearing that authorities might send him back to the United States. Finally, he read an article about Jeremy Hinzman, another deserter who had fled to Canada and was being represented by Jeffry House. When I spoke to Sanders, House was helping him file for refugee status.

As we talk, Sanders keeps tapping his feet and twisting his long fingers. “Sorry if I seem nervous,” he finally blurts. “I never really talked to the media before. I’m a shy person.” I ask if he surprised himself by defying his orders. He nods. “I never really thought I could stand up to a whole institution.”

Though Sanders has kept away from the spotlight, other deserters have attracted headlines around the world—and drawn criticism from the war’s supporters. Fox’s Bill O’Reilly called their actions “insulting to America, and especially to those American soldiers who have lost their lives fighting terrorists.”

But Sanders says he doesn’t actually consider himself a deserter. “I don’t think I did anything wrong by turning down an illegal order,” he says. “I don’t know what it’s called—I think it’s Nuremberg?—that’s what I followed by leaving.” When I ask if he would call himself a pacifist, he says he is not sure what the term means and asks me to explain. Then he shakes his head. “I believe if you’re being attacked you have a right to defend yourself. But right now, we are not the ones being attacked. That’s a reason I think this is a very unjust war.”

Sanders is an only child; his father served in the Marines for 13 years. “My family is pro-war, pro-Bush, pro-everything that’s happening,” he says. “They would really not support what I’m doing.” He has emailed them to tell them that he’s alive, but they have not replied. “I miss them,” he says, his eyes welling. “I love them. And I hope they can find it in their hearts to forgive me.”

Sergeant John Bruhns is sharply critical of soldiers who go AWOL. “I feel that if you are against the war, you should be man enough to stay put and fight for what you believe in,” he says. But he also doesn’t believe in making a secret of his opinions about the war. “I’m very proud of my military service,” he tells me from his post with the Army’s 1st Armored Division in Fort Riley, Kansas. “But I am disheartened and personally hurt, after seeing two people lose their limbs and a 19-year-old girl die and three guys lose their vision, to learn that the reason I went to Iraq never existed. And I believe that by being over there for a year, I have earned the right to have an opinion.”

Bruhns returned in February from a one-year deployment in Iraq. He is due to complete his Army service next March, but his unit may be “stop-lossed”—their terms extended beyond their discharge dates to meet the Pentagon’s desperate need for troops. Critics have called this a backdoor draft, a way to force a volunteer military into involuntarily serving long stints in an unpopular war. A California National Guard member has filed a lawsuit challenging the policy, and Bruhns has considered joining the case.

“I’m really a patriotic soldier,” the 27-year-old infantryman tells me; he addresses me as “sir” and stops periodically to answer the squawk of his walkie-talkie. He signed up as a full-time soldier in early 2002, after serving five years in the Marine Corps Reserve. “I was really upset about what happened on 9/11,” he recalls, “and I really wanted to serve. I lost a buddy of mine in the World Trade Center. I believe what we did in Afghanistan was right.”

But what he saw in Iraq, Bruhns says, left him disappointed. “We were fighting all the time. The only peace is what we kept with guns. A lot of stuff that we heard on the news—that we were fighting leftover loyalists, Ba’ath Party holdovers—wasn’t true. When I arrested people on raids, many of them were poor people. They weren’t in with the Ba’ath Party. The people of Iraq were attacking us as a reaction to what the majority of them felt—that they were being occupied.”

Among his fellow soldiers, Bruhns adds, a majority still support the war. But, he notes, “This is a new generation. We have the Internet, discussion forums, cable news. Soldiers don’t just march off into battle blindly anymore. They have a lot more information.”

Vietnam figures prominently in soldiers’ conversations about Iraq. Nearly every one of the Iraq veterans I spoke with has relatives who served in the military, and nearly every one told me the same story: When they grew cynical about the Iraq war, the Vietnam veterans in their family immediately recognized what was happening—that another generation of soldiers was grappling with the realization that they were being sent to carry out a policy determined by people who cared little for the grunts on the ground.

Resistance in the military “is in its infancy right now,” says Hoffman, whose cousins, uncle, and grandfather all did their time in uniform. “It’s growing, but it’s going to take a little while.

“There was a progression of thought that happened among soldiers in Vietnam. It started with a mission: Contain communism. That mission fell apart, just like it fell apart now—there are no weapons of mass destruction. Then you are left with just a survival instinct. That, unfortunately, turned to racism. That’s happening now, too. Guys are writing me saying, ‘I don’t know why I’m here, but I hate the Iraqis.’

“Now, you realize that the people to blame for this aren’t the ones you are fighting,” Hoffman continues. “It’s the people who put you in this situation in the first place. You realize you wouldn’t be in this situation if you hadn’t been lied to. Soldiers are slowly coming to that conclusion. Once that becomes widespread, the resentment of the war is going to grow even more.”

David Goodman is a Mother Jones contributing writer.

Learn more about the antiwar movement within the military by visiting Iraq Veterans Against the War

and Military Families Speak Out.

In the service? Get answers to the questions you can’t ask your commanding officers from the GI Rights Hotline at 1-800-394-9544.

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