Iraq War Veteran’s March Around Capitol Draws Hundreds of Supporters 

By Dan Bacher  

A Iraq War veteran dressed in desert fatigues has been marching around the State Capitol in Sacramento 24 hours a day since 8 a.m. on Memorial Day to remember U.S. troops killed in Iraq, spurring hundreds of volunteers to walk with him and provide other support.

The veteran, who prefers to remain anonymous to concentrate people’s attention upon the nearly 3,500 U.S. soldiers that have been killed in the Iraq War, plans to take one lap around the capitol for all U.S. troops killed in Iraq, including about 351 from California. He expects to reach the 351 milestone sometime Wednesday evening.

The veteran is carrying a yellow ribbon in memory of each fallen soldier, as well as reading the name and brief biography of each soldier on every lap he makes around the capitol. Marchers accompanying him are carrying white sheets of paper with the names of Iraqi civilians killed in Iraq since 2003 to remember the estimated 685,000 Iraqis that have perished since G.W. Bush invaded the country in March 2003.

“I decided to do this march to mobilize the community to become more active against the war and to send a strong signal to the Bush administration that we won’t put up any longer with this war,” he said. “We want to show the public how many soldiers have died so far and the need to end the war now before more people die.”  

“The march has been great in the sense that we have received a lot of community involvement. I have spoken with strangers who haven’t been active in any other way, but decided to march with me,” he said.

The veteran became opposed to the war when he was stationed as a medic in Iraq in March 2003, after having been in Kuwait and Afghanistan. 

One incident stands out most clearly in his mind. He and two other soldiers were dispatched to retrieve the body of a fallen solider. However, when they arrived, the Iraqis had already buried the solider to prevent the dogs from feeding on it.

“We didn’t bring any shovels with us, and we tried to dig up the body with our hands – and we found one of the finger bones,” he said. “Our first class petty officer then ordered us to abandon the body.”

“This was a really significant moment in my military career,” he noted. “We had a chance to get the body back to the states and yet we were told to abandon our fellow soldier’s body.”

That was not the only thing that the veteran questioned, since the civilian casualties that he encountered also greatly impacted him.  “I saw Iraqi kids and teenagers injured and badly hurt by U.S. weapons,” he stated.

When he arrived home from the war, he was angered when he heard reports from his fellow soldiers that were kicked out of the military for their injuries during the war, but received only partial disability benefits. He also was very dismayed by the many soldiers he saw that were not getting proper treatment for post traumatic stress syndrome by the military and the Veterans Administration.
 
“I met one veteran who kept having seizures after being forced out of the military without full compensation,” he reflected. “Yet he couldn’t hold down a normal job because of his disability."

The anonymous veteran had as of 3:30 p.m. completed 325 half-mile laps around the Capitol. When I visited him today, he was in good spirits, but very tired. He is currently suffering with back, leg and foot problems, often reducing his walk to a slow, painful shuffle, and volunteer medical personnel are monitoring his health.
 
The veteran’s march began on Monday with a press conference attended by 100 supporters, including representatives of Veterans for Peace, Military Families Speak Out, Sacramento Area Peace Action, Sacramento for Democracy, the Central America Action Committee and Gold Star Families for Peace. Since then, hundreds more have walked laps with the veteran or by themselves, as well as staff a literature booth and provide refreshments and food for the walkers.

Tina Wong of Military Families Speak out emphasized that the veteran’s march helps to put a human face on the costs of war.

“Each soldier was a son or daughter, a father or mother, a wife or husband,” she stated. “Each life was precious and each fallen solider was loved by someone. We continue to proclaim that the best way to support the troops is by withdrawing funds for this war and to fund the care that is needed for them when they come home.”

Zohreh Whittaker, whose son is currently deployed in Iraq, deplored the loss of U.S. and Iraqi lives in the war. “Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed and the infrastructure has been destroyed. It is time to pull our troops out of Iraq and the U.S. needs to pay the cost of rebuilding the infrastructure of Iraq,” she said.

Three marchers from a Nationwide March for Peace, Ashley Casales, Michael Israel and Susan Liu, also walked laps around the capitol on Monday in support of the veteran. They had began their march to Washington D.C. in San Francisco the week before.

Ayad Al-Quazzaz, a professor of sociology at California State University, Sacramento, and other members of the Iraq American community in Sacramento also demonstrated their solidarity with the anonymous veteran in his desire to make the war real to the American people and the politicians.

“I hope that he will get the attention of the public as well as the media,” said Al-Quazzaz. “Hopefully, the Democrats, who voted to fund George Bush’s war last week, will soon get the point, since a lot of them aren’t getting the point now. U.S forces should get out of Iraq. They created the problem and encouraged the sectarian tendencies now flaring up. By removing the U.S. occupying forces, you remove the most important cause of Iraq’s current problems.”  

Pat Sheehan, the father of Casey Sheehan and former husband of peace mom Cindy Sheehan, spent five hours walking with the Iraq veteran on Monday and marched for over an hour with him again on Tuesday.
“Today is Casey’s birthday,” said Sheehan. “Casey is 28 years old today – his spirit lives on. I walked with the veteran for my son and all of the other soldiers that have died in this war.”

He added, “the veteran made a difference before he started walking when he made a conscious decision to not disclose his own identify. By doing this, he is shining the light on the fallen in Iraq.”

Many supporters and passersby remarked on the withdrawal Monday of Cindy Sheehan from the anti-war movement.

“I think that Sheehan’s departure from the anti-war movement is going to have an impact,” said Karen Bernal of Sacramento for Democracy, who worked closely with Sheehan at Camp Casey in 2005 and 2006. “It is definitely going to test the anti-war movement and the media, since she was the public face of the movement.”

Bernal noted that activists need to get out of “the cult of idol worship.” 

“We are good at putting down American Idol and all that it represents, but we perhaps we have created our own idols,” she said. “This was never Cindy’s intention. Her intention was put a flesh and blood face to the pain that we talk about as an abstraction -and she did that. She represented the typical American mom. And I imagine she will continue to do that in the future.” 

A major announcement concerning the veteran’s health will be made during a press conference to be held on Thursday May 31, 9:30 a.m. on the North Side of the building (sidewalk, facing L St.).  

“The announcement is expected to greatly expand the walk for those killed in Iraq,” said Cres Vellucci, spokesman for the Sacramento Coalition to end the War. “Details will be released then.”

For more information, contact: Cres Vellucci, Veterans for Peace, 916/996-9170.