News & Commentary from Veteran Writers/Activists
On the flyleaf of a school notebook I’d purchased at a papelaria in Salvador, Bahia, where I was on assignment in Brazil to write a destination piece in 1984, I found the following stanzas from a 19th century poem by Casimiro de Abreu: Correi pr’as bandas do sul Debaixo dum céu de anil Encontrareis o gigante Santa Cruz, hoje Brasil; — É uma terra de amores Alcatifada de flores Onde a brisa fala … [Read more...]
Members of the class of 1961 gathered on an unseasonably cool September evening at the Hibernian Hall in Babylon, Long Island to commemorate the fiftieth year since our graduation from the local high school. More than eighty graduates had committed to attending. Adding spouses and partners, well over a hundred men and women filled the hall for the Friday evening buffet. Not to belabor the obvious, but most folks on … [Read more...]
Oh very young what will you leave us this time? - Cat Stevens. When the county paper comes out each Thursday, I usually give it a ritual briefing. It’s a broadsheet full of the humdrum town affairs and local doings. Selectmen’s meetings get a lot of ink, and whose bid won the winter ploughing contract, that sort of thing. The culture vultures of every taste promote a steady stream of art openings and … [Read more...]
If ‘justice for all’ were more than misty sentiment appended to a perfunctory ‘pledge of allegiance,’ H.R. 2634 -- a bill seeking broad and long delayed remedial action on behalf of all Vietnam Era victims of Agent Orange -- would sail through Congress and gain swift approval from the President. Introduced by California Congressman Bob Filner, the senior Democrat on the House Veteran’s Affairs Committee, … [Read more...]
Growing up in the fifties after the Big War my imagination often turned on the prospects of soldiering. All the boys I knew expected they'd be soldiers one day. But I doubt any of us gave much thought to what it meant to be a veteran. Those were the old guys wearing "piss-cutters,"[1] limping along behind the color guard at the 4th of July parade. Their club house, the American Legion hall, had the off-limit's … [Read more...]
Editor’s Note: In The Mind Field is re-posting this article by Michael Uhl to consciously provoke dialogue both inside and outside our Veterans For Peace community among those who might take exception to its main premises. The writers on this blog will soon launch a forum to analyze and critique the tactical trends that predominate in the antiwar movement today. The goal is to explore the political realities of 2011 … [Read more...]
