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VVAW Joins with VFP Members for Katrina Relief WorkBy Ward ReillyWhen I left the Crawford, Texas demonstration, I didn't think I would see many of the people that were there again until September 24 in Washington, but I was wrong. Bill Perry of VVAW was one of a handful of vets that escorted Cindy Sheehan to Crawford, on the "White Rose," the Impeachment Tour bus of Veterans for Peace (VFP) #116, a California chapter. The "White Rose" was scheduled to tour the south on the way to the demonstration in Washington, DC on September 24, but Hurricane Katrina changed their plans.
I live in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and while we were hit fairly hard by Katrina, we got off easy compared to the areas of my state more to the south. At the same time that the Camp Casey demonstration was coming to an end in Crawford, Katrina hit and completely destroyed New Orleans with floodwaters when the levees failed in several places. Imagine a city of about one million people losing every job and every business overnight, and only then can you begin to picture what has happened down here. I was lucky to be without power for only five days, and I was soon back online; only one tree came down in my backyard, missing my house by several feet. But New Orleans was wiped out completely. Camp Casey had been well-supplied, and the VFP team decided to head to south Louisiana to help, bringing all the leftover supplies from the Crawford action with them. The "White Rose" had a satellite dish, and the VFP team headed for Covington, Louisiana, directly across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans, and established the first communications in the area. Over the course of the next two weeks, in a relief effort that is still happening, VFP #116 teamed up with myself and hundreds of volunteers from all over the country in an unbelievable grassroots relief effort, completely bypassing the inept government and the $50 billion wasted on Homeland Security that did nothing. Because 40% of Louisiana's National Guard troops and 75% of their equipment were in Iraq, there was no first response made by our National Guard, and our citizens were literally left to die, stranded on off-ramps and rooftops as the Bush administration did nothing during the critical first four or five days.
To date, we have had 250 volunteers show up, distributing the more than 3,000 packages that have been mailed to me in Baton Rouge from every state in the union, getting food, clothing and untold quantities of dry goods directly to victims all over southeast Louisiana and southwest Mississippi. Tractor-trailers filled with goods from Chicago, California, New York, and elsewhere also brought enormous quantities of relief goods. VFP members Gordon Soderberg, Pat Tate, and Dennis Kyne (and a few others that I regretfully can't remember) have done an astonishing job of organizing a pipeline of communications and supplies. They have been treated with hostility and suspicion from FEMA and even the Red Cross, who sit around and do almost nothing, while our team of veterans and helpers do a remarkable job in getting real aid to real people in need. Michael Moore even got involved and helped us raise much-needed money, money that red tape has denied us access to. Everything has been done "out of pocket," which is nothing new to this bunch of heroes. Cindy Sheehan also altered her tour to lend support on September 14, and her presence alone was a real morale helper, as it had been in the upper 90s every day since Katrina struck, and the work was hard. Woody Powell, the former executive director of VFP, also came down and pitched in for five days. When this effort is all said and done, a proper thank-you will be forthcoming, but I just wanted to let you know that VVAW and VFP have gone above and beyond to help our wounded state, and we owe the volunteers much gratitude. It will be months, if not years, before New Orleans recovers, but we will be back! Make Mardi Gras, not war!
He joined VVAW originally in 1972, and re-upped in 2001.
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