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From the National Office

By Barry Romo

This issue of The Veteran is the largest paper VVAW has ever put out, filled with reports from new chapters and about events and demos. Because of the increased level of activity, we decided to add extra pages and an extra section.

We really want to thank Lisa Boucher for her years of editing The Veteran, helping to make it more professional. We wish her only the best.

Some thoughts on current events. We watch the media portray the murders of 32 students in Virginia in great depth, treating them as if they were human. Why won't they cover each soldier killed in Iraq the same way? Why is it considered normal to hide the deaths of Marines and GIs, or insensitive to cover them? If all the Iraqi dead and wounded were treated in detail there would not even be time on the 24-hour news to cover them all. Why can't the media live up to its potential which we certainly saw around the Virginia Tech massacre?

In Iraq, the US military has determined that one gun is enough to defend a household. In Texas the average number of guns per person is 6, and they have the Texas Rangers to defend them. Why isn't the NRA defending the rights of people of Iraq to have more than one automatic weapon per household? In a war zone, where there are no banks, almost no use of credit cards, you have to keep all your money at home, but having more than one automatic weapon is used as an excuse for taking men to detention to be tortured.

If I lived in that situation I would want one for the front door, one for the back and maybe one on the roof in case you had to defend yourself from there. The NRA is in the same position with Iraq as they were with the Black Panther Party; supporting ownership of guns for people who don't really need them while denying them to people who really are in situations that actually call for home self-defense weapons

And why aren't those trigger happy gun owning youth of the NRA youth group in the military? I'm sure after the 15th month of the 3rd tour of duty they will have a better appreciation of the kinds of things they are calling for.

The 40th anniversary of VVAW is coming up. Don't forget it is first come first serve. The best spots go to the first reservations. Also, pre-registration will tell us if we need to rent more space, buy supplies, etc. We really want to see you there. We aren't getting any younger. For some of us it may be the last chance we get to see each other in person. We want to make it a success.