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United We Stand

By Sgt. Selena Coppa

When, as an active duty soldier, I first started to turn against the war, I believed that I was alone. I don't remember when precisely the turn came, but I remember being yelled at by leadership for signs I displayed in my barracks room, and I remember thinking that that was the way it always would be. One lone voice against a horde. That it would be lost in the shuffle. Even when I began talking to soldier after soldier, and they all told me that they did not believe in the war, I believed I was alone in wanting to speak up and do something about it.

Active Duty Sgt. Selena Coppa addresses the crowd at the conclusion of IVAW's 2 Day, 25 Mile Ruck March, from Philly's Constitution Hall to Valley Forge

Then I joined IVAW – Iraq Veterans Against the War. They promised that "you are not alone", and as I grew more active in the movement, I realized that it wasn't just lip service. I was not the only individual speaking on the platform. I was not the only person marching in formation, calling anti-war cadence. I was not the only person organizing an event that I thought would alert the American people to the problems inherent in an occupation.

But I still didn't understand the full meaning until I attended Winter Soldier. Winter Soldier was, and I think always will be, a pivotal moment both in my life and for IVAW. Fifty testifiers, all raising their voices, with hundreds of IVAW members and supportive VVAW and VFP members there to watch. Media finally covering the stories they'd been ignoring so long, walking around like excited schoolchildren, eager to touch a piece of history. Every word, coming out of every mouth, was painful to speak and painful to hear, but as soon as you got outside the testimony room, you were enveloped. Members everywhere, members with their wives, members with their children, members playing frisbee on the lawn. Members dancing the night away with the bands. Coming in at three in the morning, back to the room, and seeing VVAW and VFP members in the testifier support room, just waiting for someone to walk in.

I will never forget Carlos Arredondo embracing the marines who had served with his son, tears in his eyes to finally touch them, love them, the men who had been with his child when he could not. Just as I cannot forget how everything was shared: food, liquor, cars, rooms, clothing. I saw Jabbar Magruder give another man the suit off of his back when that testifier's own formal clothing wasn't ready in time for the panel. You could not go hungry, not be tired, not lack a single thing at Winter Soldier, because there were always others there who were ready to provide it.

Was it hard? Of course it was hard. Anytime you shove a lot of people with PTSD into a small space and ask them to relive their traumas, it is bound to be hard. Everyone knew that: everyone testifying and even everyone attending knew that that was the cost which had been named, considered, and accounted for. It wasn't easy even to be present at a single panel. I myself was only able to sit through one in its entirety, and I was shaking through the end of it. I was shaking through the panel I chaired as well. Tempers flared, the demons in the darkness were triggered. Things that had been buried for a long time were rising to the surface. I considered myself strong before, but I nearly broke down twice. Were it not for the strength of Jason Washburn, one of my fellow testifiers and someone I am proud and honored to know, and the support of an anonymous VVAW member working as a Homefront Battle Buddy that I wish I did know, I would have. "It took me twenty years to learn to hit pillows instead of walls" that Vietnam veteran told me, and it broke on me like a revelation, like the dawn. Because I didn't have to wait twenty years to learn it for myself. I didn't have to reinvent the wheel. Those who had gone before were there for me. Those who had experience at handling their rage and grief were there with their wisdom, to help me through.

And it wasn't over when the last of the diehards convoyed out on the evening of the 16th, a rag-tag troop carrying the last of the baggage to Philadelphia, packed into cars and trucks like a gypsy caravan. No, the toll and the impact of Winter Soldier was only beginning. Disowned by family, with former military friends refusing to associate with me, it would have been impossible to recover from, if I were truly alone. Instead I found family where I never thought to look for it. Hart Viges, Jason Hurd, Ronn Cantu, Zollie and Daisy Goodman...I can never possibly name all of my brothers in the IVAW without which I would never have been able to continue. Nor can I name the countless allies, who knowing that IVAW would need some space to recover from the emotional drain, stepped up into the gap to make sure that we would never suffer what they did.

These people are and will always be my family now. The people I testified with, the people who watched and helped and supported me, those people will always be my family. The people that helped me up when I fell, that held me while I shed blood and tears on them, that offered themselves at any time of night, no matter what I might need...those people will always be closer than my own blood to me. I know that as long as they live, I will never be alone, and while I live, they will never be. It's as though Winter Soldier were its own small war-and we survived. We survived, and we will continue to survive-we will survive because we have to fight. And we're going to fight until this war is over, and we're going to fight until every one of us has the treatment we deserve. But we're not-I know now with every fibre of my being we're not-going to fight alone.

Day 2 of the Ruck March - IVAW Winter Soldiers pass 1777 Log Cabins of Original Winter Soldiers