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Organizing Winter Soldier

By Aaron Hughes

In the basement cafeteria of an oversized, modern styled, dorm building at the University of Illinois, I sat drinking coffee and listening to Barry Romo and Joe Miller talk of the struggle. The conversation went back and forth between memories, ideas, thoughts, ideologies, and today's political landscapes. In some ways I was really afraid of these two men. Barry was rocking back and forth in his seat like a preteen and speaking in bursts that I thought were going to knock Joe over. Joe was so cool and collected it was hard to think that he was some type of radical. Regardless, I sat there unsure of myself and waiting for my opportunity to spring Barry with the question that had been on my mind for days. Finally, I broke in with the question, "Barry? What about doing another Winter Soldier Investigation?"

Barry stopped his rocking and looked me in the eye and said coldly, "People will never forgive you." I was unsure of what Barry meant with that response and I still am unsure. But perhaps it has to do with the fact that he still has not, nor have I, and I am sure many of you have not...forgiven ourselves.

That was the winter of 2006. I was still an undergrad, had only been back from the war two years, had never met another Iraq veteran outside of my unit, let alone an IVAW member, and had just become an IVAW member myself. I was convinced though...that if just enough veterans gathered, if just enough of us told the truth about the war, if there was just another Winter Soldier, the shroud that covers the complex realities of war, occupation, dehumanization, racism, and hate would be torn in two and the war would come to a screeching halt.

A few months earlier my cell phone rang and it was Harrell Fletcher an artist and professor that I really looked up to. He called to ask me if I had ever seen a documentary called Winter Soldier. I had not, but told him I would check it out. He then suggested remaking the documentary and hence the idea of Winter Soldier-Iraq and Afghanistan was born.

It was my first time meeting other IVAW members and it was an emotional marathon. I mean it was crazy. We went from marching to cadence calling to drinking to speeches to poetry readings to lobbying to karaoke...and in the mess of all that two crucial ideas were shared between Garrett, Geoff, and myself. 1.) The idea for Operation First Casualty or a combat patrol of Washington DC for the anniversary of the war. The idea was to bring the truth of the war home. 2.) Winter Soldier or in other words veterans to no longer let others speak for them but instead to stand up and claiming a space to be heard. Garrett and Geoff took off with the ideas for OFC and told me to talk to another member named Fernando out of NYC about Winter Soldier.

Ryan Lockwood and I flew out to DC to patrol the streets with other IVAW. Once again the day was intense. But during our lunch break I took a few minuets to hand out Winter Soldier postcards. I was trying to get more guys involved with helping make it a reality. Luckily some of the guys were interested. Perry, Liam and Adam all thought it was a good idea but it was still on the back burner and washed over by the theatrics and spectacle of OFC.

By this time Fernando and I had developed a pretty good relationship. We had talked a number of times about Winter Soldier and spent a good amount of time researching the first Winter Soldier. We thought we were on our way to making it happen. I started to mention the idea on the strategy team (a national team of IVAW members that worked to develop tactics that made sense within our national strategy) calls and trying to get more members involved. Liam got re-excited by the idea and started thinking of a way to share it with other members at the national meeting later in the month.

Liam (IVAW Boston) and Fernando (IVAW NYC) really sat down and started to work through a first questionnaire draft. (This is funny thinking back on it now. The questionnaire was maybe redrafted 20 or so times for the next 6 months.) The three of us tried desperately to get more members involved to talk to other members as much as possible about this idea called Winter Soldier. And to be honest we barley made any headway and to be honest I think it was the ANSWER march that was on everyone's mind.

The strategy team blew up. A number of newly motivated members started to show up on the call and there were heated debates about what was to come next for IVAW. I still remember pacing the streets of New York in heated discussion unsure of where I was walking or what was passing me. The discussion, I believe, revolved around a Truth In Recruiting campaign and the different tactics that members had come up with. There were posters, fliers, bases, recruiting stations, civil disobedience, chapters, allies, and even buses to consider.

Winter Soldier was brought up but it was still so far off. You see IVAW was a reactionary organization always reacting to other organizations events and leaving as short amount of time as possible to plan our own event. That was at least true until the Winter Soldier campaign got into full gear.

The team kicked into full gear when Adrienne (IVAW Northeast coordinator) and Perry (IVAW NY) joined the team. Martin (IVAW IL), Jethro (IVAW Staff), Nick (IVAW staff) joined shortly after rounding the team out to a solid group dedicated to weekly calls hundreds of emails.

Weekly calls and we still had no common orientation. The calls dragged on wavering this way and that with out having consensus on what Winter Soldier was and what the goals were. In fact we had not even agreed on the name we were going to use. I think the ideas ranged from Summer Soldier to Desert Soldier to Winter Soldiers Speak Out. Nothing had been decided. Not the location, not the name, not the goals, nor the roles of the organizers.

Liam, Fernando, Perry, Adrienne, and I started having two-hour phone calls daily about what we were doing. I drew up an organizing diagram and came up with some team roles. Perry started coming up with some goals. Members of the team started to identify what roles they could fill and what roles we still needed to fill.

Liam took on media, Perry and Fernando took on verification, Adrienne and I took on outreach, but we were still missing key organizers like fundraising, audio visual, housing, travel, and I am not sure what else but the task looked daunting. Jose (IVAW NYC) stepped up to help with mental health and we recruited Lily (DC organizer) to help with logistics. By the end of the month we had filled out our team. Bringing in key people like Emilie (DC media coordinator) to help with media and Amadee (IVAW staff) to help with fundraising/finances.

Ok so now that this thing called Winter Soldier was planned for less then four months away we finally all came to a sit down. The first thing on the agenda was reaffirming the goals of Winter Soldier. The second was starting a discussion around messaging. This was a battle. We argued the better part of the day about what was the message. From giving veterans a space to speak and claim their own agency to the ideas of honor and that it was honorable to speak out. We were able to come to some agreements and begin to construct goals for our different teams. With the goals we started to develop a time-line... a time-line that took us from the dozen or so members in that room to the day of the first panel.

The calls get intense and the board steps in and asks if we are actually going to be able to pull this event off.

"Yes, we are!" was the response. The organizational structure was nothing like we had done before. The regional coordinator and the chapter leaders had to play a crucial role to get members involved. This was no longer an action that a few motivated members recruited a group of other members. No, instead the outreach was on the grassroots level. All the RCs and Chapter leaders started calling members asking them how they wanted to be involved in Winter Soldier, what it would take to get them to help with the organizing of the event, if they were interested in testifying. The number of members involved went from ten to twenty to a hundred to two hundred over the next month and a half.

This meeting was more then twice the size of the first meeting. We had locked down a space at the amazing National Labor College. We had over 100 confirmed members attending and close to 80 members ready to testify. We had a director to do the documentary. We had raised a fair amount of funds from VVAW, VFP and MFSO and were on our way financially. Members had started to get press around the value of Winter Soldier. The organizing machine was in full swing. We spent a large portion of the time working through the panels and finalizing the messaging.

Over 200 members of IVAW arrived at the National Labor College by car, bus, train, and plane. Members came from as far away as Europe. Over two hundred media outlets were there and the panels started with out a hitch.

Over two hundred members claimed the space of Winter Soldier to assert the value of their voice and tell the stories that are locked away trapped by guilt and shame. The testifiers sat in front of their nation and put all they had on the table. Taking that guilt that sat on their hearts and placed it on the table so the rest of our society could help them carry it. That guilt is not just a veteran's guilt to carry but all of ours to carry. Perhaps when our society denies and represses a connection to the guilt (that is the missing and silent pain of war) that society finds it hard to accept that shared weight and forgive. So perhaps when Barry told me that, "People will never forgive you," he meant that parts of our society would never be able to help carry the burden of guilt. I do believe Barry was right about that but I am here to help and we as a movement must be prepared to help carry that weight as we struggle up hill to peace and justice.

Thanks to all that helped make Winter Soldier a reality. This is a short timeline of Winter Soldier Iraq and Afghanistan and I apologize to all the hard working members of the WS team that were not noted above.

Aaron Hughes at Chicago VVAW's Memorial Day event, 2007