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Veterans Day in Chicago

By Ken Nielsen

For over twenty years, Vietnam Veterans Against the War in Chicago have paid respect to their brothers and sisters on Veterans Day by speaking out against war and imperialism, speaking up for veterans and active-duty soldiers and reminding the general population that war is the worst possible option in any circumstances.

Pat Vogel of MFSO, Veterans Day 2005, Chicago

This event was held at various locations in the city over the years until 1982, when Mayor Jane Byrne and Cardinal Bernardin dedicated the first Vietnam War memorial in the country, at the intersection of Wacker and Wabash. The memorial contained a time capsule that listed all of the names of soldiers from Chicago who died in Vietnam. From that day forward, VVAW's ceremony was fittingly conducted at the memorial; that is, until the current mayor, Rich Daley, decided to reconstruct Wacker Drive in 1998 and proceeded to lose the nation's first Vietnam War memorial. Despite all of the city's excuses, let's just recall that Jane Byrne's name was on the memorial, not Daley's. The mayor's solution to this small reminder of his family's short lapse of control over Chicago was to destroy an important and historically significant memorial, and then build his own. In the words of Barry Romo, "Not only was this city the first city to have a city memorial to Vietnam vets, we were also the first city in the world to lose a memorial."

Veterans Day, November 11, 2005 saw the dedication of the city's new Vietnam War memorial, located nearly underground, steps away from one of the state's dirtiest rivers, and almost completely hidden to anyone not taking a vomit-inducing boat tour. It's a nice memorial; there's grass, and a new fountain. But the whole thing has been treated just like veterans in this country: kept out of sight and out of mind. Except, of course, for the dedication. That was where the mayor got to show off his fellow war supporters, busing in Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legionnaires from the suburbs to stock his event.

During the five years the city was hard at work locating the original Vietnam War memorial, VVAW held their ceremony at eleven AM across the street from where the original memorial had been, which just happened to be up a flight of stairs from Daley and his new war memorial. Having secured a permit to hold the ceremony at that time and that place nearly a year before Veterans Day, VVAW, due to the proximity to the new memorial and the dedication, was forced to stand down by Chicago's finest until Daley's machine was done with its speeches, which reshaped history (the United States won the war in Vietnam?) and blindly supported the current war in Iraq.

Luckily, the city's exercise in senility didn't last long, and VVAW, along with a couple hundred others, began their ceremony. The first speaker was Cody Camacho, an Iraq War veteran who served with the 41st Field Artillery and the 72nd MP Company at the Abu Ghraib prison from March 2003 to March 2004. After giving a firsthand confirmation of the torture that occurred at Abu Ghraib, Cody described some of the problems he faces after returning from the war. "You can't get back. The nightmares, the shakes, the hollow feeling of a soul that's dry for what seems like no reason at all. The recruiter never said that I wouldn't be able to look my mom in the eye when it was over." Cody called for support for returning veterans and thanked veterans of previous wars for helping him and others muster the courage it takes to oppose the war.

Barry Romo, Veterans Day 2005, Chicago

Another Iraq War veteran, Dave Adams, who served with the 101st Airborne Division in 2003, spoke of an incident in which his convoy ran down a small child in the streets of Al Khut and was not able to stop to assist the child, due to their orders. After having been told that his mission was "to win the hearts and minds" of Iraqis, Dave struggled to make sense of this incident, and it became one of the many contradictions he witnessed in Iraq that helped shape his current feelings about the war. Dave went on to issue a challenge: "We have to go home and engage our neighbors, our family, our friends. We have to call our representatives and ask for change, demand change. Ask them what they're doing to stop this war now."

Other speakers at the ceremony were VVAW's GI counselor, Ray Parrish, who talked about the sorry state of GI benefits in Illinois; Dr. David Gill, a Democratic candidate for Congress in Illinois, an emergency-room doctor who has consistently spoke out against the war in Iraq; Nick Egnatz, a VVAW member from Indiana, who spoke about his trip to DC and lobbying with Cindy Sheehan; and Cesar Ruvalcaba, a veteran who served with the 10th Mountain Division in Somalia, who shared his experiences returning home from the Army with physical disabilities and spoke of his battle to gain compensation for his active-duty-related injuries. The military's practice of preying on minorities and those of low income to fill their ranks, he said, is a modern form of slavery.

VVAW national coordinator Barry Romo was the moderator of the ceremony. He started the day's events by providing historical details about the original Vietnam War memorial, as outlined earlier. Barry added, "Six months to two years to get your first visit [at the VA]? People coming back from Iraq can't wait; they'll be dead, they'll be alcoholics, they'll be doing drugs—anything to get to sleep. The money for the VA should set be in stone. It should not be discretionary."

The event's final speaker was Pat Vogel of Military Families Speak Out. Pat posed a number of excellent questions aimed at those who praise the troops and support the war. "If we feel this way about these people [the troops], why are we betraying them so badly? Why are we sending them off to war, a war based on lies? Why are we treating them as pawns? And especially, why are we leaving them in a no-win situation with absolutely no end-point in sight?"

The ceremony concluded as the crowd silently placed flowers on a nearby monument and paused to reflect on the day's events, on veterans, and on all of the soldiers who have fallen.

Cody Camacho of IVAW, Veterans Day 2005, Chicago