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Winter Soldier - Let It Snow!

By Russ Scheidler

Russ Scheidler at Winter Soldier

You've entered the No Fly Zone over Waybelo, MN. It's the last day of March and the home team is playing the baseball opener. It started snowing about 9 o'clock this morning and it's still snowing now that the game is over. Some parts around here will see a foot of snow before it's all said and done. I guess I'll never understand the maniac millionaires who are building a new baseball stadium without a roof in a place where snow can stop a baseball game at both the beginning and the end of the season. They continue to do things that just don't make any sense. Like, building a new stadium with taxpayer's money that has no roof in a place that has five months of winter or starting wars in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. Things that you just cannot win.

I mean look at history. The Twins were frequently snowed out of their early season games and they finally had to build a stadium with a dome roof. Now they want to build another with no roof. Hey, the weather here can kill you in more ways than one. Now, the maniac millionaires have started wars in the two most lethal places on the planet. Just ask Alexander the Great or any of the Caesars or the British. Nobody has been able to subdue these two places for any length of time. Perhaps the people are just too crazy or the environment is just too extreme.

So, the home team won the season opener and that always feels good. Still, I could not go for more than half an inning without thinking about the Winter Soldier Investigation that happened in Washington, DC on March 13-16. Maybe it was all the snow outside, but it sure feels like the winter of our discontent.

I went with a contingent of other VetSpeak.org compatriots. We were like the parents, or even grandparents, of the Iraq Veterans Against the War, people who testified to the truth of the current wars. There has never been a war without abuse of the populace and there never will be. The old Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) folks who came to provide security for the testimonies, all came knowing we were attending a moment in history.

We were not disappointed. The new, well-funded, version of the Swift Boat Liars for Bush had threatened to disrupt the proceedings. The Gathering of Eagles, now also known as "The Beagles" or "The Gaggle of Geese" (they got some new nicknames there), could not put up more than about 40or 50 people at a time. They even were offering to pay people's travel fares to come and disrupt the proceedings, and let them sleep in their DC office if they couldn't afford a hotel room.

The DC cops took them at their word and came out in force. By the late afternoon of the first day, they were closing down shop. They had prepared to be very busy but were bored instead. The VetSpeak and VVAW folks manning the gate surprised the cops by being very efficient gatekeepers throughout the facilities.The only disruption came from an old guy who snuck in and made about two seconds of disruption before he was competently removed from the proceedings.

Perhaps, the most magical moment came when Dick Gregory arrived and attended for a while. He is still a magnificent individual. He did not forget that at the first Winter Soldier Investigation in 1971, the Vietnam Veterans dispersed the Michigan Nazi Party members with relish! I pray the man lives for another hundred years. But, I drone on.

The real stars of the day were the Iraq and Afghan Veterans Against the War. They brought tears to all that heard their testimonies. They brought much hope to my heart. There was even a phone call from an active duty unit in the war that was ready to provide any testimony they wanted! It seems that the proceedings were produced live streaming on the internet.

I was on the security team, so, I heard very little of the testimony. I pray that the media that was there will produce some of the most elegant recordings that the world has ever seen. For that was the quality of the proceedings. It is unfortunate that the domestic media buried this elegant affair.

This generation of veterans has so much more on the ball than we had. They are, without exception that I saw, levelheaded, intelligent, and committed that this madness must end.

Every single one of them, that I had the privilege to speak with, was effusive with praise for the security job that the old guys and gals were doing. Even more gratitude was given for the work that we did a generation ago. "If you guys hadn't done what you did back then, we wouldn't have had a place to start."

So, where does a veteran get off determining that the war he fights is wrong? A veteran on the podium answered that question, "Well, we're not really stupid!"

Two more wars down and again the first casualty is Truth! The maniac millionaires lied about both wars and now we're stuck in a quagmire civil war in Iraq and the Taliban have just grown the largest poppy crop the world has ever known. Watch out for cheap heroin flooding a town near you.

My companions and I drove all the way and arrived home mere hours before it snowed again, 3-5 inches. It's late tonight and it's still snowing.

I am very honored to have participated in the recent Winter Soldier Investigation as a member of the security force. I feel lucky to still be alive after a generation of Post Traumatic Stress (I keep working to not let it become a disorder "D").

So, let the new generation take the reins, or pass the torch or whatever seems the right analogy to you. These young people are the best I've ever seen.

Hey, it's still snowing outside! Winter Soldier, let it snow!

Semper Fi,

Russ Scheidler