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Working with IVAW

By Suzanne Webster

Sholom Keller and Suzanne Webster

This summer instead of going away on vacation with my friends or going into a study abroad program, I chose to spend the greater part of my summer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This was not in any way, form, or shape a vacation. My fiancée is an organizer with Iraq Veterans Against the War, and I chose to spend that time with him, and helping out in the IVAW National Office. Not only am I the soon to be wife of an Iraq/Afghanistan Veteran, but my father is a Vietnam Veteran and a National Coordinator of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. I have seen the way his generation was affected by war, but it was only this summer that I realized that my generation is now affected by the same issues and problems as Vietnam Veterans. I've known members of IVAW for over 3 years, and it was only then that I saw people who were in my generation face issues such as PTSD. It scared me that someone that I grew up with, a neighbor, a friend from grade school, or even a family member close to me in age can be affected by something that Vietnam Veterans worked so hard to stop during the 1970s and putting out the promise that "No generation of veterans should go through what we have been through." I see it happening to people I go to school with. Every now and then I'll see the lone person with a crew cut sitting alone staring off into the distance and I think to myself "he can't be any older than I am." Volunteering this summer with IVAW and being around the National Staff I saw that they are just as young as I am, and seeing all the endless efforts that they put into what they do. They put their personal lives aside and put in 1000%.

I live in a very conservative area where every car has a yellow ribbon magnet. This is truly a flag waving "if you don't have an American flag outside your house or support the troops and president Bush then screw you" type of place. I come from a military family in which every generation from my great grandmother on down was in the military. I am the first generation of my family who did not enter the military. When I was in 8th grade I wanted to join the Navy just like my dad did, but after 9/11 I started to change my mind. I then became heavily involved with the anti-war movement, not only because my dad was a Vietnam Veteran and was fighting for something he promised 40 years earlier, but also because it's MY generation. It's MY friends and MY classmates. The National Staff and the members who organize across the country for IVAW aren't terrorists or anti-American, they are the true Americans. My fiancée joined the Army 9 months before 9/11 even happened, because he wanted to devote his life to a cause greater than himself. He served in Afghanistan for 6 months and in Iraq for a year. After only being home a few months he was diagnosed with PTSD. Being the daughter of a Vietnam Veteran with PTSD has totally changed my life. My father and I are extremely close. I never thought anything of it until I got older and it was time for me to move on and I just never did. I just could not abandon him. Everywhere my dad went I went, everywhere I went he went. I wouldn't change any of that. Now that I am in a relationship with an OEF/OIF Vet, I see things that I never knew about my father. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think how things would be different if my father wasn't a Vietnam Vet and my fiancée wasn't an OEF/OIF Vet and if they both didn't have PTSD, but I wouldn't change them for anything in the world. My fiancée, Sholom Keller, and I are getting married this coming December in Cincinnati, Ohio. My life has a turnout that I never even thought of, but I wouldn't change it, ever.

I 'm a Sociology major at the University of Cincinnati. I am also involved with veteran's outreach on my campus. I, along with my father Marty Webster, and my fiancée, am organizing a much needed chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War in Cincinnati, Ohio.