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Chicago Vietnam Veterans Against the War and supporters honor fallen servicemen on Memorial DayBy Chicago VVAWChicago Vietnam Veterans Against the War and supporters honor fallen servicemen on Memorial Day
For Immediate Release
Bring the Troops Home Calling for an "end to the Iraqi War," members and supporters of the group Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) will join together for its annual commemoration of military veterans at the corner of Wacker and Wabash from 11 a.m.-noon, on Memorial Day, May 31. The event is endorsed by Military Families Speak Out. Currently, over 700 American troops have been killed while stationed in Iraq with the number of Iraqi civilians deaths reach into the thousands. "The Bush Administration started this war under false pretenses and has put the lives of our family members, our friends and our loved ones at risk with their continued lies and mismanagement. No one can understand the courage, the hard work and the danger that our fellow service men and women face everyday better than us. It is time to honor these troops and their lives by bringing them home," says VVAW National Staff Member Barry Romo. "I don't want to have a thousand more dead American soldiers by next Memorial Day." Speakers at the event will include Vietnam War veterans, an Iraqi war veteran and family members of military personnel currently stationed in Iraq. Rosemary Dietz-Slavenas's son, a member of Military Families Speak Out, lost her son Lt. Brian Slavenas, a helicopter pilot on November 2, 2003 with 15 other U.S. troops when his Chinook helicopter was shot down over Falluja. "There is a Bible passage, 'I will build my kingdom and the gates of hell will not prevail.' Initiating a war, we have opened the gates of hell and sent our children through them," says |