Marchin' to New Orleans

So What Now ? ? ?

The Veterans and Survivors March along the Gulf Coast from Mobile to New Orleans was, indeed, a most stupendous and wondrous event for those of us that partook in it. It has inexorably changed each one of us who participated; it carved in consciousness an awareness that something is changing among those who witnessed it along the way, the vast majority of folks who supported us, the minority of those who were opposed to us. We made a hopeful, heartfelt impact on ourselves and on most of the survivors who witnessed us. Together we survived an ordeal, shared discomforts, were buoyed by the heartfelt joys of the experience, gloriously celebrated in drumming, singing, dancing and deep connection in conversation and fellowship. We created a spiritual bond between us in the commonground of our shared "experience, strength and hope," to borrow a most apt phrase from the 12-step recovery movement.

The real challenge for us now will be to determine together what comes next. Many of us sense that this action is much more than just the March itself last week, that this is the merest, most nascent beginning of a movement among ourselves together with the survivors of the Hurricane to do better than government can do to create rebuilt communities, to engender a renewed spirit of democracy, to birth a nationwide movement more committed to peace and justice among our people.

This is our challenge to ensure that what we accomplished last week during the march is much more than the one protest sign we encountered indicated, a mere "showboat". We must concretely build on the synergistic energy we experienced last week through continued follow-up action to continue to help ourselves and the survivors on the Gulf Coast build, as the old Harry Chapin song intones, "a better place to be."

Some of us have begun discussing the possibilities on Stan Goff's blog Feral Scholar. Join in this discussion and together we shall continue to overcome.

Power to the Peaceful !~!~!

The Last Day: New Orleans

Hard to believe it has been one full week since we ended the "Marchin' to New Orleans" action at Congo Square in Louis Armstrong Park, on the edge of the mostly untouched French Quarter.

We left Chalmette National Cemetery mid-morning and marched into the nearby 9th Ward. The devastation from this most infamous of destroyed places in New Orleans as a result of the broken levees was awful to behold.

The streets were filled with debris, garbage and most of the houses were boarded up.

The shot above reminded me of a similar shot I took in Mutur after the Tsunami.

Though historically one of the poorer neighborhoods of New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina nevertheless transformed this 1st-World environment into a 3rd-World dump.

We passed by Fats Domino's house whose "Walkin' to New Orleans" was our theme song.

We had a rousing impromptu rally at the Martin Luther King School.

Here a couple of community organizers, one black woman and one white woman, told us that when the local New Orleans government told them this 9th Ward school and community center was not scheduled to be opened until 2008, they announced to the school board that the community would reopen it in several months. Volunteers have been scrounging for their own materials and doing their own work to clean up the school and do the necessary repairs, to supply their own power with generators, to bring in portapotties and potable water, etc. -- anything necessary on their own initiative rather than wait for the slow, red-tape-creating, ineffective and inefficient government efforts. This is local community-minded spirit, actively working together, the people doing for themselves, that will most likely rebuild New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast, much better than any government effort.

Here is the now repaired levee that was breaced during the Hurricane flooding the 9th Ward.

Here is the St. Roch Market, closed for now.

Finally, we made it to Louis Armstrong Park.

In Congo Square, we danced and cavorted before we were graced by rousing speeches from IVAW, Goldstar Families Against the War, VFP, Military Families Speak Out, local Survivor organizers, etc.

I was most impressed by this painting by a young local New Orleans artist of an Ur-soldier, a haunting image combining elements from the soldiers of my uneccessary war in Vietnam and today's unnecessary war in Iraq.

The last shot I took as people faded away, making their way seperately in twos and threes to start their journey back home, was of this New Orleans' IVAW member, Michael Cuzzort, who wore the tilted shit-house shoulder patch of the !st Log Command that I was part of in Vietnam.

I told him I envied him that he had been able to go airborne as a member of the 1st Log Command. Way back in my day the only way I would have been able to do that would have been if I were willing to do the Vietnam War's version of stop-loss, go "Voluntary--Indefinite". This was a one-way contract between you and Uncle Sam, in which you had to do a minimum of three-years active duty. At the end of your initial three-year commitment, IF Uncle Sam wanted to honor your contract he would let you out. If not, Uncle Sam could keep you on active duty indefinitely. Nope, though I was stupid and gung-ho and really wanted to jump out of perfectly good airplanes, in no way was I willing to stay on active duty with the Army any longer than absolutely necessary. A solid two-year USAR citizen soldier only was I.

I met up with my high-school buddy, Joe, who recently moved back to New Orleans, at Louis Armstrong Park, and we took Jim Driscoll, Tuscon friend and founder of Vets4Vets, back out to St. Mary's of Vietnam Church in East New Orleans where he had left his car. I was exhausted, but it was most refreshing to take a long full shower in Joe's apartment, and after a wonderful filet mignon at New Orleans' famed Snug Harbor Jazz Club, I crashed and slept soundly on Joe's floor.

The next morning, Monday, after cafe au lait and the wonderful powder-sugared beignets at Cafe Du Monde, about a ten-minute walk from Joe's apartment, we drove around New Orleans, and Joe showed me the other areas of the City, the middle-class areas out in Metarie and the upper-class neighborhoods along St. Charles that likewise had been devasted by the flooding of New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina. Many areas of the city are coming back, but many areas, such as the 9th Ward, and many of the suburbs in St. Bernard's parish will require decades of steady work and commitment to come back.

We drove across the Lake Ponchatrain Causeway and up I-55 in a blinding rainstorm to our hometown of Jackson, Mississippi. That evening I had dinner with my 84-year-old Momma and Sister Meg. The next morning I flew back to Islip MacArther Airport on Long Island.

My journey to the Gulf Coast is over. It indubitably was one of the most enlightening, exciting, energizing and worthwhile week's I have ever experienced. I am most gracefully blessed and most grateful to have had the privilege and honor of marching with fellow veterans, our families, and the survivors of Hurricane Katrina. We shall somehow, someday overcome.

Power to the Peaceful !~!~!

Louisiana

After marching for awhile more, we bused out of Bay St. Louis, Pass Christian and Waveland, MS, some of the most devastated areas of the Gulf Coast, into Slidell, Louisianna, on Friday afternoon. Here are Iraq Vets, Garret and Abbey, taking a rest before we boarded the buses and vehichles for a 50-vehicle convoy, hazard lights flashing, led by the two buses, through the back bayous of St. Bernards Parish, Louisianna.

Earlier at another rest stop, the guys broke out the ever-present drums and soothed us with rhythm.

That night we camped at Bayou Liberty which is the home of a volunteer group of folks from around the country, helping in the reconstruction of Slidell. It has been organized by a woman from Oklahoma who came down to the coast to do volunteer work. Time and time again we experienced that people, self-organizing themselves and using their own resources and ingenuity do more, more effectively, more humanely, more expeditiously than the pencil pushers and red-tape creators of either government agencies or the traditional volunteer organizations such as the Red Cross.

Here is the pristine view of the our campgrounds by a lovely bayou, although it was said to be inhabited by both alligators and water moccasins.

This is what I saw from the front of my tent. Most cool, and especially delicious when an almost full moon rose over the horizen of swamp trees in the distance.

One of the cajun cooks, the rotund, greyhaired gentleman in the blue shirt, cooked a wonderful alligator gumbo. It was the first time I had alligator, and reluctantly I had some, overcoming the same pact I have with alligators that I have with sharks -- I won't eat you, if you don't eat me. It was quite tasty, something like chicken, but a different texture, more crumbly, not tough, just very different.

He told us his story of survival -- He lost everything he had acquired over a full lifetime of working as an engineer, house, boat, a truck, several cars, but the most devastating thing for him was when he was working for Homeland Security in the harrowing days after the Hurricane hit and came across a building, once a nursing home, within which were 34 dead, drowned residents. He broke down crying as he related the waste of this traumatic discovery.

When we marched through Slidell, we were accompanied by a rousing Mardi Gras Band, which created the festive and celebratory atmosphere that so much of the Cajun New Orleans experience embues.

Before we marched through Slidell, we marched along one of the most toxic wastedumps anywhere in the world, filled with debris and garbage that have been hauled out of New Orleans, full of black mold, toxic chemicals from the petroleum plants ringing New Orleans, and other noxious and contaminated materials resulting from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Cindy gave a news conference at the staging area before we marched through the wastedump.

Scores of huge dump trucks passed us on their way to dump the hazardous cargo as we marched, many blasting their airhorns and giving us peace and victory signs.

Late in the afternoon we moved in our convoy to St. Mary's of Vietnam Catholic Church in a middle-class Vietnamese refugee neighborhood in East New Orleans.

It was very strange for me to see a group of Vietnamese youth, dressed like any American teenagers, playing a torrid pick-up game of basketball, full of shouts and epithets to each other in deep southern accents.

Our final night was spent sharing poetry and music and dancing around a rousing campfire until the wee hours of the morning. Earlier in the afternoon, one of the local residents, a Vietnamese gentleman, who had had a very prosperous seafood restaurant before it was destroyed by the Hurricane, related to us that this was the third time he was a refugee: the first time in 1954 when his Catholic family fled south from Hanoi, second when his family left Saigon in 1975 for America and now after Hurricane Katrina.

The next morning, Sunday, our last we packed up for the last time and bused to the nearby Chalmette Cemetary, adjacent to the site of the Battle of New Orleans that occurred after the truce had been signed in Washington, D.C.

Here are buried soldiers of every war from the American Revolution through my war in Vietnam.

The ultimate human cost of war.

Here we are addressed by the oldest Vet, Gene Glazer, WW II Vet and a member of the New Jersey Chapter of VFP. He eloquently reminded us of the brutal and useless cost of war that detracts from the necessary support of social and civil needs of our communities.

Our youngest vets demonstrate that as a nation, a society, a community, we still have much maturing to do.

Two of the Iraq Vet friends I made during this incredible week, Al and Eric, chill out as we prepare for the final march into New Orleans.

The Gulf Coast

Our march along the Mississippi Gulf Coast demonstrated to me again the unutterable power of Mother Nature. As I mentioned before, when I first saw the extensive damage, riding to Mobile on the Greyhound Bus, it reminded me of the devastation I had experienced in late 2004, when I was blessed to survive the Tsunami in Sri Lanka. The only difference was that the rubble and destruction was Western 1st-World architecture with neon signs of fast food and motel franchises instead of 3rd-world South Asian adobe and thatched roofs.

Here are some broken houses in Biloxi, Mississippi:

Here are some of the broken houses in the Muslim village of Mutur on the south side of Trincomalee Bay on the Eastern Coast of Sri Lanka, where I lived for 20 months.

The power of the storm surge is awesome. Here is some carpet and rugs wrapped around tree branches in Gulfport.

In Mutur, I got this shot of a bike embedded in the wreckage of a house.

Here is the devasted Treasure Bay Casino. Notice the hole in the ship where the gaming floors were. There must be a hundred thousand dollars or so of coins buried in the sand from all the hundreds of slot machines that were in the casino.

In late 2001, I spent a night in the RV parking lot of the Treasure Bay while I was on the road after life as I had known it came to a crashing end with the desolution of my 22-year marriage to my third wife, Sara, and 9/11. I took this picture of the Treasure Bay Casino early one morning just before I hit the road.

Here is the Beauvoir, the last home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis that was built in 1852.

Here is what it looked like when I visited it in 2001.

All along the Gulf Coast were scores of mansions, antebellum, Victorian, modern, which had survived all previous hurricanes including the very destructive 1969 Hurricane Camille.

None of them survived Hurricane Katrina. The entire Gulf Coast looks like this.

Bay St. Louis, a once lovely town is nothing but rubble.

In 2001 when I traveled through it I got a latte at CB's Coffee House next to the New York Restaurant, home of fine, casual dining, which does not exist today.

The destruction in Pass Christian and Bay St. Louis in particular looked like the destruction of the French Garden Guest House that I was staying in for the Christmas Holiday of 2004. I had been sitting in the right hand corner of the veranda having a pot of coffee, enjoying the calm, beautiful morning, when I left to go on a bike ride inland to visit a 2500 year old temple complex about 15 minutes before the Tsunami wave totally destroyed the Guest House.

Here is a smashed car in Bay St. Louis.

We heard that out in the Gulf of Mexico they have located some 150 submerged cars via GPS Satellite system. Let's, see, what's the ratio of cars equipped with GPS systems to those not, 1 to 20? 1 to 50? There are a lot of cars scattered out in the Gulf. We saw many miles of abandoned vehicles that had been submerged in storm surges or floods. One thing for sure -- I wouldn't buy a used vehicle in Alabama or Mississippi or Louisianna for at least ten years.

Cindy marched with us Thursday and Friday from Bay St. Louis, Mississippi and into Slidell, Louisiana. I was most honored to be in her presence. I also was most privileged to share some time with Camilo Mejia, the first GI to resist going back to the senseless Iraq War and served six months in prison for his convictions. He is one of the most humble and dedicated heros, dedicated to peace, that I have ever had the opportunity to know.

More on Vets . . .

The first day we had a memorial gathering at the Veterans Memorial Park in Mobile. One of the most moving of the memorials was the "Eyes Wide Open" display of boots sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee.

Not only were there boots representing U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq, but also a display of civilian shoes to represent the many more deaths of Iraqi citizens.

Most sad was this pair of children's shoes, signifying the real tragic human cost of the war.

Here is Iraq Vet, Kelly Dougherty, one of the founders of IVAW, speaking to us about her experience in Iraq.

There were several women vets from Iraq on the March. It was most sad to experience what today's army is doing in the horrors of the Iraq quagmire not only to the young men of their generation but to the young women as well. I note that neither of Bush's two daughters, nor any son or daughter of any of the administrations leaders, nor any son or daughter of the over 500 Congresspersons are susceptible to serve in the military in Iraq. Kelly was a member of the Colorado National Guard and served convoy escort duty as a Military Policewoman.

Vietnam Vet and one of the coordinators of the March, Elliot Adams, makes the point that when we vets of Vietnam returned from our war we vowed "Never again!~!~!" Welp, we failed. We did not continue the fight for peace and justice. We allowed the chickenhawks and denizens of what Eisenhower in his last speech as president named the M I C C -- the Military Industrial Congressional Complex -- lead us into another quagmire in the so-called War on Terrorism.

As I mentioned, the intergenerational dynamic of young Iraq vets with us older vets from the Gulf War, Bosnia, the wars during the 80s in Central and South America, and us really old dogs, the VietVets, was  most powerful.  We lend our experience and wisdom to the younger vets, and they inspire us and enspirit us with their youthful enthusiasm and energy. It makes for a very powerful coalition.

Here is Iraq vet Michael Blake walking with Vietnam Vet, Jim Driscoll, Marine vet from Vietnam. Jim has started an organization, Vets4Vets, an outreach group of Iraq Vets who help heal each other from the ravages of their war.

But there is another critical element in this coalition -- that is the involvement of the families who send their loved ones into unnecessary battle, the members of Military Families Speak Out. Stacy Bannerman was present for the entire march and collected signatures of all participants in one of her recently published When the War Came Home to auction off on eBay. She spoke very movingly of her pain and sadness that her husband will be leaving soon for his second tour of duty in Iraq.

The saddest persons to hear from are those family members of Gold Star Families for Peace, such as the galvinizing Cindy Sheehan, who has spearheaded the Peace Movement since last August when she established Camp Casey at the Crawford, Texas ranch of President Bush. These courageous people have made the greatest sacrifice, the loss of their sons or daughters, husbands or wives, in needless battle. They have to daily live with the awful reality that their loved one was killed for the lies of the Bush Administration, who preemptively went to war against Iraq with no justification or legal authority save for their own greed and the greed of the corporations whom they primarily serve.

This is Mike (at the microphone) and Al, fathers of soldiers killed in Iraq, and Cindy's sister, whose nephew Casey was killed. They bear the gravest burden.

 

So Much To Remember . . .

It's been several days since I returned home from the "Walkin' to New Orleans" action. I guess it took more out of me than I was aware of because I crashed, slept about 20 hours yesterday.

As the time extends ever passing, it is hard to believe how much I experienced, how deeply it impacted me. The next several days I'll put up some pictures with random comments.

One of the things that impressed me the most was the inter-generational bonding between us older vets and the the young Iraq War vets. Here is Stan Goff, Vietnam Vetera and retired Special Forces Master Sergeant, embracing Geoffrey Millard, one of the many spokespersons for IVAW. Paul Robinson, President of Mobile chapter of VFP, who helped organize the Veterans and Survivors March to New Orleans, stands to the side. Other organizers whose tireless efforts made all of this possible were Vivian Felts of Savin' Our Selves, Elliot Adams, Ward Reilly, Stan Goff, Dave Cline, Ann Wright, Virginia Rodino and Michael Cuzzort. Of course, each of us in our own way contributed to making this historic event possible.

It was so moving, so inspirational for me to march with other vets, both young and old. It was healing for me, an elder vet, to relate with the younger vets from Iraq, who are so much like who we Vietnam Vets were 35 years ago when we returned from the jungle quagmire. We didn't have our older brother Korean Vets or daddy vets from WWII to mentor and guide us. Rather, we were ostracized and shunned by the traditional "hat" organizations, VFW and the American Legion, because we lost the war, because we protested against it. It took us several years during the 12-year-long Vietnam War to self-organize VVAW, even longer to form VVA. Today, vets across generations will join together to march and fight for peace and justice. That's most cool.

This is a picture of survivors speaking to us from Bayou le Batre, Alabama. The gentleman with the microphone is a Korean Vet. He brought a rousing laugh to us vets by saying that he was strictly a 2/18 soldier, that he gave the U.S. Army two years, but he took eighteen years for himself as a free citizen. Though he lost everything in Hurricane Katrina, he was most inspirational saying that he had the most important thing anyone could have, a loving God and loving friends in a close-knit community of support.

Back Home . . .

Been back home on Long Island with LovelyLadyLynn now for a couple of days. Gently readjusting back into my home environment, seeing clients, catching up on email, getting ready to become more involved in the desparately needed effort to work diligently for peace and justice.

There is so much that I experienced last week on the Marchin' to New Orleans action, so much that moved me, saddened me, inspired me. I have 86 pictures of the destruction, the celebration, the sharing, the witnessing we veterans and survivors shared together last week along the Gulf Coast. During the next couple of weeks I hope to impart here some of my experience and to reflect on what it means.

Most of all, I want to engender more within myself the most salient message I received during the week -- in order to serve and provide human services to those most truly deserving of our nation's bounteous gifts and blessings, we must all strive to impart:                        

Power to the Peaceful

The Last Day

It has been a powerful, uplifting, incredibly moving experience, this week Marchin' to New Orleans. I have been too busy living the fullness of a rich life to spend time in cyberland, but I have many pictures, heartbreaking and heartmending that I shall upload during the next week when I return home to be with LovelyLadyLynn back in New York

We are almost at the ending of the beginning of a new movement, a movement that cross-generationally joins veterans of all ages, family members and concerned citizens. It shall manifest a more just and peaceful world

POWER TO THE PEACEFUL !~!~!

Protesting the Protest

I have been amazed that we have encountered very little protest against us. The majority of display has been peace victory signs, honking in support and expressions of solidarity with us. In this reddest of the red states we, of course, encountered some:

Several times we also got one-fingered peace signs . . . ;) I was standing beside one of the IVAW vets, a poster-man of today’s modern warrior in desert camies with all the insignia of a One Man/Woman Army: airborn, Combat Infantry Badge, Purple Hearts, two of them, desert bush hat, desert combat boots, a gung-ho visage of a 3rd Millennium hero if ever one there was. A ten-year-old kid yelled out his open window, “Get a life.” Believe me, he has had one that the kid would never want to wish upon himself or any other. By my very unscientific estimate, people supporting the protest outnumber the anti-protest protesters on the ratio of 10 to 1. Get a clue, Bushites, the tide is rapidly turning like the storm surge that ravished the Gulf Coast.

The most unpleasant part of our journey was through Biloxi, the home of Haley Barbour, staunch NeoCon Governor of Mississippi and former Republican National Republican Chairperson, who was Bushie’s chief fundraiser for his stolen presidencies. Needless to say, Biloxi’s “finest” confronted us with maximum hostility. No, they were unaware of the March permit the organizers had arranged for several weeks earlier. No, we could not gather in any of the planned places for breaks or lunch, our support vehicles could not stop anywhere along U.S. 90 -- except for red lights. We could march straight through the town, UP on the broken curb filled with debris and piled up patches of sand, dried mud, broken branches, telephone wires, etc. etc. etc. If we walked on the roadway we would be arrested.

The cops were aching to break heads, to become the piggest of pigs. My hunch is that they heard tales of how there Daddies busted heads of “Damn Yankee Northern Communist Agitators" during the Civil Rights struggle of the 60s ; they just wanted to bust the heads of “Damn Yankee Northern Terrorist Agitators" today. Whereas in the previous towns, Mobile, Pascagoula, Gautier, and Ocean Springs, where we had the cops escort us and stop traffic at major intersections, the Biloxi cops did nothing, but harass us, watch us with growing hostility and paranoia, gather reinforcements, "just in case". Here is a picture of a cop just watching us as we pass refusing to give any assistance.

We were most grateful to get out of Biloxi and into the more peaceful realms of Gulfport.

Grey Morning in Long Beach . . .

. . . Mississippi.

An incredible journey continues. Marched all day yesterday through the devastation of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. It is hard to  imagine the extent of the damage, the power of Mother Nature. I survived the Tsunami on December 26, 2004, in Sri Lanka. Hurricane Katrina was many time stronger. The scene looks exactly like the east coast of Sri Lanka, except the rubble is western first world architecture instead of South Asian third world. The Tsunami where I was only went 50 to 100 meters inland at most.  The storm surge from Hurricane Katrina when several miles inland wreaking terrible destruction along the way. Here are several pictures: