Veterans' Day Prayer

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

Dear God/Higher Power/Universe/Cosmic Intelligence:

Thank you for the gift of intelligence and free will.
Forgive us for our many abuses of this gift.
Thank you for all the ways you have shown us how to love.
Thank you for the beauty of Creation which our careless actions destroy.

Please clarify the public mind and strengthen the individual mind.
Please remove the need for violence from our hearts as a nation and a global culture.
Please help people to see that needless war destroys all of our real progress as humans.

Please be with the high school kids being recruited into the military.
Please be with the elderly who are seeing their ways disappear.
Please be with the Native and the immigrant alike, and protect them from bigotry.

Please protect us from nuclear threat and infrastructure damage.
Please protect us from unnatural storms and unstoppable drones.
Please protect us from cowardly excuses, false threats, and invasive agencies.

Please protect us from illegal human experimentation and the farming of our illnesses.
Please protect us from stereotypes of geneticists in shining armor.
Please protect us from the destruction of our offspring.
Please forgive us for poisoning the earth.

Give us the desire to build rather than to break.
Please give us the desire to feed people rather than fight them.
Please give us the strength to lift a better torch higher, to educate.
Please let the earth be covered with every green thing and not the aftermath of warfare.

Forgive us for willing the deaths of our brother and sister humans.
Forgive us for allowing the overrunning of sovereign nations.
Forgive us for withholding food, shelter, and mercy when we lived in a nation of plenty.
Forgive us for persecuting the alien and the immigrant for feeding our own poor.
Forgive us for hating the immigrant, the homeless, and the infirm.

Please help our country turn its gaze away from foreign conquest, and stop the terrible corruption that feeds upon itself.
Please end these endless wars. Please clear the names of the innocent.
Please uncloud the judgment of the warrior and the scout, the general and the workingman.

Return to us all a clean spirit so that we go to the grave without shame.
Let us hear the laughter of the earth, and not her cries of pain and mourning.
Let us remain in the light of love and remembrance, existence and meaning,
and not pass into oblivion like so many peoples before us who did not listen to you.

Give us an appetite for peacemaking, for breaking bread for friends and enemies.
Take away the hunger for warmongering and the expansion of corporate interests.
Please take away the sword of unjust lawmaking and the usurpation of the bill of rights.

Undo the evil of the tyrant, and help us to feed the widow and the orphan and the infirm.
Please help the homeless veterans, the jobless generals, and the millions of victims of American aggression this veterans' day.

Please be with the men and women in my former unit, the first Air National Guard unit to deploy outside the united states in a time of war.
Dear God please bring them home for good.
Don't let their strength be wasted or their blood spilled in the desert sands.
Please heal those who became ill from anthrax vaccines and mefloquine pills.

Please allow us the happiness of a peaceful death on our own land.
Please take away our fear of death so that we can leave something behind for tomorrow's people.
Please help us to make room for the future without being destroyed by it.

Please be with those who are different, those who know things, and those who see more than their fair share of pain.
Please be with those who are exploited by the government.
Please be with the gifted and talented children of tomorrow and teach them the ways of peace.

God grant us all serenity to accept that there are things we must always try to change, no matter how difficult or unpopular.
Please help us to remember those who carried crosses for us on hundreds of foreign shores so that we could have a country.
Remember those whom history unjustly reviles and grant them peace in the grave.

Dear God may you shatter the cisterns of the evil and scatter the grain of the plotters.
Spill the wine and burn the oil of the tyrant and the robber and the miser.
Bring proper punishment upon those who desire wealth at the cost of human lives.

Turn your anger away from the common people, and teach us the ways of peace, before our evil destroys us.
Please do not let us descend into the darkness we have made.
Deliver us from endless nightmare and the final death.

Please help the peoples we have wronged to forgive us.
Please help America become a good example to others.
Please forgive us for taking shortcuts and standing on the shoulders of evil men.

It is not our strength, our size, our age, our power, that reflects Godhood.
It is our ability to love, to value the smallest thing, to share.
It is our ability to adapt to the needs of other beings.

Please remove from our hearts the lies behind the reasons for the wars.
Please remove from our shoulders the terrible burden of paying for them.
Please remove from our necks the yoke of unlawful governance.

Please help us to forget the horrors of war so that our children do not have to grow up surrounded by the memory of it.
Please remove wanton violence from the media and video games.


Sincerely,

a vet

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

this is an image I prepared for distribution on 9/11/2011 (two years ago) while I was a homeless veteran in Seattle, Washington.
I used the day on 9/11 to give away about 60 flyers in Pike Market to tourists and shoppers.

It is an image of Hellboy, a fictional American citizen technically born in the UK, who works for a fictional organization called the BPRD (bureau for paranormal research and defense). He is observing white crosses at a military cemetery and dropping a poppy onto the graves. The poppy is the UK remembrance day traditional flower.

at the time of this drawing i was unaware of the significance of the poppy. it was just something that ended up in the image.

http://img854.imageshack.us/img854/8876/ganv.png


"HONOR US WITH THE TRUTH"


Remembrance Day (also known as Poppy Day or Armistice Day) is a memorial day observed in Commonwealth countries since the end of World War I to remember the members of their armed forces who have died in the line of duty. This day, or alternative dates, are also recognised as special days for war remembrances in many non-Commonwealth countries. Remembrance Day is observed on 11 November to recall the end of hostilities of World War I on that date in 1918. Hostilities formally ended "at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month," in accordance with the Armistice, signed by representatives of Germany and the Entente between 5:12 and 5:20 that morning. ("At the 11th hour" refers to the passing of the 11th hour, or 11:00 am) World War I officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on 28 June 1919.[1]

The day was specifically dedicated by King George V on 7 November 1919 as a day of remembrance for members of the armed forces who were killed during World War I. This was possibly done upon the suggestion of Edward George Honey to Wellesley Tudor Pole, who established two ceremonial periods of remembrance based on events in 1917.[2]

The Initial or Very First Armistice Day was held at Buckingham Palace commencing with King George V hosting a "Banquet in Honour of the President of the French Republic"[3] during the evening hours of November 10, 1919. The first official Armistice Day was subsequently held on the grounds of Buckingham Palace on the Morning of November 11, 1919. This would set the trend for a day of Remembrance for decades to come.

The red remembrance poppy has become a familiar emblem of Remembrance Day due to the poem "In Flanders Fields". These poppies bloomed across some of the worst battlefields of Flanders in World War I, their brilliant red colour an appropriate symbol for the blood spilled in the war.

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

http://timemilitary.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/2021083161.jpg?w=360&h=240&crop=1

CNN took down my iReport that I wrote today for their veterans' day special project within minutes of its publication.

Here is the text that their moderators deemed inappropriate:

Human Experimentation on the 130th Airlift Wing
By cnnreader99 | Posted Less than a minute ago | walla walla, Washington

When I joined the Air Force, I was naive. I thought that identifying the enemy would be easy. I joined on good faith that as long as I acted in my country's best interests, my country would do the same for me.

I was wrong.

A short year after joining the Air Force (ANG) in 2003, I was deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. My unit, the 130th Airlift Wing of Charleston WV, was sent to Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait. I spent only five weeks at that location, and was surprised when my unit was ordered to move to Uzbekistan (to support Operation Enduring Freedom).

While we were in Uzbekistan, there wasn't much to do. So it was easy to notice when things went bad. One day, close to the week that we left to be replaced by a fresh rotation of 130th AW personnel, the members of my unit were stationed at K2 (Karshi Khanabad air base in Uzbek) were called into a meeting room at our makeshift headquarters.

In that meeting room, we met with a man who I hadn't seen before. I assumed he was US Army or Air Force. The truth is, we weren't really paying attention to his origins. We were too busy looking at the bags of pills he was handing out.

The members of my unit experienced the misfortune of being ordered to take the dangerous anti-malarial drug known as Lariam, or Mefloquine. It is a substance long associated with suicide, violence, and insanity. Walter Reed AFB discovered it to leave permanent damage behind in both rat and human brain tissue.

The men and women in my former unit are among the most intelligent and capable people in the military today. However, when we were ordered to take those pills in 2004, some of us were damaged by what is now recognized as an extremely dangerous drug with potential to cause or worsen traumatic brain injuries. People who were otherwise normal and happy came home with irreparable brain damage. Some of them lost their jobs and reputations within a year of this deployment. The cause was not immediately known.

Mostly everyone in the military knows that the anthrax vaccine causes bad reactions in some recipients. However, we were not warned in the slightest in regards to the damage done to some people who take Mefloquine.

Two of the men who accompanied me on that deployment lost their jobs within months of coming home. Their names are Glen Sergeant and Jerry Rucker. They were two of the funniest, most friendly and jovial people I've ever had the privilege to meet. Sensitive and thoughtful, they helped me find ways to spend many otherwise boring hours doing fun things.

For those men today, unless something has changed since the last update I received on their condition, happiness is a thing of the past. They've lost their wives, their kids, their homes, their jobs, their retirements. They've lost their friends and the only other thing to which they felt committed and connected -- their US military service.

I discovered the Mefloquine controversy within a few years of leaving my unit to start a family. Personally, I disobeyed orders and refused to ingest the pills. They gave me a bad feeling, and so did the unmarked bags they were in and the lack of literature, and the strange dosages we received.

A journalist found my open letter to formal Adjutant General Allen Tackett. Her name was Deirdre Tynan, and she is now a CNN correspondent in Asia. She contacted me some years ago, and informed me that she had initiated a FOIA request from Kellogg-Brown-Root and the US DoD in regards to the mentioning of Mefloquine on the ambassadorial wires.

The US government has yet to answer her questions, although KBR quickly replied to her and stated that their own personnel in foreign areas received a safer drug, Malarone, and this has been so for about a decade. What I am left wondering is why my unit and the US military in general was worth so little to the US government, and the personnel at the Pentagon who knew how dangerous this drug could be for so many people, allowed this to happen to us.

We did our duty and trusted our government to do the same. Our government failed.

I continue to act as an advocate and whistleblower on behalf of US military veterans and personnel who were exposed to this life-changing substance and consequently mistreated and discharged by the military they once so proudly served.

I hope that CNN takes heed of this pressing issue, and continues to ask questions about why US military members and detainees at Guantanamo Bay were forced to take mefloquine when our government has known about the side effects for years.

Thank you for bringing to light the things through which we have suffered because of these wars. Please take good care of Deirdre. She is a champion for human rights.

The silence of the DoD is the single most damning piece of evidence we have in regards to Lariam -- and that is not good enough for me, especially in light of the case of Robert Bales, who was likely exposed to this agent.



Sincerely,

Rachel
SrA, 130th AW
2003-2008

p.s. please check out this FOIA log for Deirdre's entries.

http://www.foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/9-FY2013/F-2011-07654/DOC_0C05262527/C05262527.pdf


Success!

Your iReport has been uploaded and added to the Veterans on military service assignment. Thank you for sharing!

iReports generally post to the site within a few minutes. Depending on the file size of your videos and photos and the speed of your connection, it may take as long as a few hours. Click Human Experimentation on the 130th Airlift Wing or go to your profile page to see your story and check its status.

Want to see your iReport on CNN? Be sure to add your phone number and real name to your iReport profile to better your chances of having your iReport vetted for use in CNN's coverage.


This iReport is not available

This iReport has been removed because it was flagged by the community and found to be in violation of the iReport Community Guidelines and Terms of Use.


Greetings,

Thank you for taking the time to contact CNN. This message is your confirmation that we have successfully received your email. Due to incredible volume we are unable to personally reply to every comment but we do read each and every one. Your feedback matters, and we sincerely appreciate that you took the time to share it with us.

Emails are read in the order received, so if you used this form to send us a question or a story idea that’s ok, but please allow time for us to route your message to the appropriate person.

Thanks again for your feedback, and keep your browser pointed to CNN | The Most Trusted Name in News

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

Apparently the only free speech this country will allot me is my epitaph. ~veteran

http://www.foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/9-FY2013/F-2011-07654/DOC_0C05262527/C05262527.pdf

http://nation.time.com/2013/06/20/a-smoking-pillbox-evidence-that-sgt-bales-may-have-been-on-lariam/

[sian]

eccMTIcd3ww

[sian]

Don’t call me a Hero – Ben Wright

23743

This picture was taken a few years after my departure from the UK Armed Forces. I took to the streets marching with past and present serving members, to a clapping and cheering general public. Why were they clapping us?

This picture was published of me. I am marching behind a serving Royal Marine. The Journalist labelled me a hero, yet; never knew my name.

The journalist was not in Afghanistan with me. He or she did not know what happened there or what I did there. Who are they to call me a hero? Did they label me a hero because I was wearing a Royal Marines beret? Or is it because I have a medal for service in Afghanistan pinned to my chest?

This admiration for our ‘heroism’ only distracts from the true reason why we attend remembrance parades. To remember those who have fought and died.

We must open our eyes and see that the hero caricature is imposed on our armed forces of today to fool us into supporting wars that do not need to be fought.

I did not die, thus my duty as a survivor is to bring awareness to the cruel reality of conflict, if not, I am doing a great injustice to those who did die.

My obedience and service was abused. I was lied to and lead to believe our reasons were just. I did not serve queen or country. I participated in a conflict that has inevitability brought more harm to people of this country. The country I swore to protect.

I am not a hero.



Ben Wright served with the Royal Marines in Afghanistan and is now a member of Veterans For Peace UK

http://veteransforpeace.org.uk/


https://vimeo.com/71722075