Catherine Fenton: Winter Soldiers

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Catherine Fenton

The first sight to greet you see as you walk towards the National Labor College in Maryland, site of the Iraq Veterans Against the War's Winter Soldier hearings, are the flags billowing from the top of Carlos Arredondo's truck. It is only as you come closer that you see the coffin lying exposed in the back of the truck. As you draw closer still, close enough now to read the name on the coffin -- Lance Corporal Alexander Arredondo -- Carlos himself approaches you.

As he reaches out his hand in greeting, pieces of his biography flash through your mind. Carlos Arredondo, the father who set his van on fire and suffered second degree burns when the Marines who informed him of his son's death would not leave his home. The father whose love for his son would lead him to turn his truck into a memorial and send him all over this country in an attempt to stop the war that killed him.

He greets all who show an interest in his display with an open, welcoming face. You would never know that he had been beaten up by a group of war-supporters last year in Washington DC. He assumes instantly that you are who you say you are. He thanks you and asks if you would like to read his son's letters. You nod your head, and he brings you around to the passenger side of his car, hurriedly moves some things off of the seat, and fusses to make sure you are comfortable, before handing you the book of letters. His treasure.

And you cannot help but to read them.

"...the thought of how proud I will make you helps me stay positive. I have many stories to tell when I return."

"We saw the city of Singapore off the coast. It was amazing. I just wish we did not have to pass by it right away."

"A friend of mine was shot and killed. He just got married a couple of months ago."

"It looks like I'm going to be stuck in Iraq forever."

And then chillingly, you reach the letter dated early August...

"I'm in Najaf."

On August 25, 2004, Carlos Arredondo's son, Alexander, would die there.

His father would begin his journey as one of the most high-profile peace activists in the country, eventually ending up in front of the National Labor College, as Iraq veterans gather, determined that they are going to be, in the words of Kelly Dougherty, executive director of the IVAW, "a force that ends the occupation of Iraq."

Thomas Paine wrote; "These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."

And so from the spectre of the summer soldier who shrinks from the hard truths and his country's crises, comes the Winter Soldier who will not look away. Born as Vietnam raged on, the brainchild of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, the first Winter Soldier hearings took place in early 1971. It would be only months later, that a member of this group, John Kerry, would infamously testify in front of Congress, and ask "how do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" thus setting the stage for a decades-long cultural battle, which would eventually play itself out in the 2004 Presidential elections as John Kerry is swiftboated out of his White House bid.

Walking into the National Labor College, 37 years later, as a war called by another name rages on, one cannot help but wonder if somewhere in here, there is not a young man or young woman who will fight this same battle, thirty-odd years from now, all over again. For it is from bold actions that leaders are born.

The opening night of the hearings pay homage to this revolutionary past. The four members of the opening panel, entitled "Winter Soldier and the legacy of GI Resistance," are all from that past. They speak of My Lai and of movements long fizzled out and consigned to history books. They talk of another tightly contested election, 40 years ago, in which a candidate with a "secret plan for peace" was running, and the results of which would lead not to peace but to escalation, the secret bombings of Cambodia, and death.

As the night ends you can feel the past taking its final bow. Tomorrow, as the testimony of the Iraq veterans begins, comes the future.

As you exit the auditorium, there is Carlos Arredondo, watching hopefully, a pair of combat boots representing his dead son, sitting on the chair besides him.

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION

Catherine Fenton
Media Coordinator
CODEPINK Long Island

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