"Playing For Change" Documentary Annoucement

This from "Playing for Change - Peace Through Music"

Hello Friend,

I wanted to send some Love and information regarding the latest with Playing For Change. We are proud to announce the premier of our feature film, Peace Through Music! It will be airing nationally on PBS during the month of August. We are honored to finally share this film with you, as it embodies four years of traveling the world and discovering the power of the human spirit.

Click here for a detailed list of screening times in your area, and to see the film trailer.

We are also announcing a Fall tour for the Playing For Change Band, and want to share this information with you first. For a complete list of dates and venues in the U.S. and Canada, please click here.

Everyday we see reminders of the importance of uniting together during tough times and I know Playing For Change is something we can all use to find inspiration when we need it most. Thanks for building this family together, we sincerely love you all!!

One Love,
Mark

Peace Through Music Trailer

Alaska Summit on Veterans Issues

Summit tackles issues surrounding returning vets

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Although Alaska has one of the highest numbers of people serving in the military per capita, Thursday's summit on veterans' issues was the first of its kind.

It was hosted by the state Legislature's Veterans' caucus, made up of lawmakers and legislative staff who want to bring more attention to veterans' issues.

Snip

This year the Veterans' Caucus was instrumental in getting legislation passed to restore benefits to Alaska Territorial Guard veterans who lost them due to a glitch in federal policy. The state will pay these benefits until the federal government straightens out the problem.............

This is the type of News, from Alaska, we should be following!!

Mother’s love: a plea to Michelle Obama

An Agent Orange activist calls on the first lady to help dioxin victims in Vietnam.

Vietnamese victims of the defoliant Agent Orange play at a social sponsorship center in Da Nang City June 26, 2009. US warplanes dropped about 18 million gallons of the defoliant on southern Vietnam for most of the 1960s.

The following is a letter sent to Michelle Obama by Secretary of the Britain-Vietnam Friendship Association Len Aldis, who has worked for years to spread awareness of Agent Orange victims’ plight.

August 2 marks the beginning of Orange Week, a government program to create Agent Orange awareness through various programs nationwide. Orange Week ends on August 10, 48 years to the day since the US military begin spraying the defoliant on Vietnam.

Dear Michelle Obama,

You can find the Letter Here

Britain-Vietnam Friendship Association


"AGENT ORANGE: 30 YEARS LATER"

“AGENT ORANGE: 30 YEARS LATER” is a drama-documentary about the victims of Agent Orange 30 years after the Viet Nam War.

The goal of this documentary is to make the viewers aware of the impact of dioxin on the environment and the people. The film also underscores the need for compassion and heightens a sense of responsibility for our actions towards each other as stewards of the planet without regard for political differences.....>>>>>Much More Here

Justice for Victims of Agent Orange

I put this together when the Vietnamesse Reps were attempting to get the U.S. Courts to rule on Compensation for Defoliant Victims that still plague that country today.

The Vietnamese government says this has left more than 3
million people disabled.
Please Visit The Following Links

Vietnam Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign

The Thanh Xuan Peace Village in Vietnam

Agent orange girl determined to overcome her destiny

"Chorus for Justice"

Vietnamese Delegation in U.S. to Sue Chemical Companies for Ongoing
Effects of Agent Orange

Justice for Victims of Agent Orange


'Nam Vets Again Press VA on Agent Orange

Armed with the latest study from the Institute of Medicine, Vietnam Veterans of America is petitioning Veterans Administration Secretary Eric Shinseki to add three illnesses -- including high blood pressure -- to the long list of deadly or debilitating ailments that have been linked to Agent Orange exposure.

The outreach is the latest in a long fight between some Vietnam veterans’ organizations and the U.S. government to connect a wider range of ailments to the chemical defoliant used throughout the conflict to strip away the enemy’s jungle sanctuaries.............

39 years later, Australia finds last Vietnam War missing
The officer in charge of Operation Magpies Return, wing commander Michael Warby (L), assisted by Vietnamese workers, sieves soil at the crash site.

An Australian search team has found the remains of the country's last two missing Vietnam War servicemen, 39 years after their aircraft crashed into a thick jungle, officials said Thursday............

Another 'Nam Vet Dies Alone, This One Homeless.......

This is the second 'Nam Vet found to have died alone and remains found way too late. The first, to make any news, was only a few days ago having died in his apartment in NYC, lying there for a couple of months with no one checking in on him even after a foul odor was noticed!

When Bodies Go Unnoticed { NYC Vet }

The second in Florida:

Skeletal remains believed to be missing homeless veteran in Riviera Beach

The police made two announcements about Gary Dale Wilson this week, back to back: Person lost, remains found.

Person lost: Homeless, veteran, 61, 5-foot-10, 140 pounds, missing two months, very ill, needs medicine.

Remains found: In woods, south of Martin Luther King Boulevard. Near a dozen bottles of medicine and cans of liquid food and a little wooden shelter just big enough for someone to sleep comfortably. Still seeking his family........Rest Here

Then we have a still living Vet fighting for himself and his brothers and sisters to be recognized for what they're going through.

Gulf War Veteran Tractors to DC

See his location and progress

Nancy Murdy Logsdon wrote The Forgotten Soldier in honor of her long time friend, Matthew Letterman from Willow Springs, MO. Matt is a Gulf War Veteran from 1990-1991 who suffers from Gulf War Illness. Almost 19 years later, he still has not received benefits from the VA.

Matthew Letterman..The Forgotten Soldier


Just think of the many, who served this Nation, our brothers and sisters, that have died alone, many homeless, and never known about!

Or how about the total lack of coverage on those who served in the first Gulf War and many now suffering from a variety of devastating ailments much like our brothers of 'Nam and Agent Orange, the Vietnamesse are still seeing the results of today!

I post this news up, about these three brothers, as a 'Nam Vet myself, as a reminder to our returning veterans of the present two conflicts and occupations, that they continue what other Veterans before them have had to do, Fight A Nation they serve, who quickly loose interest after the cheering of Wars of Choice dies down, and they don't uphold their end of the contracts of those who serve them, and to watch out for each other!

Deja Vu All Over Again

The Hell of War Comes Home:

Newspaper Series Documents Murder, Suicide, Kidnappings by Iraq Vets

A startling two-part series published in the Gazette newspaper of Colorado Springs titled "Casualties of War" examines a part of war seldom discussed by the media or government officials: the difficulty of returning to civilian life after being trained to be a killer. The story focuses on a single battalion based at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, the 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment. Soldiers from the brigade have have been involved in brawls, beatings, rapes, drunk driving, drug deals, domestic violence, shootings, stabbings, kidnapping and suicides. The Army unit's murder rate is 114 times the rate for Colorado Springs. We speak with the reporter who broke the story and get the Army's response.

Listen/Watch/Read

My previous post on this report only a few days back.

Wars of Choice - Multiple Tours - TBI - PTSD - Suicides - Murders

Multiple Bombings Slowly Destroy US Soldier's Brain - He Commits Suicide

CNN has a heartbreaking report of a U.S. soldier who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and was subjected to multiple bombings.........

Iraq, Afghanistan vet saluted in burial

Retired Army Reserve Lt. Col. Raymond Trejo Rivas, 53, of New Braunfels was buried six days after his death outside Brooke Army Medical Center's emergency room, and nearly three years after a mortar blast in Iraq.........

And yet another as well, happening last year but still hanging over a community and the country.

Soldiers' emotional battle scars put doctors in dilemma

The suicide of an Iraq war veteran in Eastern Washington has highlighted an ethical dilemma confronting the Department of Veterans Affairs and the military: how far to go in protecting patient confidentiality as troubled veterans are called back to front-line duty.

Snip

His biggest worry, according to notes taken by the VA psychiatrist, was a looming call back to active duty by the Washington National Guard. The order would have sent the specialist back to Iraq.

Snip

In early March 2008, Juneman hanged himself in his Pullman apartment. His body was discovered some 20 days later, The Spokesman-Review newspaper reported.........

Man held in mom's death went from AWOL to hotel to jail
Police ready for shoot-out but arrest man without incident

Knowing that the 22-year-old had gone AWOL from the Army about two weeks before, and that he'd already sold a shotgun at a local pawn shop, San Juan Police Chief Juan Gonzalez said SWAT team personnel were prepared for a possible shootout.

A chain of decisions led Baczewski to that moment, and all eyes and guns were on him, waiting for his next big decision.

Snip

On July 10, Baczewski went AWOL from his post as a Humvee mechanic with the 598th Maintenance Company at Fort Benning in Georgia, a U.S. Army spokeswoman said. He had joined the Army in 2007 and had not been deployed overseas........

Many reports have surfaced over the last few years about the many problems many of those serving, once again in Wars/Occupations or Choice. But these reports don't cover how deep the problems really are nor the numbers that are being sent back into these theaters.

Without the ability to search them out or having someone living in the region, as most are local not national, reporting or posting on this technology, most of the rest of the country wouldn't know they happened, and continue to happen. Just like when we returned from 'Nam, the only way those were reported were the very few that made National News, usually connected to a crime, no cable back then nor these personal computers, or through the Military/Veterans grape vine of communication. One of the reasons Combat PTSD, that's been around since War or Battles between man existed, were easily ignored by the masses, who many within suffer same from negative traumatic life experiences.

Some even come out and argue that soldiers are faking, even still in this the 21st century with much advanced technology and studies, coming from the aftereffects of 'Nam, that can weed out anyone trying to. Why do they try and debunk, easy, the Country doesn't want to pay for the results of cheering on their Wars of Choice!

We've had many reports of soldiers diagnosed with PTSD and mild TBI being sent back into theater for another tour, many on medication! We've had the growing number of reports of the suicides of those suffering from TBI and PTSD, known and diagnosed! We've had reports of soldiers committing murders, many times senseless and not in the character of these soldiers prior to in country duty, who have returned from one or more tours! We've had the reports of soldiers trying to seek help and the benefits after a diagnoses being told 'no way' that it was a preexisting condition! We have many reports of soldiers finding the help needed and learning how to live a more comfortable and productive life after what they've lived through and many helping others. We don't get much in reports on the people who live in the occupied countries where few have a way of escaping the death and destruction even with the numbers of refugee's number in the millions!

This is why this Country needs to place the Results of War right up next to 'War as a Last Resort!', before we choose to follow failed policies of Wars of Choice, or if we follow those failed policies Pony Up The Cost Of The Results Of These Wars of Choice!!

A Vet that Inspired a Congressional Bill, Long Overdue!!

Sen. Franken's Service Dog for Vets Bill Passes Senate

Casualties of War

Last week the Colorado Springs 'The Gazette' had another very disturbing report, in two parts, following up previous reports of soldiers of OIF and OEF who committed murders. These, from all I can find out, were just regular teens, no trouble out of the ordinary prior to their military service. But once sent to these occupations, sometimes more then once, they returned like many of our brother 'Nam Vets, very troubled and not getting the help needed or not seeking because of the nature of military service, added to their situations of multiple tours, longer tours then we served and little down time between, their nightmares caught up to them by abusing drugs and alcohol, by acting out in rage, by loosing control.

Are they guilty? If they committed these crimes yes they are, we are a Nation of Law, though some seem to be able to not only ignore that or be above that they actually have supporters that will argue about holding them accountable. But we as a society have a share in their guilt, we sent them into these hells on earth when other options should have and could have been followed, sent on failed policies and then having more failed policies stack on to create long running occupations of death and destruction.

This first link is a more recent report a few days following the Gazette report.

Soldiers in Colorado slayings tell of Iraq horrors

Sun Jul 26 COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Soldiers from an Army unit that had 10 infantrymen accused of murder, attempted murder or manslaughter after returning to civilian life described a breakdown in discipline during their Iraq deployment in which troops murdered civilians, a newspaper reported Sunday.........

Snip

Several soldiers said unit discipline deteriorated while in Iraq.

"Toward the end, we were so mad and tired and frustrated," said Daniel Freeman. "You came too close, we lit you up. You didn't stop, we ran your car over with the Bradley," an armored fighting vehicle..............Rest Here

And these two reports are so disturbing that the Editor gives a lead in warning about the content and reason for.

Colorado Springs: The Gazette

EDITOR'S NOTE: A note of caution about the Lethal Warriors package

For as long as wars have been waged, soldiers have been sent to kill or be killed. The lucky ones survive. Some return home unscathed; others are shell-shocked and emotionally scarred for life.

That’s been true forever. But something changed in Iraq. Thanks to modern medicine, transportation and gear, soldiers survived injuries that would have killed yesterday’s troops. They patrolled streets without battle lines, where smiling civilians waved one day and silently watched ambushes the next. Multiple deployments moved soldiers from war to home and back, again and again.

Snip

A word of caution: The details of battle are graphic, and the language of soldiers is, at times, profane.........

And a few of the reports snippets with links follow:

July 24, 2009 Part I: The hell of war comes home

Before the murders started, Anthony Marquez’s mom dialed his sergeant at Fort Carson to warn that her son was poised to kill.

It was February 2006, and the 21-year-old soldier had not been the same since being wounded and coming home from Iraq eight months before. He had violent outbursts and thrashing nightmares. He was devouring pain pills and drinking too much. He always packed a gun.

Snip

Marquez was the first infantry soldier in his brigade to murder someone after returning from Iraq. But he wasn’t the last.

This month, Fort Carson released a 126-page report {pdf} by a task force of behavioral-health and Army professionals who looked for common threads in the soldiers’ crimes. They concluded that the intensity of battle, the long-standing stigma against seeking help, and shortcomings in substance-abuse and mental-health treatment may have converged with “negative outcomes,” but more study was needed.

Marquez, who was arrested before the latest programs were created, said he would never have pulled the trigger if he had not gone to Iraq.

“If I was just a guy off the street, I might have hesitated to shoot,” Marquez said this spring as he sat in the Bent County Correctional Facility, where he is serving 30 years. “But after Iraq, it was just natural.”

In August 2007, Louis Bressler, 24, robbed and shot a soldier he picked up on a street in Colorado Springs.

In December 2007, Bressler and fellow soldiers Bruce Bastien Jr., 21, and Kenneth Eastridge, 24, left the bullet-riddled body of a soldier from their unit on a west-side street.

{ Hear the prison interviews with Kenneth Eastridge }

In May and June 2008, police say Rudolfo Torres-Gandarilla, 20, and Jomar Falu-Vives, 23, drove around with an assault rifle, randomly shooting people.

In September 2008, police say John Needham, 25, beat a former girlfriend to death...............The Rest of Part 1 Here

This video isn't a part of the two part report but is about the contents of.



July 24, 2009 Part II: Warning signs

After coming home from Iraq, 21-year-old medic Bruce Bastien was driving with his Army buddy Louis Bressler, 24, when they spotted a woman walking to work on a Colorado Springs street.

Bressler swerved and hit the woman with the car, according to police, then Bastien jumped out and stabbed her over and over.

(A word of caution about the language and content of this story: Please see Editor's Note)

It was October 2007. A fellow soldier, Kenneth Eastridge, 24, watched it all from the passenger seat.

Many of the soldiers behind bars and their family members say the violence at home is a consequence of the violence in Iraq. They came home angry, confused, paranoid and depressed. They had trouble getting effective mental heath care. Most buried their symptoms in drugs and alcohol until they exploded.

The Army is seeking new ways to care for returning soldiers and keep the violence from returning — crucial now, because the unit shipped out in May to Afghanistan, where the monthly coalition casualty rate has doubled since the beginning of the year. Soldiers are scheduled to return to Colorado Springs in spring 2010.

The first step toward solving the problem, the post’s most recent commander said, is to understand it.

Graham, who had one son killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq a year after his other son committed suicide while training to be an officer, made mental health a focus after taking command of Fort Carson.

He said suicide and homicide are “different reactions to the same or similar problem. You treat both in the same way.”

This video also isn't in these reports, it's a previous ABC News Video of Maj. Gen. Mark Graham:

After two tours in Iraq, Eastridge was depressed, paranoid, violent, abusing drugs and haunted by nightmares. But because he was other-than-honorably discharged, he said, he was ineligible for benefits or health care. He was no longer Uncle Sam’s problem. He was on his own.

“I had no job training,” he said. “All I know how to do is kill people.”............The Rest of Part 2 Here

Once again these and all those we've sent into long running occupations are this Countries responsibility, a Country that quickly, seems like we're repeating again, forgets that simple fact! Our policies are done in our names, we send military troops to occupy others it's in our names!

And we readily forget those we occupy, the deaths, the destruction they now live in, the trauma's they suffer, the refugee's we've created, and in the world that's been, for the last few decades, the few lash out in retaliation for the policies done in our names! Now we've created much more hatreds, we have children that have grown up in the death and destruction, that's been their childhood, and we are reporting on what's happening to our own who served in these theaters of conflict, what has happened within those we've invaded and occupied!

Some History of 28th July

The Bonus Army

Bonus Marchers on the Capitol Steps
July 28, 1932 Federal troops, under command of General Douglas MacArthur, forcibly dispersed the so-called “Bonus Expeditionary Force,” or Bonus Army. They were World War I veterans who had gathered in Washington, D.C., to demand money they had been promised but weren't scheduled to receive until 1945. Most of the marchers were unemployed veterans in desperate financial straits during the Great Depression........Rest Here

Film of the confrontation in Washington



From Wikipedia

The self-named Bonus Expeditionary Force was an assemblage of some 43,000 marchers — 17,000 World War I veterans, their families, and affiliated groups, who protested in Washington, D.C., in spring and summer of 1932....................

********************

Pres. Lyndon Johnson: Vietnam

July 28, 1965 President Lyndon Johnson ordered 50,000 troops to Vietnam to join the 75,000 already there. By the end of the year 180,000 U.S. troops will have been sent to Vietnam; in 1966 the figure doubled. In addition to countless Vietnamese deaths, close to 1900 Americans were killed in 1965; the following year the number more than tripled. President Johnson explained: “We intend to convince the communists that we cannot be defeated by force of arms or by superior power.”

Part of a Tom Paxton’s anti-Vietnam-war song, “Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation”

Lyndon Johnson told the nation
Have no fear of escalation

I am trying everyone to please
Though it isn’t really
war

We’re sending fifty thousand more

To help save Vietnam from Vietnamese

Full lyrics of the song

“Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation” written and performed by Tom Paxton (1965)


********************

Fourteenth Amendment

July 28, 1868

Passed in the wake of the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing due process, equal protection of the law, and full citizenship to all males over 21, including former slaves, went into effect.

Booklet {PDF} on the 14th Amendment from the Damon Keith Collection of African-American Legal History at Wayne State University Law School.

Coming Home

NPR: WBUR's Here and Now

The bodies of five British service men are driven though Wootton Bassett, England, Friday, July, 10, 2009. (AP)

How should we honor the military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan? In the US, their bodies are returned to Dover Air Force Base. President Obama has lifted the ban on media coverage, if the families of the fallen approve. Those ceremonies are quiet and often attended by just a few people. But in Britain, thousands of people are turning out in the village of Wootton Bassett to greet the dead soldiers. We speak to USA Today reporter Rick Hampson, who recently wrote about the return of two Americans – Army privates Aaron Fairburn and Justin Casillas. We also speak to Allison Bucknell, a member of the local town council in Wootton Bassett, England.

You can listen in to this Discussion: Link brings up the player

What Can You Do?

Little Phoebe, from San Francisco, California has a big heart. That's an understatement. Actually, her kindness and compassion is bigger than most grown ups I've crossed paths with while reporting TV news for nearly a decade.......Rest Here

We are the Adults that one day little Phoebe is growing into, as she teaches us what our main responsibility in this World is, that's setting the examples and lessons of life to those growing up behind us. The Little Phoebe's are Years Ahead of many on this planet and especially in this Country!

Nuclear Balance

Indian Navy's nuclear sub and China's encirclement

This is a recent Real News Network Video, not up on YouTube yet!
While the leaders? ramp up the rhetoric about Iran, our Friend India Expands The Nuclear Defense Of!!

An NDTV panel in India discusses the launch Sunday of lndia's nuclear ballistic submarine INS Arihant

Rage on the Airwaves

Bill Moyers Journal, July 24 2009

BILL MOYERS: There was another voice heard on health care this week -- the voice of anti-abortion crusader Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue. At a news conference in Washington, Terry warned that violence could come if, in the end, health care reform includes coverage for abortion services...........Rest of Transcript Here

July 24, 2009

Last year the JOURNAL traveled to Knoxville, where a shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church had left the pastor asking what role hateful speech from popular right-wing media personalities may have played in the tragedy. "A lot of people are hurling insults from the safety of television studios, the safety of radio studio, the safety of cyberspace," said Rev. Chris Buice, "So that's a void in our community — the chance to be in the same room and to have these exchanges and remember the humanity of the person on the other side."

It's been a landmark year for the shock jock industry. Rush Limbaugh has been lauded as the "real" leader of the Republican Party. Great Britain banned radio host Michael Savage from entering the country for his "extremist views." And, the killings of three police officers in Pittsburgh and of Dr. Tiller in Kansas have raised new questions about the role played by virulent speech may have played in their.............Rest Here

We have a growing problem and we've been contributing to it's growth for a long time now. Only a short time ago we lost what once was considered a voice of reason, a calm voice that brought us the news of tragedies and accomplishments over the public airwaves, from it's inception through it's growth. Many who spoke after his death talked of his fame as this Nation would follow his reports as well as those who he worked with, giving us the News from all over and trying to explain in short time spans allotted. Whole families would watch, listen and learn. They also spoke how that time is gone and no one will replace that voice in a once respected profession.

That profession, and business, has gone beyond haywire, and has been growing in it's lack of professionalism and giving people The Real News. We now have our public airwaves, radio and especially television, filled not with news but opinionated yelling matches or just singular personal opinion by so called experts on singular, or multiple, what once was news issues. They yell at each, interrupt one another or if they don't like what they hear just cut the mikes, this isn't news and they aren't experts, they're instigators of propaganda, propaganda to control the masses, and they still call this debating!

All this time that this has been growing, and we've been watching or listening, so have many of our little children, children are impressionable, that's how they learn, from that and those around them. They are picking up on this way of adults communicating with one another, not learning debate, but learning how to become as impolite, arrogant, boisterous, uncaring and a whole host of negatives that adults now do to each other. So if that's how adults act it must be right, even voicing points of destruction towards those that don't believe or think as you do, bringing on Terror towards others, that becomes the norm.

They're getting mixed messages as parents still try to teach right from wrong, if religious the same goes as they're supposedly learning the teachings of tolerance and love for one another, but those lessons come in short spurts, the airwave lessons are now taught on a huge number of outlets that are on for hours each day, and this has been going on now for years. And they watch as those they look up to or don't even know, responsible adults supposedly, not only speak but act out against one another and that same tolerance and love!

How do you control whole societies, countries, this planet, you feed the propaganda over and over and over............, many adults start grasping it readily, as they don't want to think for themselves anyway, these are the adults that don't take their responsibility to heart, too much work on their part.

But if you keep it going for years you start seeing the results as generations of young grow into readily accepting this is how it really is, you change the reality and fog the teachings to be used as you say they should, they then grow into the adults you can readily control to specific area's or issues you want followed.

We've been producing our own destruction, and the destruction of others, for many years now and it's gotten worse not better. Those young that first started watching and hearing this new form of news are now adults and having those next generations being brought up in a World of new teach and speak.

This is Our Legacy we're leaving to those behind us!!