Peace Vigils

Sixth Anniversary of the Start of the Iraq War

To mark the sixth anniversary of the start of the Iraq War, the September 11^th Coalition for Just and Peaceful Initiatives, a project of Pacem in Terris, is holding a “Vigil to Bring the Troops Home and Give Them Health Care” from 11 a.m. to 12 noon on Saturday, March 21, on the sidewalk in front of the Veterans Administration Hospital, 1600 Kirkwood Highway in Elsmere, DE 19805. The cost for the occupation of Iraq is $400 million each day, or about $12 billion each month, but there is no guarantee that when troops are withdrawn from Iraq in sixteen months that these funds will be applied to caring for wounded veterans.

At the time this article was written, the Pentagon says that officially 4,236 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq and 30,984 have been wounded. The official death toll includes only those soldiers who are killed in action, not those who die during their medical evacuation to U.S. bases in Germany or at military hospitals in the U.S., so the true number is over 9,000. The actual number of wounded vets has been estimated by to be as high as 100,000, according to the website www.antiwar.com

Lizette Alvarez writes in an article in the New York Times on August 25, 2008, “Many combat veterans are coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan with mild traumatic brain injuries, or concussions, caused by powerful explosions. As many as 300,000, or 20 percent, of combat veterans who regularly worked outside the wire, away from bases, have suffered at least one concussion, according to the latest Pentagon estimates. About half the soldiers get better within hours, days or several months and require little if any medical assistance. But tens of thousands of others have longer-term problems that can include, to varying degrees, persistent memory loss, headaches, mood swings, dizziness, hearing problems and light sensitivity.”

She goes on to note that, “These symptoms, which may be subtle and may not surface for weeks or months after their return, are often debilitating enough to hobble lives and livelihoods. To this day, some veterans — it is impossible to know how many — remain unscreened, their symptoms undiagnosed. Mild brain injury was widely overlooked by the military and the veterans health system until recently. Even now, with traumatic brain injury called the signature injury of the Iraq war, some soldiers and their advocates say that complications from mild concussions often are not recognized.”

A RAND Corporation report released in April 2008 revealed that nearly a fifth of military service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or major depression. Suicide attempts among American veterans have reached catastrophic levels, with one widely reported estimate by the Department of Veterans' Affairs determining that 1,000 vets try to kill themselves every month and that about half of those attempts end in death. The VA's attempts to conceal this and other alarming statistics -- as well as its attempt to reduce the number of diagnoses of PTSD, revealed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and VoteVets.org -- has sparked outrage at a time when the VA is already embroiled in scandal over its systematic blocking of veterans benefits. A study by Harvard Medical School released in November 2007 and based on statistics from 2004, the last year for which data are available, showed that 1.8 million veterans were uninsured and unable to get health care in veterans’ facilities and 3.8 of their family members were in the same predicament. With American soldiers serving multiple tours of duty to maintain troop levels in Iraq -- and with thousands now scheduled to be shipped to Afghanistan -- the problem will likely only get worse.

A grateful nation does not ask people to serve in the A

rmed Forces and then deny them eligibility for the health care that they need to heal from brain injuries, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or exposure to small particle radiation from depleted uranium weapons. It is time for us to bring our troops home and to see that their wounds of body, mind, and spirit are properly cared for not just for one year, but for a lifetime.

For more information about the vigil, call 302-656-2721.

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The following schedule was the one Pacem in Terris had been using, to which the above proposal responds:

Thursdays

• Dover, DE. Peace Vigil. 4pm to 5pm in front of the Dover Post Office on Loockerman Street. Sponsored by Kent County Peace Fellowship. Contact: 302.335.4330
• Easton, MD. Peace Vigil. 5pm to 5:30pm in front of the court house on Washington St. Contact: 410.745.3932.

Fridays

• Wilmington, DE. Peace Vigil. 5pm to 6pm. Delaware Ave near Trinity Episcopal Church and the I-95 overpass. Sponsored by Pacem in Terris. Contact Judy: 302.529.7677.
• Newark, DE. Peace Vigil. 5pm to 6pm. North side of Main St., by the brick wall, near the intersection of Main St. and South College Ave. Contact Steve/Debbie: 302.731.4076.
• Kennett Square, PA. Peace Vigil. 4pm to 5pm on the corner of Union and State Sts. Sponsored by Peace Committee of London Grove Friends Meeting. Contact: 610.869.3455.

Saturdays

• Wilmington, DE. Peace Vigil. 11am to 12pm. Concord Pike at Concord Square near Silverside Rd. Sponsored by Pacem in Terris. Contact Judy: 302.529.7677.
• West Chester, PA. Peace Vigil. 11am to 12pm at Chester County Courthouse, High and Market Sts. Sponsored by the Chester County Peace and Justice Movement. Contact: ccpeacemovement@aol.com or 610-344-0228.

Sundays

• Lewes, DE. Peace Vigil. 1pm to 1:45pm at at the Zwaanendael Museum, corner of Savannah and Kings Highway. Contact Patricia Gibler: akgraces@earthlink.net
• Salisbury, MD. Peace Rally. 12pm to 1pm at Salisbury University. Sponsored by Salisbury United Progressives Coalition. Contact: progressives@ondelmarva.com.