[From the diaries by susanhu. What a story. We must compile all of your Crawford stories and preserve them.] My dear friends, I have returned from a journey I will never forget. There is so much to tell it will not be possible to do so in one diary.
Arriving in Austin, with directions in hand, I made my way to Brinnainne’s house. On an earlier thread someone said we should give this phenomenal woman’s house a name. Seeing her nickname is Cat, well my wicked sense of humour said Cat House but that just sounds so bad, Cat’s Peace Connection might be more appropriate.
I was welcomed with hugs and love and what can I get you? Sitting in a recliner dozing was a young man. Cat explained Scott had just flown in from Montana and she had picked him up from the airport. Scott is a 33 year old Iraqi Vet and was there to join The Iraqi Veterans Against the War group and needed a ride to Crawford. It was my honor to provide that ride. More on Scott’s painful story later.
MORE BELOW:
Cat made sure I had everything I would need, camping gear, cooler with ice bottles, wet rags for the heat, raingear, directions. Janet and Adastra arrived shortly thereafter to welcome me and take pictures. A big thank you to both for the pics as my camera (I realized the second day) was not working…ugh! We chatted for awhile and took pictures and laughed and cried together. And yes Booman, I DID have those wonderful t-shirts in my bag and they each got one. They helped load my rental car and Scott and I hit the road.
Scott and I stopped first to pick up a couple of cases of water to donate, ice and a soda for the road. Scott was a little dazed and overwhelmed by the generosity of others. I told him I had many questions about Iraq but would not ask them if he did not want to talk about it. Oh he wanted to talk about it alright but said he never knows where to start and would prefer I asked away. He needed to talk about it. I will tell you an abbreviated version of this two hour story.
Scott was National Guard, an Apache Helicopter mechanic and spent 15 months in Iraq just north of Bahgdad at the base where the mess tent was bombed. In those fifteen months his base was attacked/bombed 800 times! He told me he was a prisoner there. The command was very rigid, the heat was unbearable, they were not allowed to even take off their comouflage shirts to work on the helicopters. Iraqis were hired to do what he called grunt work because there are not enough troops to do it. Some Iraqis had to wear “red tags” and guarded at all times as they were suspect. Scot said guarding them was a joke. One time they found a bomb in the media center. It could have been disasterous had it exploded.
While he was there, his wife of ten years sent him divorce papers, sold their house and cleaned out their bank accounts.His heart was broken. He had to use his only leave of 14 days to try and work things out. To this he commented “While I am putting my ass on the line for my country I get 14 days for R&R and Bush takes five weeks off in the middle of this cluster fuck he got us into”. He was discharged in February. Before he left for Iraq, he was told by his employer(he was a web designer)his job would be waiting for him. When he arrived back, they had a job for him alright as a customer rep at half the pay. He applied for a job at Border’s Bookstore and was told he was not qualified to make an espresso. He said it took everything he had not to slap the ignorant woman. “I repaired GD helicopters in a warzone and she didn’t think I was qualified to make a fucking espresso”, he said. Scott decided he should go back to school for his masters in English. He also new that he was so angry at what this illegal war had done to his life that he needed therapy. He went to the Veteran’s Center. He was told he did not qualify for ANY benefits, education or medical because he needed to have served two years in Iraq to qualify. WTF? How can they force our young men and women to serve and not take care of them when they return? We talk about loss of life and limb but this is another story of loss.Now, think about how often this story will be repeated as these kids come home! You can find information on the Iraqi Vet’s Against the war here
IVAW
One Women in a Ditch?Part II Arriving In Crawford tomorrow.