GI SPECIAL
4L21:

[Thanks to Z and NB who sent this in. NB writes: As I see it Bush has
got none of Custer's courage - but all of his folly!]
“He
Wasn’t Reciting The Sailor’s Creed”
“Hutto
Was Organizing Again. This Time, Against
The U.S. Involvement In Iraq”
[Thanks to
Katherine GY, The Military Project, who found and sent the story in.]
From boot
camp to the ship, Hutto said, "It's been drilled into you - you don't have
any rights." Or, as he said one
veteran sailor told him, "The only right you have is to get to work and
get fed." "I never really
accepted that," Hutto said.

Jonathan
Hutto [STEPHEN M. KATZ/THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT]
November 5,
2006 By LOUIS HANSEN, The Virginian-Pilot
NORFOLK -
Jonathan Hutto graduated from Howard University with a degree in political
science and a résumé of social activism.
He worked for the American Civil Liberties Union and Amnesty
International after college. He whipped
up grass-roots protests against police departments and college administrators.
One day in
2003, broke and seeking direction, Hutto enlisted in the Navy.
The Navy
couldn't have known it then, but they know it now: They had signed up a sailor
strongly opposed to the Iraq war.
Seaman Hutto pleated his
uniform, memorized naval history and won sailor of the quarter among his junior
enlisted shipmates.
Then he appeared on CNN, the
BBC and in the pages of The Washington Post and The Navy Times.
But he wasn't reciting the
Sailor's Creed.
Hutto was organizing
again. This time, against the U.S.
involvement in Iraq.
"We're
not trying to embarrass the military," Hutto said during an interview last
week at a local restaurant. "At the
same time, we live in a democracy."
Hutto, 29,
lives and works aboard the Norfolk-based aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt. When
he enlisted, the Navy trained him as a photographer. He writes for the ship newspaper and anchored
its shipwide television broadcast.
Off-duty, he
shifts between the campus of Old Dominion University and the cafés and
bookstores in Ghent. Armed with a laptop
and cell phone, Hutto leads a group of volunteers in an online campaign against
the war.
Supported by antiwar military
family and veterans organizations, Hutto and a handful of other service members
created a Web site called An Appeal for Redress. Activated in October, it allows active-duty
and reserve troops to e-mail their representatives in Congress for U.S.
withdrawal from Iraq.
Their message: "Staying in
Iraq will not work and is not worth the price. It is time for U.S. troops to
come home."
Hutto said the site has
attracted about 1,200 responses.
Volunteers have verified
messages from about 700 service members, he said, from the lowest ranks up to
O-6 - Navy captain or full colonel in the other services. Soldiers have been
the most vocal, followed by the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps.
Hutto and
Marine Sgt. Liam Madden, a campaign co-founder, said response has been mostly
positive, although some e-mailers accuse them of being anti-American.
Rodney Green,
an economics professor at Howard University in Washington, mentored Hutto when
he was elected student body president as a junior in 1997. Hutto fought and beat the administration's
effort to close off a public street in the middle of campus, he said.
Green, who
protested the Vietnam War while serving in the Army, was at first surprised
Hutto enlisted. But on the other hand,
he said, "He's a leader."
Hutto declined
to apply for officer candidate school, and enlisted instead.
From boot camp to the ship,
Hutto said, "It's been drilled into you - you don't have any
rights." Or, as he said one veteran
sailor told him, "The only right you have is to get to work and get
fed."
"I never really accepted
that," Hutto said.
Hutto believed
the service would teach him focus and discipline and would help him pay back
his student loans. He opposed the war
when he joined the Navy, but kept it private.
In June, Hutto
organized a lecture at the Norfolk YWCA by University of Notre Dame professor
David Cortright, an antiwar activist and author of "Soldiers in
Revolt."
A few
active-duty service members then met for a late-night discussion at a Norfolk
home. Cortright, Hutto, Madden and about
10 other service members talked about the war.
In the quiet
confidence of a private home, dressed in civilian clothes, the group came to a
painful but certain consensus: Iraq was bad and getting worse.
They wanted to
know what else they could do.
Although the men worried about
their careers, paychecks and families, Hutto and Madden were willing to become
the public face of troop dissent.
"Nothing will really
happen until people speak up," said Madden, a 22-year-old stationed at
Quantico who served one tour in Iraq.
Madden opposed the war before and during his deployment, but kept his
feelings to himself.
Cmdr. Chris
Sims, spokesman for Atlantic Fleet Naval Air Force, said Hutto has not violated
Department of Defense or Navy regulations.
Sailors may freely speak with the media when off duty, he said.
After the Web
site was publicized two weeks ago, Hutto's supervisor pulled him aside and laid
out the Navy's ground rules: The campaign had to be done on personal time, out
of uniform and off base.
Hutto, who
studied military rules and consulted lawyers before launching the campaign,
agreed.
Said Green,
"He's always been clever that way."
Hutto is a finalist again for
sailor of the year, yet he still raises some eyebrows with the photos of
Malcolm X, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Che Guevara at his desk aboard
ship.
The campaign has "struck a
good nerve," Hutto said.
"Democracy, to me, has to be across the society."
IRAQ WAR REPORTS
Two U.S.
Troops Killed In Anbar
25 December
2006 Multi National Corps Iraq Public Affairs Office, Camp Victory RELEASE No.
20061225-03
CAMP FALLUJAH,
Iraq – One Marine and one Soldier assigned to Regimental Combat Team 7
died Sunday from wounds sustained due to enemy action while operating in Al
Anbar Province.
Baghdad
IED Kills One U.S. Soldier;
Two
Wounded
25 December 2006 Multi National Corps Iraq
Public Affairs Office, Camp Victory RELEASE No. 20061225-04
BAGHDAD
– An improvised explosive device detonated near a Multi-National Division
- Baghdad patrol, killing one Soldier in a southern neighborhood of the Iraqi
capital Dec. 25.
The unit was
conducting a security patrol of the area when a roadside bomb exploded near one
of their vehicles, killing one Soldier and wounding two others.
Newlywed
GI Killed In Iraq
Dec. 16, 2006
BY GLADYS AMADOR, TRENTON DANIEL AND MICHAEL VASQUEZ, Miami Herald
Oscar Gonzalez
didn't want his 21-year-old nephew Roger to join the military, certainly not in
the middle of a full-scale war going on in Iraq.
But without
money to pay for a college education, the Army seemed like the best way for
Roger to realize his dream of becoming a police officer.
That decision
cost him his life.
Despite Uncle
Oscar's objections, he enlisted last year and turned 22 in May.
Roger Alfonso
Suarez-Gonzalez, still a newlywed, arrived in Iraq in October. On Friday, family members coped with the news
he is now dead.
''He was a
hard worker. He wanted to start from the bottom to reach his goals at the
top,'' said his wife, Lady Johana Suarez-Gonzalez, 22, who lives in Weston.
“We had the same dreams, the same goals.''
He called her
sometimes from Iraq, often in the middle of the night. They loved the sound of each other's voice,
and his wife would soothingly call him “mi amor.''
During the
couple's last phone conversation, Suarez-Gonzalez told his wife, “Don't
worry about me if you don't hear from me for awhile. . . . I'll be in God's
hands.''
The couple met
in job training classes in Kentucky. He
came from Nicaragua, she from Colombia, but the pair shared much in
common. Both were raised by their
grandparents in their respective homelands and both arrived in this country
with hopes of achieving a better life.
They married
in March, in a small wedding in Colorado Springs, Colo., where the two shared
an apartment with a view of the mountains.
A second
wedding ceremony -- in Colombia, where both of their families could attend --
was planned after Suarez-Gonzalez finished his stint in Iraq.
Suarez-Gonzalez
died Dec. 4, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.
A Defense
Department statement released Friday said Suarez-Gonzalez and another soldier died
in Ar Ramadi, Iraq, “of injuries suffered from small arms fire while
conducting security and observation operations.''
''I loved him
like a son,'' said Gonzalez, the uncle who let Roger live with him locally for
about a year. The uncle-and-nephew team
also worked side by side installing home cabinets around Miami-Dade County.
Gonzalez said
he is still not convinced his nephew is dead, that it is not some military case
of mistaken identity. The Army is asking for a closed-casket funeral and the
family wonders why.
Suarez-Gonzalez's
wife, now a widow, lamented a world in which ''we are self-destructing
ourselves.''
She predicted her family won't
be the last to suffer as a result of the events in Iraq.
''Although people won't believe
or understand me . . . this is not going to stop here. This is only the beginning of something worse
to come,'' she said.
Tragic Way To
Learn Son Is In Iraq
December 16, 2006 By ANTHONY LANE, THE GAZETTE
The death of a Fort Carson soldier in Iraq
earlier this month came as a surprise to his relatives.
They thought he was still in Colorado.
“I didn’t even know he was in
Iraq,” said Jean Feggins of Philadelphia, the mother of Pfc. Albert M.
Nelson.
The 31-year-old Nelson was killed Dec. 4 with
Pfc. Roger A. Suarez-Gonzalez, 21, when their infantry unit came under
small-arms fire in Ramadi, the Army said Friday. The men were with a 2nd
Brigade Combat Team battalion sent to Anbar province, southwest of Baghdad.
Feggins said her son enlisted in the Army
about a year ago. “He was only in
there about a year,” Feggins said.
Before joining
the Army, Nelson worked as a security guard and at other jobs. Feggins said her son was a “regular
guy” and a “people person.”
Nelson was the
oldest of Feggins’ six children. The
youngest is 12. Feggins said she raised
them all to look up to their older brother.
“They’re
devastated,” Feggins said.
Feggins
declined to talk in detail about Nelson’s personal life. “He’s a grown man,” Feggins
said. “He was a grown man.”
Feggins said
her relationship with her son went through some cool times. “Me and him, we didn’t always see
eye to eye, but we were best friends,” Feggins said.
Feggins said
her son never married or had children.
Since the start of the Iraq
invasion in 2003, 177 Fort Carson soldiers have been killed, including 55
deaths from enemy fire. Seventy-two
soldiers from the 2nd Brigade Combat Team have been killed.
Hilo Soldier
Dies On 4th Tour In Iraq
December 17,
2006 The Honolulu Advertiser
HILO, Hawai'i
— A Big Island man who was on his fourth tour in Iraq died Friday of
injuries he suffered two weeks ago when a roadside bomb exploded near an
armored Stryker vehicle he was riding in as part of a convoy, a family member
said.
Henry
Kahalewai, 44, was a senior enlisted man who planned to retire next year after
20 years in the Army to build a home on land he owned in Upper Puna, said
Joseph Aguiar, Kahalewai's cousin.
Kahalewai had
a grown son who lives in Honolulu, and two younger daughters who lived with him
and his wife in Tacoma, Wash., Aguiar said.
"He's our
hero. Four tours of Iraq is enough for
one person," Aguiar said.
Kahalewai was
born and raised in Hilo, and enlisted in the Army because job and career
opportunities in Hilo were limited at the time, Aguiar said. "He wasn't comfortable, and he decided,
well, he liked the military life," he said.
Aguiar, who
lives in Kea'au, said his cousin had expertise in armored vehicles, including
tanks and the Stryker.
Kahalewai came
from a family with a long history of military service, including Kahalewai's
father, grandfather, and his uncle. Kahalewai's father left the Big Island to
be with his son before he died, Aguiar said.
"God
knows how he's hurting right now," Aguiar said of Kahalewai's father
Aguiar said
Kahalewai was outgoing, and called him "a true Hawaiian spirit."
"He was a
very good man," Aguiar said. "He was just a bundle of life, in the
cold he was warmth, the warmth of our life.
"He was
in there trying to take care of good old Uncle George Bush's problem, and four
times he went back."
The
Generals Lie While Troops Die:
IEDs Kill At
Highest Rate Of War
[Thanks to
Mark Shapiro, who sent this in.]
A
previously unpublicized assessment generated by the Republican staff of the
House Armed Services Committee and obtained by the Globe effectively accused
the generals of hedging the truth when Congress asks what they need to protect
the troops. [Isn’t that
sweet? Generals don’t lie. Oh no, they “hedge the truth.”]
December 17,
2006 By Bryan Bender, Boston Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- US troops in Iraq are dying in
roadside bombings at a higher rate than any period since the war began -- some
in follow-up attacks in the same locations -- but commanders still have no
effective means to monitor the deadliest routes for patrols, according to
Pentagon officials and documents.
Military
deaths from roadside bombs have hit an all-time high in recent months: In
October, 53 US troops died from improvised explosive devices, while in
November, 49 troop deaths were blamed on so-called IEDs -- the second and third
highest monthly tolls of the war, official statistics and casualty reports
show.
That is far
higher than the overall monthly average of 28 IED-related deaths since July
2003, when the data were first compiled.
And in the three previous months, between 22 and 29 soldiers and Marines
died from roadside bombs.
Officials at the Joint IED Defeat
Organization admit that most of the billions of dollars they get each year goes
to developing high-tech gear to detect or disarm bombs rather than addressing
the root of the problem: finding out where the bombs come from and who is
planting them.
December is on track to become
the deadliest month of all.
According to
news reports, 53 soldiers died as of Dec. 16; Pentagon data indicates that
roughly 60 percent of all casualties this month came from roadside bombings.
Throughout much of the war, IEDs have caused about half of all US combat deaths
in Iraq, according to a September study by the nonpartisan Congressional
Research Service.
That has spurred outrage among military
officers, Pentagon contractors, and members of Congress. They charge that, after spending billions of
taxpayer dollars to address the problem there is still virtually no solid
intelligence on how the bombers operate.
Senator Gordon
Smith , a Republican from Oregon who had been a longtime supporter of the Iraq
war, put it bluntly in his critique of the Iraq war on the Senate floor last
week:
"I, for one, am at the end
of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers
patrolling the same streets in the same way, being blown up by the same bombs
day after day. That is absurd. It may even be criminal. I cannot support that anymore."
The Joint IED Defeat
Organization, which had been hailed as the "Manhattan Project" of the
roadside bomb problem, "has been a disaster," said Ed O'Connell , a
counter-insurgency specialist at the government-funded Rand Corporation in
Santa Monica, Calif. , who has advised US commanders in Iraq.
Cheap and
lethal, roadside bombs are the tactic of choice for both Sunni and Shia Muslim
insurgent groups opposed to the US military presence.
"We can't even detect their
explosives," said Loren Thompson , a military specialist at the Lexington
Institution, an Arlington, Va., think tank that supports strong military
preparedness. "We don't have the
resources to police or survey every road. The IED problem is a case study of
how military transformation has failed.
That lack of intelligence,
however, is not only blamed on the IED office but also on commanders in the
field, who some specialists say aren't forthcoming about the extent of the
problem.
A
previously unpublicized assessment generated by the Republican staff of the
House Armed Services Committee and obtained by the Globe effectively accused
the generals of hedging the truth when Congress asks what they need to protect
the troops. [Isn’t that
sweet? Generals don’t lie. Oh no, they “hedge the truth.”]
The 2005 congressional report
said that on numerous occasions, generals assured lawmakers that they have
"complete (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) coverage over
the respective theater battlespace; and in effect, 'they get everything.'
" That has repeatedly been proven wrong, it said.
"The assumption then has always been
that the troops also 'get everything' in the way of warning and intelligence,
but this has not been the case," the report said.
"The fact that the enemy
still has the ability to go out at night and set dozens of IEDs, mine and cut
pipelines, and have hundreds of new recruits coming in to join and reinforce
the insurgent forces undetected gives testament to the fact that something is
gravely wrong." [Right. It’s called an
“occupation.” For some odd
reason, Iraqis don’t want to live under a military occupation
dictatorship commanded by George W. Bush.
Imagine that. That’s
what’s “gravely wrong.”
T]
REALLY
BAD IDEA:
NO MISSION;
HOPELESS WAR:
BRING THEM ALL HOME
NOW

10.28.06: US soldiers man a spot checkpoint setup
around the Karada neighborhood in central Baghdad. .(AFP/Ali al-Saadi)
TROOP NEWS
THE
MINISTER OF DETH

Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair
autographs an armored vehicle during his visit to British troops in Basra Dec.
17, 2006. (AP Photo/Eddie Keogh/pool)
[This is a message to Americans from Rose
Gentle. Her son Gordon was killed in
Iraq. She leads a campaign to bring all
the Scots and other troops home from Iraq,
now. Her words carry more weight, and
contain more truth, than 5000 pages of bullshit from the politicians. T]
From: Rose Gentle
To: GI Special
Sent: December 18, 2006 9:34 AM
when i saw
tony blair in iraq. i was so mad
how can this bit of dirt stand with our troops
when he is the one that is geting
them kilied, and to autograph
an armored vehicle
its just a shame
that he will not be
in it by him self and
it gets blown up ,
our troops
dont want his autograph