1 Veterans Occupy Wall Street
2 Oakland: Veterans March to Support Wounded Protesters

Veterans Occupy Wall Street

Paolo Cravero | 
November 11, 2011
Published on The Nation http://www.thenation.com/article/164553/veterans-occupy-wall-street

As a US Marine, Scott Olsen lived through "blood, sweat
and tears." Twice. After two tours of duty in Iraq,
first from 2006 to 2007, then again from 2008 to 2009,
he finally came home to Wisconsin. He then moved to the
Golden State, rented a house with a friend and got a job
as a systems network administrator in Daly City, just
south of San Francisco.

But on the night of October 25, Olsen, who had survived
enemy fire as a member of the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine
regiment in Iraq, was hit by a projectile shot by a law
enforcement officer as he joined a few hundred people
protesting with Occupy Oakland that night. He was
hospitalized for a skull fracture and brain swelling.

According to Olsen's roommate, Keith Shannon, who was
deployed in Iraq with him, Olsen was marching with the
Occupy movement because he felt that "corporations and
banks had too much control over our government, and that
they weren't being held accountable for their role in
the economic downturn, which caused so many people to
lose their jobs and their homes."

Veterans have long been involved in American social
movements and protests--particularly anti-war ones.
Take, for example, the protests, demonstrations and acts
of civil disobedience organized, in the early 1970s, by
the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. But veterans'
involvement in the Occupy movement went largely
unnoticed by organizers and protesters alike until
October 15, when a video of Marine Sergeant Shamar
Thomas went viral on the web. In the video, Thomas
spontaneously addresses NYPD officers patrolling an
Occupy Wall Street demonstration, passionately
criticizing their crowd-control methods and brutality.

Since then, the visibility of veterans and veteran
organizations at Occupy events around the country has
grown, becoming more persistent and evident to both
protesters and organizers. After witnessing the police
brutality in New York earlier this month, a group of
veterans calling themselves Occupy Marines pledged its
support to the Occupy Wall Street movement. "As veterans
we were led to believe [that] our service was to protect
America's way of life abroad," a spokesperson of the
organization explains, "We did not want to believe that
our presence in the Middle East was to ensure an oil
supply, or to deepen the pockets of the financial
elites. Many.lost their life out there, and the
suggestion that their sacrifice was for profits, or oil,
is unbearable. [That is why] we came forward to protect
these demonstrators' ability to express their
constitutional First Amendment right."

Similarly, other organizations such as Iraq Veterans
Against the War (IVAW) and Veterans for Peace (VFP) have
been supporting the movement by occupying Zuccotti Park.

"Joining the protest is the opportunity to show visible
support for what probably is the most important American
social movement of this generation," says Joseph Carter,
a media spokesperson for IVAW who has taken part in the
protest at Freedom Plaza.

It is not difficult to see why veterans are particularly
suited to align themselves with the Occupy movement.
While the financial crisis has affected the vast
majority of Americans, veterans have been particularly
burdened. Foreclosure rates in military towns, for
example, were growing at four times the national average
in early 2008, as military families were particularly
targeted by subprime mortgages' lenders.

The recession, along with the difficulty of
reintegrating into society, have resulted in
particularly high unemployment rates for recent
veterans. Overall, 11.7 percent of soldiers that fought
in Iraq and Afghanistan are currently unemployed,
compared to the 8.6 percent of their civilian
counterparts. For veterans between 18 and 24, the
unemployment figures are worse: 20.9 percent as opposed
to the 17.3 percent of non-veterans of the same age.

Wounded vets oftentimes have it even harder. Finding a
job is difficult for everyone these days, says Carter of
IVAW, "but the trauma that veterans have had during
deployment play a crucial role in making it particularly
difficult to reintegrate [in civilian life]." Carter
points to the alarmingly high incidence of Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among Operation
Enduring and Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF) veterans as an
obstacle to finding employment-29 percent of all OEF/OIF
veterans currently being treated by the Department of
Veteran Affairs are being treated for PTSD. This figure
is nearly double that of the incidence of PTSD in
Vietnam War veterans (15.2 percent), and more than twice
the rate of PTSD in Gulf War veterans (12.1 percent).
Military Sexual Trauma (MST), that is, sexual assault or
sustained sexual harassment, feeds in to the problem of
PTSD. Studies from the San Francisco VA Medical Center
have demonstrated a connection between MST and the
development of PTSD, particularly in female veterans, as
recent projections estimate that one in three female
service members experiences MST during her service in
the US military.

Employers often do not have a clear understanding of
what PTSD entails-serious headaches, temporary memory
loss, poor concentration, garbled speech, dizziness and
anxiety in a crowd. In fact, many employers fear that
veterans suffering with PTSD pose a safety threat to
other workers and would require costly accommodations
for their condition. According to a 2010 survey of the
Society for Human Resource Management, 46 percent of the
questioned employers believed that PTSD and other mental
health issues posed a hiring challenge. However, only 22
percent of the respondents thought the same about
combat-related physical disabilities.

In addition to this, wounded veterans also had to
navigate the slow and often cumbersome path towards
medical care and disability compensations-according to a
2010 Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA)
report, wounded veterans without the representation of
lawyers or service organizations received "less than
half the compensation" awarded to those who had such
assistance.

Consequences of this situation were evident in a 2009
IAVA report, which shows that veterans make up one-third
of the adult homeless population. Pete Dougherty,
director of homeless programs at the VA, warned that an
alarming trend is taking shape with OEF/OIF veterans.
Data show that it took between five to ten years of
trying to readjust to civilian life before approximately
70,000 Vietnam War veterans became homeless. "Veterans
of today's wars who become homeless," says Dougherty,
"end up with no place to live within eighteen months
after they return from war."

Occupy Wall Street's lack of formal demands, and the
plurality of causes championed by members of the
movement, has fostered a sense of belonging and
community, creating what an OWS organizer defines as a
"mainstream American tapestry movement." Uniting during
this financial crisis has reduced the perceived
differences between diverse groups and, according to
Jorge Gonzalez, a member of IVAW Board of Directors, has
at least partially unveiled the close relationship
between the war economy and the civilian economy.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research
Institute, in fact, US military spending in 2010
amounted to $698 billion-43 percent of the world total
($1,630 billion). This, Gonzalez argues, allowed people
to see that veterans' and civilians' situations are
"more connected then it was [in the past]."

As veterans and civilians alike attended a solidarity
vigil in support of Scott Olsen on October 27, in New
York as well as in other cities across the nation, Ed
Mullins, head of the NYPD sergeant union, penned an op-
ed in the New York Post in which he warned OWS
protesters that he would pursue legal action against
anyone who harms police. There was no mention of police
brutality.

With IVAW, VFP, Occupy Marines and other veteran
organizations pledging their support for Occupy Wall
Street, the movement continues to grow and gain
legitimacy. The (peaceful) fight goes on.

=====
22222

Veterans March Planned Friday in Support of Wounded
Occupy Protesters

By Angela Woodall
Oakland Tribune
Posted: 11/10/2011 10:01:02 PM PST
Updated: 11/10/2011 10:23:06 PM PST
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_19312504

Outrage erupted among a group of veterans at the Occupy
Wall Street protest last week after Iraq War veteran
Kayvan Sabeghi said police clubbed him during a Nov. 3
standoff between officers and supporters of Occupy
Oakland.

On Friday, fellow former service members plan to march
in Oakland to denounce police brutality that they say
was the cause of Sabeghi's ruptured spleen and the
injury suffered by another Iraq War veteran and Occupy
Oakland protester, Scott Olsen, who witnesseses said was
hit by a police projectile on Oct. 25.

"No one should be treated like that whether they're a
veteran or not," said Michael Thurman, who helped
spearhead Friday's march, which leaves from Frank Ogawa
Plaza at 4 p.m.

The veterans' injuries and their engagement with the
Occupy movement have an infamous precedent that
resonates with events continuing to unfold in the center
of downtown Oakland.

In May 1932, about 15,000 veterans, many unemployed and
destitute, descended on Washington, D.C. They demanded
immediate payment of future bonuses promised them by the
government. Many of the men, as well as their wives and
children, set up camps around the Capitol when President
Herbert Hoover refused their demands. The occupation
ended in bloodshed after police descended on the Bonus
Army, as they came to be called. Cavalry and tanks sent
in to rout the camp were followed by soldiers with
bayonets who hurled tear gas at the men and their
families.

The camp was left in flames, and thousands were wounded.

The Bonus Army's treatment hasn't been lost on the
veterans who plan to march Friday.

Many veterans of the post-9/11 era are proud of their
military service in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a
new Pew Research Center survey. But the survey reported
that the sacrifices those wars have taken are being
shouldered by a volunteer military made up of just one
half of 1 percent of the U.S. population, whose members
have found services and jobs lacking upon their return
home.

Veterans said the way Olsen and Sabeghi were treated
just adds insult to injury.

After serving the country to protect First Amendment
rights of civilians and police alike, what happened to
Olsen and Sabeghi was unacceptable, said Dottie Guy, a
former member of the National Guard.

Guy, 29, served as a guard in 2003 at Camp Cropper, a
holding facility for high-value detainees operated by
the Army in Iraq, before she was honorably discharged in
2005. She marched with other veterans during the Nov. 2
general strike in Oakland. "Our job is to protect the
freedom of speech and assembly," she said. "We still
take that oath seriously."

Members of the armed forces can weigh in publicly on
political matters if they are not on duty, not on base
and not in uniform. And they can protest only within the
United States. But some fear backlash for political
activism. Add the affinity that police and military
members often share, and it makes it more difficult for
veterans to protest against the police.

Olsen's injury swept aside veteran Emily Yates'
reservations about the Occupy movement.

"That was my 'a ha' moment," said Yates, 29, who served
in the Army from 2002 to 2008 and was deployed twice to
Baghdad as a public affairs specialist. She was even
more incensed by the crackdown Wednesday night by law
enforcement on people who tried to set up an Occupy camp
on the UC Berkeley campus, where she is a student.

Police are trained to know when to use restraint, she
said. "That's why they have a badge."

Thurman, 23, said he wants the officers who use force on
the demonstrators to be held accountable and to change
the tactics law enforcement agencies use.

He left the Air Force in 2008, two years after enlisting
as a conscientious objector and, like many of the other
marchers, is a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War.

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