This is where we take our stand; a review

One of our ninjas sent us a preview copy of the Iraq Veterans Against the War’s last gasp, their last chance at relevance, an hour long video entitled “This Is Where We Take Our Stand” about the lead up to and the events of their Winter Soldier II theater in Silver Spring, Maryland one weekend in March, 2008. TSO and I worked together for the first time at that event, so I figured the internet needs my perspective on the day we were there. You can see the live blogging I did there at this link.

The video seems to focus mostly on three members of IVAW; Geoff “Stolen Valor” Millard, Selena “Army Sergeant” Coppa and Jason Washburn. I’ve met all of them. Of the three, Geoff Millard was a general’s gopher during his tour of Iraq and then went AWOL when he came back and the Army wouldn’t give hi a medical discharge for his high school football injury, Coppa never deployed to the war, and Washburn, a former Marine corporal, might have some level of authority to speak as an Iraq veteran.

In the video, Millard talks about how he’s having difficulty adjusting after the war because of the things he’s seen. Yeah, the only thing he saw was power point presentations and backed up latrines. Millard was the epitome of a POG, even though we caught him wearing a CIB during one of his protests. To prove he was a POG, the medals he pirated to impress the hippies with were 3 unearned Meritorious Service Medals – only a POG would think that would be cool. The video follows the admitted bisexual Millard while he shops for tattoos, as if that’s what combat veterans do when they have down time. And it shows a conversation Millard had with the shop owner about how he was an explosives expert and it was fun until he started blowing up people. I don’t know how many people he blew up while working on the general’s staff, but I’m guessing it was none.

Coppa comes off like a martyr in the video for sticking to her anti-war views while the Army was trying to boot her out. It wasn’t that at all. TSO and I were both advising her to sit down and shut up if she wanted to remain in uniform. Advice that she ignored and paid the price, so it shouldn’t have been a big surprise to anyone. The Army and she are both better off for that now.

The video focuses on some of the testimony at Winter Soldier, like Jason Hurd’s tear-jerker about almost shooting a woman, and Millard’s recounting of the story about a General’s staff officer calling Iraqis “hadjis” and making fun of the driving skills. They also throw in the clip of Jon Turner as he throws his pin-on ribbons on the floor after his testimony and the declaration that he is no longer the monster he was. Those were probably the highlights of my time in the testimony, too, since TSO and I were giggling our asses off in the back of the room while these antics occurred and the filthy hippies were blubbering and cheering.

At the end of the video, Millard complains that no one cared, that the American public panned the testimony. There were more than 50 media agencies covering the event from nearly every outlet in the world, but, as one of my readers said at the time, it went off like a wet firecracker. No one cared because their testimony was not compelling. There were no atrocities revealed, they missed their mark. More Americans read about the Winter Soldier II event in my blog than in the media – I had over a half-million hits in the days that followed my attendance because people wanted an unvarnished look at the testimony that wasn’t filtered through the media. And testimony about shooting a building to pieces with a 50 cal. just doesn’t pique people’s interest.

So this video is supposed to fill that gap between the media largely ignoring them and my reportage. But, like the testimony, the video reports a non-story. I don’t know what they spent on the propaganda piece, but it was too much.

Category: Iraq Veterans Against the War