Shunpiking Online Vo.4 No.4 Anti-war veterans take to the road

BOSTN (21 May 2007) RHC -- THE Boston chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War, formed earlier this month by former soldiers and Marines, is planning to take its call for immediate withdrawal from Iraq to all major military bases along the East Coast.

The Boston Globe reports that the local chapter is the 17th in a growing national movement by veterans of the four-year-old conflict. To Liam Madden, a former Marine sergeant who was deployed in Anbar Province, the group's goal has taken on increasing urgency.

The 22-year-old former Marine said that he believes that the war of aggression against Iraq "is based on lies" and that "people shouldn't be dying or killing for lies." Madden, who is president of the Boston chapter, said he served in occupied Iraq for seven months in 2004 and 2005. "Every Iraqi I passed had eyes full of fear and rage and hopelessness," said Madden, whose four years in the Marine Corps ended in January.

The bus tour of East Coast bases, scheduled for June, will stretch from Fort Drum, N.Y., to military installations around Washington to Fort Benning, Georgia, and other bases in the Deep South, Madden said. The group will not try to enter the bases, but will sponsor barbecues nearby, where active-duty soldiers and others can hear the veterans present their case.

Madden said that they were "abandoning the idea of having a speech or having some sort of rally." Instead, they will try to reach their fellow soldiers in more of a social undertaking. The president of the Boston chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War said that their on-the-road tour to U.S. military bases will be very much a social endeavor. "We're going to get troops used to the idea that we're not some 'out-there' group. We are, in fact, more able to relate to the troops than any other organization."