OBERLIN — Don’t tell members of Veterans for Peace Oberlin Post 39 that they aren’t patriots.

Sometimes, protesting a war can be the toughest job of a soldier, said Jim Minnery of Carlisle Township.

In 1971, a group of veterans exposed atrocities of the Vietnam War in an event called Winter Soldier.

It took U.S. soldiers to turn against the war for it to finally end, said Minnery, who served as a Marine interrogator in Da Nang in 1969.

“There were whole units who refused to fight” in Vietnam, Minnery said.

From Thursday to Monday, Minnery attended another event called Winter Soldier, this time involving soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan who got together in Silver Springs, Md.

Minnery, a member of the Oberlin post of  Veterans for Peace, said he noticed the same sort of guilt on the part of those who testified at the conference in Silver Springs.

Some of those who testified showed Minnery photographs of horrible things that happened to the Iraqi population, and those memories stay with you long after a war, he said.

“For some of these guys, it will take decades to get over,” said Minnery, a certified public accountant who still has vivid memories of using an electrical current to interrogate prisoners in Vietnam.

“After I returned from Vietnam and found out what a waste the war was, the memories of the torture produced more guilt,” he said.

The event in Silver Springs was covered by major newspapers such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, but it did not get much coverage in many newspapers across the nation or on television, Minnery said.

Many people and the media seem to be buying into the argument that the surge is working, but every day seems to bring news of bombings and more destruction, Minnery said.

Some estimates of Iraqi dead are more than one million, while it took Saddam Hussein 30 years to kill 300,000, he said.

“People keep trying to say that they’re killing each other, but a million people would be alive if Bush had not lied us into this war,” Minnery said.

Minnery and other members of the Oberlin Veterans for Peace group plan a number of events to publicize their opposition to the war, including a vigil tonight in Tappan Square.

Post commander Michael Kay said the group also plans on asking Oberlin City Council to pass a resolution rejecting the possibility of any attack on Iran.

Kay, a retired history professor and World War II veteran, said he fears the administration of President Bush will wage a pre-emptive attack on Iran.

“I put nothing past these people — that in the last months of their regime, and I use that word advisably — they will get us involved in another horrible war,” said Kay, of Oberlin.

Bob Bemer, the post’s secretary, said getting involved politically gives members of Veterans for Peace the satisfaction of doing what they can to raise awareness.

Bemer, of Westlake, served in the Naval Reserve during the Vietnam War, said his reasons for getting involved in the anti-war group “are complicated.”

“Those of us who didn’t have to fight and die owe a debt to those who did,” he said.

Members work in coalition with other peace and justice organizations to organize rallies and man tables in public places with the aim to abolish war.

Bemer said some members of the Oberlin chapter also plan to lend support to a demonstration planned in Cleveland that will take place the day after the 4,000^th U.S. death is reported in Iraq.

Each of the 4,000 names of those who died will be written on a piece of paper and held next to each other on Veteran’s Bridge — the Detroit Superior Bridge.

“It’s 3,000 feet long so we may go end to end,” Bemer said.

The demonstration is planned at 5 p.m. during rush hour on the day after the news of the 4,000^th death is published in The Plain Dealer, he said.

If that occurs on a Friday or weekend, the demonstration will take place on the following Monday, he said.

“We’ll make a good showing — the best we can,” Bemer said.

 

What: Vigil against the war in Iraq

When: 6:30 to 7:30 tonight Wednesday at Tappan Square, state routes 511 and 58 in Oberlin

Who: Sponsored by Veterans for Peace Oberlin Post 39; everyone is invited to take part

For information: go to www.veteransforpeace.org

 

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