About Face: Soldiers Call for Iraq Withdrawal

Many active duty, reserve, and guard service members are concerned about the war in Iraq and support the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

The Appeal for Redress provides a way in which individual service members can appeal to their Congressional Representative and US Senators to urge an end to the U.S. military occupation. The wording of the Appeal for Redress is short and simple. It is patriotic and respectful in tone.

“As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq . Staying in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price. It is time for U.S. troops to come home.”

This article publishes some of the personal reasons given for taking the pledge and the potential plunge of becoming signatories to this statement in the preceding paragraph of five of the service members who have become part of this Appeal for Redress process.

For the first time since Vietnam, an organized, robust movement of active-duty US military personnel has publicly surfaced to oppose a war in which they are serving. Those involved plan to petition Congress to withdraw American troops from Iraq.

After appearing only seven weeks ago on the Internet, the Appeal for Redress, brainchild of 29-year-old Navy seaman Jonathan Hutto, has already been signed by nearly 1,000 US soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen, including dozens of officers—most of whom are on active duty. Not since 1969, when some 1,300 active-duty military personnel signed an open letter in the New York Times opposing the war in Vietnam, has there been such a dramatic barometer of rising military dissent.

Interviews with two dozen signers of the Appeal reveal a mix of motives for opposing the war: ideological, practical, strategic and moral. But all those interviewed agree that it is time to start withdrawing the troops.

Posted by GWHunta
Small town, working class from Michigan's Upper Peninsula. 1990 went to work for the MDOC; the very forefront of the U.S. Prison / Industrial Complex. Learned there, the hard way, that if I wasn't one of them; "they" would be pit against me. ...

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