Wearing Red to Support the Troops

July 9, 2005 — A few days ago, I received an all-users e-mail from a colleague asking me to show my support for the troops in Iraq by wearing red on Fridays. The message was couched in highly patriotic terms, with the implication that if I didn’t wear red on Fridays, I didn’t support the troops and was unpatriotic. This crystallized a problem I’ve been wrestling with for some time now-how to show my outrage at this miserable war while still supporting the troops.

I need to jump back in time to clarify a couple of points. In 1970 I was sitting in a bunker in Vietnam, three miles from the Cambodian border, glancing at a casualty report. A name leaped off the page-Travis Bertrand Lee, Jr., Nicknamed Butch. Killed in a firefight in some nameless jungle wasteland. Butch was my first childhood playmate.

What did Butch die for? A lie! The lie Lyndon Johnson told the country about attacks on destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin. A lie that 98 senators bought into when they gave Johnson the authority to use whatever force necessary to protect the South Vietnam dictatorship from the North Vietnam dictatorship. Johnson’s lie would eventually lead to the death of over 58,000 U.S. troops and approximately three million Vietnamese, mostly civilians.

Thirty-five years later, we are engaged in another war based on ever-greater lies. Over and over in the year before “Shock and Awe,” Mr. Bush told us that any decision to go to war was a last resort. Now the Downing Street minutes tell us that Mr. Bush, along with the British, launched full-scale air attacks against Iraqi military and civilian targets a full year before he was granted that authority by Congress. Now we know that the intelligence community-constantly blamed by the president for giving him incorrect information-in fact told the president there were no WMD’s, no yellow cake uranium, and no Iraqi connection to Al Queda or 9/11. Now we know that Mr. Bush and his people “fixed” the intelligence to fit pre-determined policies. Colin Powell’s presentation to the U.N. justifying this war was a litany of fabrications.

Now we know that this war had no connection to terrorism, and has only increased the number of terrorists and the number of terrorist acts around the world. According to the State Department, terrorist attacks tripled between 2003 and 2004. Now we know the incontrovertible truth-the war in Iraq is based on lies piled on lies.

So when I’m asked to wear a red shirt to show support for the troops in Iraq, I question what kind of support that shows. I also understand how difficult it is in the current political and cultural climate to say that I support the troops, but don’t support this obscene war that has killed over 1,700 U.S. soldiers and wounded over 100,003, as of last report from the Veterans Administration.

Mr. Bush and his people have done a marvelous job of undercutting one of the basic ingredients of democracy-the need for dissent in order to get at the truth-by labeling dissent as unpatriotic. Thus, if I can’t support this war, I can’t possibly support the troops, relegating me to the status of unpatriotic and a member of the hate America crowd. Those of us who would hold Mr. Bush accountable for his lies and deceptions, who would hold him accountable for policies that belie the best ideals of this country, are marginalized, and our dissent-all dissent, really-is removed from the process, neatly circumventing the democratic process under the guise of patriotism.

Let me point out a couple of other problems I have with wearing red on Fridays. On the most superficial level, I question the use of the color red. We’ve just gone through two bitter presidential elections that were anything but models for the democratic process-Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004 the most notable examples. In these elections, the color red signified Republican and blue Democrat. I do not support the Republicans or most of what they stand for-politically, economically, environmentally-so to wear red goes against the grain. Therefore, I ask what happened to the color yellow? For years, yellow has been the color showing support for troops. Why not yellow shirts to show support for the troops?

On a more substantive level, wearing a shirt of any color is superficial-kind of like those magnetic ribbons people slap on their cars. I think, given what we now know, that we should all be outraged at this war and ought to be doing all we can to bring the troops home-to save families and friends from having to bury one more U.S. soldier in this war of choice started by a man who refused to go to Vietnam. Why should one more soldier die for the lies Mr. Bush told us, even as my boyhood pal died for the Johnson lie? What purpose do these deaths serve? How is the world made any better by the loss of these soldiers, with all the potential they carry within? How many more will have to die before we, the people, say not more? Say we will not give the lives of our young men and women for a lie? Will it take 58,000?

So, no, I will not wear a red shirt on Fridays. I will, however, be marching in the anti-war protest in Washington, DC, on September 24, calling for the return of our troops. I will continue to speak and write against this war because this war has destroyed the lives of far too many of our soldiers, along with over 100,000 Iraqi civilians, mostly women and children.

We’re also destroying a country and its people with our use of massive amounts of depleted uranium munitions, a toxic metal that will be causing vicious cancers and heartrending birth defects long after we are gone-much as agent orange is still causing birth defects in Vietnam. Depleted uranium is having serious affects on our own troops-and their wives and children-though this is a carefully guarded secret the Pentagon keeps from the public.

Do I support the troops? Of course. I cry when I hear of another helicopter downed, as I did yesterday, crew and soldiers incinerated in a fireball. That’s what happens when most helicopters go down. I’ve experienced that horror first-hand, still see faces of young men who never had the chance to grow old. I want our soldiers home safe and sound.

Do I support the war? Never. I also think the vast majority of people in the U.S. are so much better than this war, and the sooner we act on our best instincts-instincts of decency and caring for others, which I believe predominate in our population-without fearing all the false boogey men we’ve been threatened with in the past couple of years-the better for us, our soldiers, our country. Certainly better for the world.

Craig Etchison, PhD, is a Professor of English and the Director of the Center for Nonviolent Alternatives. He was formerly Flight Operations Sergeant, A Trp, !/9th Cav, 1st Cavalry Division, Vietnam. Dr. Etchison can be reached at cetchison@Allegany.edu.

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