Why I Will March to Support the Troops and End the War
By Ann Wright
t r u t h o u t | Guest Contributor
Monday 12 March 2007
I am returning to Fayetteville, North Carolina, on March 17 for the first time
in over twenty years. I spent three years on active duty at [nearby] Fort Bragg
as an instructor at the Special Warfare Center and as executive officer of the
96th Civil Affairs Battalion, Special Operations Command. During my time at
Fort Bragg, I deployed to Grenada on the 18th Airborne Corps international law
team and was a member of the US Army claims commission in Grenada. I stayed
for four months, helping to re-establish governmental functions and assisting
with economic development programs.
I ended up being in the US Army and Army Reserves for 29 years and retired
as a Colonel. I then joined the US diplomatic corps and served in Nicaragua,
Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Mongolia
and Afghanistan. I was on the first State Department team to reopen the US Embassy
in Kabul, Afghanistan in December 2001 after the CIA and US military pushed
the Taliban out of Kabul and had al-Qaeda heading for the Tora Bora mountains.
Ironically, after serving in eight presidential administrations, either in
the US military or in the US diplomatic corps, I am returning to Fayetteville
to participate in a rally and march to end the war on Iraq.
Why would a 29-year retired US Army colonel be marching to end the war? Well,
in March 2003, four years ago, as the war in Iraq began, I resigned from the
US diplomatic corps in opposition to the war. I was one of three US government
employees who resigned. That's why I am marching to end the war - I gave up
my career over the war.
The rally and march in Fayetteville, the home of one of the largest military
bases in the United States, is not a march against the men and women in our
military services. If it were, I would not participate.
Instead, the march is to call for an end of the administration's policy that
placed our military in Iraq in the first place, and secondly to demand that
our servicemen and women be provided with proper care when they return.
On March 5th I attended the Congressional hearing in the auditorium at Walter
Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, concerning conditions at Walter
Reed for our wounded military and how the transition from active-duty medical
care to Veterans Administration care can be done much, much more effectively.
While some may disagree with our view that the war in Iraq must end, we will
be in the streets of Fayetteville in solidarity with our active-duty colleagues,
demanding better care for those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. That we
all can agree on.
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Ann Wright served 29 years in the US Army (13 years on active duty
and 16 years in the Army Reserves) and retired as a colonel. She also worked
for 16 years as a US diplomat in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan,
Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. She was awarded the State
Department's Award for Heroism for her actions in the evacuation of 2,500 members
of the international community and Sierra Leone government during the invasion
of rebels into the capital city of Freetown in May 1997. She resigned from the
US diplomatic corps in March 2003 in opposition to the war in Iraq.
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