KUCI Interview

Treading the Undercurrent

IVAW Interview for KUCI’s Treading the Undercurrent radio show aired January 18, 2008.

AI generated transcript:

You're listening to Treading the undercurrent. Today, we'll be looking at the IVAW Iraq Veterans Against the War, their mission, and also talking to veteran Logan Laituri about free speech in the military. People in the military don't have the same constitutional rights to express themselves as civilians do. Courts have upheld some of these limitations, reasoning that the right to free speech must give way. If the military says that it is necessary for it to accomplish its mission. 

Iraq Veterans Against the War was founded by Iraq War Veterans in July 2004 at the annual Convention of Veterans for Peace in Boston to give a voice to the large number of active duty service people and veterans who are against this war but are under various pressures to remain silent. From its inception, IVAW has called for immediate withdrawal of all occupying, occupying forces in Iraq, reparations for the destruction and corporate pillaging of Iraq so that Iraqi people can control their own lives in future and full benefits, adequate health care, including mental health and other supports for returning servicemen and women. The ten reasons why They oppose this War. The Iraq War is based on lies and deception. The Iraq war violates international law. Corporate profiteering is driving the war in Iraq. Overwhelming civilian casualties are a daily occurrence in Iraq. Soldiers have the right to refuse illegal war. Service members are facing serious health consequences due to our government's negligence. The war in Iraq is tearing our families apart. The Iraq war is robbing us of funding sorely needed here at home. The war dehumanizes Iraqis and denies them their right to self-determination. Our military is being exhausted by repeated deployments, involuntary extensions and activations of the Reserve and National Guard. We are abusing the small population of armed service members with multiple deployments while using inadequate vehicles and equipment. Less than one half of a percent of the American population is serving in the active armed forces, which is the least amount in the last century. Only 20 25% of the troops in Iraq are there for the first tour, while 50% are there on their second tour and the remaining 25% are there three times or more. We continue to involuntarily extend soldiers with stop loss. We call them repeatedly for additional service using the Individual Ready Reserve and sent soldiers with diagnosed medical problems into combat. So I'm going to take a brief musical intermission and get our guest, veteran Logan Laituri, on the line.

You're listening to treading the undercurrent. And today we will be focusing on free speech and the military will be speaking with our guest in veteran Logan Laituri. Logan, are you there? I sure am. Great. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. Thanks for having me. Thank you. And let's just start off by some areas of censorship. Include the censorship that takes place in the recruitment process. And IVAW is efforts in activism to speak the truth about joining the service. Actually, we just a brief by a brief introduction for you, Logan Little Harry was a paratrooper for two years in the 82nd Airborne in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, before he re-enlisted for an assignment in Hawaii with the 25th Infantry Division. He was on Oahu for one year and two days before deployed to Iraq on January 19th, 2004. In Iraq, he served in the 114 Infantry as the entire countries and Europe, which is quick reaction force as a result of an experience, he had decided to apply for status as a non-combatant conscientious objector. So with that, I just want to. Logan is a member of the IVAW and one of their missions, one of their key missions is actually exposing the censorship that takes place in the recruiting process. Is that correct? Logan. Yeah. One of our campaigns is called Truth in Recruiting, and it's based on the idea not necessarily that recruiters always lie. I think it has been proven that some do, but I don't think that that's necessarily, you know, the rule. But we we used the term for truth in recruiting to to help other prospective service members understand the real reality of what they could be getting themselves into. So every I think it's the September was the last action we had towards recruiting aims to bring the truth back into recruiting and to provide insight for people who are possible recruits into what the military contract actually includes. For example, a lot of recruits never even realize that they're actually signing for eight years in the military, no matter if any portion of it as a reserve active duty National Guard. Once you sign the paper, you're actually a part of the military for eight years and any time that you don't serve in one of the active components or the National Guard or Reserves, you're still on call in the Individual Ready Reserve, which is still a section of the military. So are there things that recruiters unfortunately fail to bring to light for for potential recruits for a very often? Okay. I have here actually a a pamphlet that I've IVAW produced and it has a list of key facts that you guys kind of spelled out as far as, you know, the underlying myth around certain issues, such as I think one of them is actually the student loans and the college degree that you can get out of the military. Right. The GI Bill. Yeah. That's actually one of the main reasons I signed up. Unfortunately, when the GI Bill was originally created just after World War Two, they used to pay for tuition books and provide a stipend for for some kind of lodging, if I remember correctly. Unfortunately, they haven't really updated the GI Bill recently to the extent where it pays ten months out of the full year and I actually also signed on for what's called the MGD ticker and that I paid an extra $600 to get another 5400 on top of my total GI Bill. The problem with that is it really just pays a dollar amount per month and it goes into your bank account, doesn't go straight to school. And the problem lies in a lot of the costs for going to college. Haven't been re-evaluated in regards to the GI Bill. So now a lot of people that are relying on the GI Bill or think that that is going to pay their way entirely through school, become disenchanted after they leave the military and realize that that the GI Bill is not enough to cover even very many public institutions that have a lower cost. 

So, yeah, it's not necessarily censorship, but sometimes people are unintentionally misled, I guess might be a better way of putting it. Yeah. Seven average them like summary GI Bill will only cover half the cost of a public college and a fit the cost of a private college in order to get that money for college. After you get off active duty, you have to contribute money to the fund from the day they start paying you. So many servicemen are disqualified from getting that money. Right? Yeah. So go ahead. The money you pay in advance, you pay $100 every month for your first 12 months of service. So you've paid $1,300. And they promise you, I think the number is something like 30,000 total. You have ten years to and once you get out and it basically provides for approximately three years of a full time school as well. Know most, you know, all bachelor's degrees or four years for that, that's inherently a problem. And also on top of that, once you pay the 1200, it's completely non-refundable. And oftentimes later in your career, there's other stipulations that are that are a part of the GI Bill qualification as well. You have to be in with it. And at least two years you have to have it. I believe you have to have an honorable discharge. So oftentimes, if if you pay that money, it doesn't necessarily guarantee that you'll get the GI Bill. If you've disqualified yourself in some way. 

But yeah, dude, what's another a key truth on this brochure that you think is important for people? You know, potential people who are considering, you know, joining what what do you think is important for them to know? Eastern Europe. One of the things that I'm definitely come in contact with, I haven't used my GI Bill yet. I actually just got off the air three days ago, I think. Mm hmm. One of the things that's really unspoken that you really don't understand to take out of yourself is a bureaucracy that's involved with getting the money. And I'm not even entirely clear on it myself. And I've been trying to get it done for a year and a half now. You have to file 45 days, I believe, as the number before your school starts or before you can get the money. So a lot of guys face is they'll begin going to school on, you know, in August and they'll think that when you get to school, begin filing their paperwork. The problem is, if you're relying on that for your tuition check, you don't get the money for a month and a half. Even if you're completely on the ball with filing all the paperwork and all the the papers that have to go with it. Obviously, if the school is not very lenient in regards to the situation, you could be in debt immediately once you begin school. Just because of the intricacy of paperwork to fill out, just to get the money that you're promised, you know, four, five, six, seven, eight years ago. Wow. Okay. Um, and then another thing. There were some interesting facts that you had some some interesting statistics on this pamphlet. Let's see. Veterans age 20 to 24, unemployed at almost twice the rate of their peers who didn't enlist. 

I this one's very serious, but, I mean, I was I think there's a lot of censorship going on as far as the real statistics behind this, which is U.S. war veterans are twice as likely to kill themselves as ordinary civilians. And I think that's a broader statistic. Combat vets in general are, but clearly more likely for to engage in suicidal or homicidal ideologies or ideation, I think is the word that psychologists is. And that's we're going to combat. That's what we're seeing with Iraq and Afghanistan, with our ability to treat soldiers as they are wounded. We're having a lot more wounded and not so many dead, which is great. But also with Iraq, especially with a 15 month deployments. When we look at Vietnam, for example, or compare Iraq and Vietnam, the actual hours that a serviceman is on the front lines, on the streets being fired at is over twice the amount of time that someone in Vietnam would have experienced similar thing. Furthermore, they're spending three more months per tour and they're not guaranteed to just be one tour. And then, you know, that's it. A lot of Vietnam vets had to volunteer even to stay beyond that first year or to do a second tour. But now people are saying three or four tours up to 15 months. And the amount of combat and trauma that they're experiencing is exponentially higher. And so a lot of Vietnam vets who didn't have the training didn't have the benefits that we might have now who ended up on the streets. And I think the numbers are one in every three or four homeless vets or one in three of homeless people are veterans. In the next 5 to 10 years, that number is going to jump to maybe every one in two, because the amount of trauma and stressors that the Iraq and Afghanistan combat that's experienced and the failure of the VA, which another one of our talking points for the W of the VA to treat and really empower combat vets to overcome the trauma that they experience in combat. Yeah, these are like the real long term effects that I don't think people really take in on a daily or monthly basis. You know, this is the aftermath of this war beyond, you know, the cost. Definitely. So cost really needs to factor in the next 5 to 10 years, not just in the terms of the veterans, but also the reparations that Iraq will need. Let's say, for example, there does, you know, create a viable government, then we'll still need to help them out of the mire that we've created for them in destroying homes, destroying infrastructure. That's something that we really need to consider when we think of the cost of the war, not just what we've spent in dollar amounts now, but, you know, the human cost in the next almost, you know, decade. Definitely the cost of our nation. I think what just the families, the family system over the next ten, 20, 30 years. And so I'm just going to kind of segway into some more of free speech issues within the military. And I just wanted to ask you, what are some of the free speech rights our members of the military have and what are the limitations of those rights? If you could just name a few. I know one of them is well, I know actually, it's it's not cut and dry. Very little of these rights are in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. And it's I guess it's more in the implementing regulations. There are Department of Defense regulations and each of the armed forces has regulations on such things as extremist organizations or say, political activities. And I know one of them. One of the rights, I guess, that you do have is the right to read and distribute antiwar material. There are limitations that apply to distribution. The command may limit distribution of printed material if the command believes the material presents, quote, a clear and present danger to the loyalty, discipline or morale of military personnel, or if the distribution of the publication would materially interfere with the accomplishment of the military mission. Although DOD Directive 13 25.6 permits military members to possess and read anything they want. It limits what organizations a member may participate in. Members may not participate in organizations or organizations which advocate discrimination based on race, sex, creed, religion, or national origin. They also may not participate in organizations which advocate the use of force or violence. Although having literature from these organizations is not itself illegal, it could raise suspicions that you are participating in these organizations. So there are definitely limits in terms of involvement with hate groups, extremist groups and religious religious expression in general, anything perpetrating basically racist ideology. So I don't know if you want to talk a little bit about that or maybe I cover it or go go ahead. But they have the directive 13 five over six is definitely one of the ones that most clearly outlines what a service members rights are. And one of the kind of like the rays of hope is that it does clearly say that the fact that a publication is critical of government policies or officials is not in itself a ground on which distribution may be prohibited and on a on a more kind of general scale. Any service member can possess any kind of printed material. You know, you have one copy is basically a general rule. If you have two copies, then the case can be made that you would that you're intending to distribute. One thing that the new DOD directive includes from Vietnam is the idea of underground newspapers or underground press, which I thought was kind of funny, kind of in responding to Vietnam underground CIA press that soon after outlined the movie. Mm hmm. I thought I was going over it again last night in the office with a friend. And I realized in the DOD directive also it says prohibited activities is that military personnel must reject participation and among other things, are supremacist causes, etc.. It also says any organization that advocates the use of force or violence and I'm offended, I chuckled because that's what the military is that advocates the use of force in violence. So unfortunately, nothing is really all that cut and dry for people in the military. One thing that I find is unfortunate in the directive is that it clearly states that all secretaries of the different branches so basically, speaking of the Army, Marines, Navy and Air Force, they need to institute training of this nature into active duty, initial active duty training, you know, precondition training for officers. And that really is not happening at all. When when I went through basic training, I didn't know anything about my rights. And I basically got the idea that we have different rights from citizens. And that's completely true. I think there's probably more accurate way of putting it. For example, one thing that a lot of people understand is the the idea of going to person demonstrations in uniform. Service members are allowed to engage in political rallies and everything. But essentially what it boils down to is that the armed forces actually do not go in uniform because people, citizens will say the sort of general term, like at the idea that you're representing the Department of Defense or the Army of the Marines or whatever uniform you're wearing. But they actually in another publication, they use the word encourage and the word civic responsibilities, and that we as service members don't just kind of, you know, we're no longer citizens. We're something of a separate class, but we are still citizens and we're encouraged to engage the political process. But on an individual level, but unfortunately, the the Department of Defense and the four branches, there are only as they're only as good as the people that that run them. I've always said that the military isn't bad. You know, it's the people that make our experience in it. But there's there's always been an amount of double standards in the military. Like when we talk about appearing in uniform back in July of oh seven, there was a DOD actually inspector general report on some Pentagon officials who were appearing in a promotional video for something called the Christian Embassy Truth Out reported on it back in August. And this was a clear case of someone being who could be mistakenly taken as endorsing some kind of program while in uniform and, you know, possibly representing the views of the DOD or one of the four branches. 

And in another case recently, two of our members, Adam Focus and Liam Madden, were brought up on charges with the Marines for going through a demonstration with their military top on. And there are some other articles of uniform, but it wasn't a complete uniform. Anyway, they were the they were actually on air and the Marines acknowledged that they were not subject to the UCMJ, but they were still trying to discharge them from the IRR dishonorably. But the members of the Pentagon that did, you know something much more clearly in violation of the D.O.D. directive. I don't even think a reprimand was issued. So that's I think a running problem in the military is that there's this kind of top down hierarchical thinking that we just do what they say and don't worry about it, and there's no accountability at the top. So in an institution where there's, you know, rampant misunderstanding about civil liberties and, you know, rights and responsibilities, oftentimes people will avoid, you know, going to demonstrations or even voting. Sometimes I've heard because they're afraid they're not supposed to in the military. And it's then when they encounter people who have educated themselves on their rights will, you know, say, lower enlisted members. There's a term that was used against a couple of friends of mine, probably just catch me if I was and the term is barracks lawyer and the term is used derogatorily against people who tried to fight against Article 15, which is a notice of punishment in the military or, you know, they will quote directives and an article from the UCMJ and the command or people representing the command don't especially enjoy that. And so they'll label them a barracks lawyer. And there there's a whole lot of stigma that's attached to that, which is unfortunate. So it's not so much, like I said before, willful censorship as maybe an unintentional misinterpretation or misleading. And it's just fueled by this kind of, you know, pregnant terms, you know, barracks lawyer, even the D.O.D. directive. It uses the term dissident when I think there should certainly be another term we could think of to describe people who, you know, engage the political process on their own time. But the term that's used is dissident and protest is kind of unfortunate, but that's the system we've got. Yeah. Logan, can you actually talk a little bit about Article 133 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, a federal law enacted by Congress which talks about, quote, conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. And I know there's a hugely publicized, publicized case with Ehren Watada where he was actually charged under this article of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. Mm hmm. 

In the UCMJ, which is actually, I want to say chapter 47, Title ten of the US Code. There's a lot of they're called articles, and we'll use that term that you wouldn't find in a normal, you know, kind of everyday societal kind of penal code where we use words like contemptuous words. Article 88 or disrespect, Article 89, insubordinate conduct, Article 91. They're very vague terms when it comes down to a legal perspective, and it can be interpreted in a number of different ways, especially in the case of Lieutenant Watada conduct unbecoming. It's it's like to me, the big question is, well, what is conduct conduct unbecoming of an officer? Article 1/34, another one uttering disloyal statement. So when when those articles are used, they can be used in a number of different ways to enforce force, a kind of different penal system that we have in the United States military. There's a friend of mine who wrote a really good book for for laypersons who are interested in, you know, the realities of the military. It's called America's Military today by and signed. And he out he does entire chapter on military justice and how the the justice within the military is extremely one sided, I guess. And it really doesn't reflect a truly justice system where you look at like court martials, the conviction rate is over 97%. And in the U.S. that number is extremely, you know, much lower in the federal system. When we equate less than 3% of the people who are tried, I think that is fairly suspicious. 

And I think for the moment and Watada, I got the opportunity meet his parents when I was still in Hawaii. And I'm really surprised that a lot of what he said not because of it's you know, it was inflammatory or it's contentious, but because it's true. After I listen to something, somebody talked, I think I found on YouTube, I looked into the law of Land warfare field Army Field Manual, 27 days, and I looked up the Geneva Conventions that we've ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I mean, this is stuff that we've actually signed into law. And he's he's got a case as an officer who has sworn an oath to the Constitution. And listen, members as well, We swear to protect the Constitution from enemies, foreign and domestic. It's not so much an oath to the president, but the the piece of paper that gives the authority to the president. So it's something a little bit higher. And there's always a bit of confusion in the lower enlisted ranks in the IVAW. Many of our members see it as their patriotic duty to resist the war. Sometimes they'll be conscientious objectors. Sometimes they wish to remain in the military but want to speak out. But they see it as, you know, fulfilling their oath of enlistment, which is to protect the country from domestic enemies right now, not specifically embodied by a certain person, but by policies that are being put into effect, that are stealing our own civil civil liberties away from us, which is exactly what many of us feel. The founding fathers tried to protect the citizens of this country against. 

So, yeah, it's it's hard to try to draw the line of what is disloyal, what is insubordinate and disrespect contempt. And I don't doubt in any way that that fact is exploited by people within the military justice system in order to ensure, you know, the three key words in the DOJ directive are loyalty, discipline and morale, and is that, you know, hammered into our heads from day one to where if you're if if you make these very, you know, ambiguous terms, if you're accused of them, you're immediately associated with violating the loyalty, discipline, the morale of the military. I think that's stigma. I do think that stigma is actually exploited, maybe consciously, maybe not by high ranking officers in the military who don't really have the country's real interest and at heart who are more interested in making sure that the status quo remains as it is, which is which was never the intent. I don't think of of the founding fathers. Right. Just to add on that, many of these lack of rights or violations aren't really defined until someone crosses some invisible line and then they attribute it to a vague statute that it violates. There's also an interesting argument that I don't agree with surrounding the need for the military to not be able to voice their political voice. And what this does to create a supposed stable and subordinate national military. What do you think about the argument that many make that it is necessary, necessary to suspend many free speech rights in order to ensure that we have an effective military and maintain good order and discipline, which would ensure in theory, that the military is subordinate to duly constituted constitutional authority. In other words, many people feel that the military should follow orders and stay out of politics. But what happens when the democracy's not working? And it may be that we need to rely upon people in the military and their expressions to be able to effectively tell us what's actually going on. So that just kind of brings us into the foundation of your Winter Soldier campaign. But if you want to answer those questions, I would just ask you a few questions. So if you want to comment on that, you can. 

This is where I usually step out of my VW hat. Yeah, absolutely. Really? 

I've been reading a lot about the thirties and forties as a conscientious objector. A lot of arguments that people brought against me revolved around World War Two. Of all things. So I really did try to explore what that meant. And to me also, I, I come from the Christian faith. I'm really trying to, to live honestly with that. And just when someone asks me, well, what would you do with Hitler, etc., etc., etc.. That's such a weighted question. And from my background, I always think however flawed and slightly, I always think of the German military when someone asks, Well, you have to be quiet and obey orders. The first time I spoke out publicly was on October 5th, 2006, in Honolulu outside the state Capitol building. And I stepped down from the stage and a guy approached me and said, Oh, you're still in the military because I was still in active duty until the 25th. I said, Yeah, I've been in says, blah, blah, blah. And before I could finish the sentences, I'd poke him in the chest and saying, you know, you swore an oath. You signed a contract, You made an agreement. All these different, really kind of uninformed remarks. 

And I wondered if if the silence of any segment of our of our United States military public doesn't matter. I think if any sector of that is silenced, we are making a move away from our Constitution. So I think life in terms of World War two, my answer to that is a great example. Be Frank Francis, youngest founder who refused to join the army, was beheaded by Hitler's by the military in Austria because he refused to enlist in the German armed forces. So I always think, well, you know, I think that the voice of our military is extremely relevant and important when we consider our engagement and, you know, overseas. So, you know, reporters are going to tell us one thing and the military brass are going to tell us another thing. And and everything always seems to be so weighted with this emotional knee jerk kind of loaded words like patriotism and and duty and honor and all this other stuff. And it all seems to me to to to kind of dislocate the military and the military members from the centrality of their importance and in responding to what's going on in war, you know, whether it's Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, you know, Germany doesn't matter. The people have to have the most credible, authoritative voice and any conflict are going to be the people that are fighting there. So when a soldier are kind of like tagline is that it's our responsibility to tell the truth about what's going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it's America's duty to listen. And I kind of wrestled with that term for a little while. But I think where I'm at now is when people put, you know, a dollar 50 magnum on the back of a car that says support the troops, I think you're you're making a statement that you're supporting something, that you are placing an investment in the troops. And if that's the case, then you have a responsibility to listen to what they have to say and respond to the realities that they're bringing back home by PTSD, suicidal, homicidal ideation. All these are things that that war brings home. I think we do have a responsibility and a duty to listen to our servicemembers. And that's I think that's kind of, you know, regardless of what the talking heads will say, I think that there is some amount of inherent responsibility on the part of the public to listen to what our experiences have taught us. I think that's where the importance of when a soldier lives is that, you know, I don't think that any of us will be saying this is what we need to do in Iraq or this is what blah, blah, blah. I think it's going to be this was my experience. I want to share it with the American public, because it was it was profound, was insightful. It was it was educational. Fill in the blank. Um, but I think that is the purpose, at least for me in going, is to share as much as I can with who is willing to listen and who is willing to learn from that experience with me and the other soldiers that will be testifying. And Winter Soldier. 

Sending petitions to Congress is one of the First Amendment rights specifically protected for soldiers. I VFW is involved in the Appeal for redress and online petition calling for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Can you just touch on this briefly? Yeah. The Appeal for redress in my mind could be off base. Co-Founder, Of course, William Madden, one of our most active members in the military. This thing called a formal complaint procedure. The Article in the U.S. is Article 138. And basically what it is is you can write a letter to your commander outlining where you think he is overstepping his authority or acting partially against you. And the commander is legally obligated to respond to your letter either. This is how I've corrected my behavior or this is how I believe you're incorrect and blah, blah, blah. And from there, if that goes unresolved, it immediately gets forwarded to through all the channels to the secretary of that servicemembers Branch. And so for me, when when it said appeal for redress, that's what comes into my mind, like servicemembers appealing to their commanders, that something that's going wrong, something somebody is overstepping their authority or in some way acting outside the limits of their authority as to them by the Constitution and the president. 

And we are actually going to do that right now. Once there is someone inside the D.O.D. directive searching for info sex that talks about that, no service member will be restricted from contacting his Congress member or policymakers, etc.. So that is actually a right that is explicitly protected in the U.S. for servicemembers. That is one that should be practiced more often, I think, in maintaining accountability for the military on the part of, you know, the lowest enlisted ranks. 

Are there any dangers or repercussions of participating in an organization like IVAW while still enlisted? 

Well, reading through the DOD or the directive, I suppose a commander, if he really wanted to, could make the case that it's affecting, you know, loyalty, discipline, morale. It would be a really hard case to win. And many of our members elect to have their contact information remain confidential. And we respect that. We don't publish a list of our membership on the website. But I think to hopefully allay some of those fears, they have every right to participate. Our organization, we don't advocate the use of force or supremacism. We are nonpartisan and we don't support one candidate or party over another. We have we're a program of Veterans for Peace, which is registered by the 1c3 nonprofit. So I understand a lot of people's fears and being a part of our VFW who are in the active duty. But I don't think that that that that's really well-founded. I think that there is nothing to fear in being a part of a of a nonprofit. But like, say, you were say you were still enlisted and someone heard you on this radio show that was, you know, in your I don't know, your group or whatever, would you be discriminated or, you know, if they found out that you were in very high possibility that people will develop the idea that you are anti-military or anti your friends because they're military, 

I think that you very well could expect some amount estrangement. Discrimination might be I don't know, it might be a possibility. I don't know if it would be likely, because we're also very good at explaining to our members what their rights are. But most of my staff is trained in GI rights through the Central Committee for Cuts and Subjection, who runs a national hotline called the GI Rights Hotline. So we're we're somewhat equipped to answer a lot of questions that our members have and other service members who are interested in joining. They can email join at IVAW dot org and we'll be able to answer all of their concerns hopefully and give them resources to educate themselves like the D.O.D. director we're talking about or address specific policy and regulations. So I definitely sympathize with people who are afraid that they can't join, but I hope that it's understood quickly that they really have nothing to fear. Okay. And then just you know, I was reading about your life now what you're doing. And it was just really fascinating. You've you know, you wrote that you you fell in love with the people in the Middle East and you've kind of dedicated your life now to learning the language, learning the culture, traveling there, being active. And, you know, there's like a Christian organization that you're part of. And so you're very active over there now. And I just wanted to talk just briefly about your personal journey. And I know that you were actually given a diagnosis by the military in your process for filing a conscientious as a conscientious objector. Is that right? Right, Yeah. A common practice with conscientious objection. Particularly we were talking about earlier censorship and kind of hiding facts. The DOD specifically does not track numbers for conscientious objection. I think the numbers they had right now are less than 3000 or something when the the the network of organizations that that run the GI rights hotline will tell you that that number is completely off. They've processed more than probably double that in in the last year alone. So they're very uninterested in publishing that kind of information. So one of the things that they try and do to keep people from being formally recognized, because that will be a number and a statistic when they're going to see their their psychiatrist for the required interview, which is outlined, at least for the Army and Air 643. 

What happened with me is that I was diagnosed with a personality disorder or mental disorder, and that will give them the license to say, well, you're not mentally incapable of going through the process or fill in the blank, whatever, you know, reason is given and they'll be processed out of the army. And that way, instead of being a conscientious objector. 

So a lot of the the DVA and VA counselors I'm talking with now really try and keep people from allowing that to happen. Like it's not a personality disorder, it's not temporary. This is something that you will be living with for the rest of your life, especially combat vets who then develop, you know, objection to war. So I kind of playfully tell my friends I was the Army thought I was crazy for wanting to go back to Iraq without a weapon. When the reality is in Vietnam they had several people in Vietnam and even World War Two to Congressional Medal of Honor winners Desmond Doss and Thomas Bennett. And Vietnam doesn't just was in World War two. We're both non-combatant conscientious objectors who were decorated for bravery and valor on the battlefield. And I want to be a part of that. I wanted to be able to feel like I was serving my country without having to serve, you know, the the war machine, I guess we could call it. Eisenhower called it the military industrial complex. And as a part of that, I'm sure enough to diagnose me, reassign me to another unit against my will. And he's just out of the army. My contract expired and while I was going through the sale process, I found this this group, Christian Peacemaker Teams, who who don't do anti-violence work. I guess you could say, or counter violence work. I try to go back to Iraq. I didn't have any delegations after one of their members, Tom Fox, was killed after being kidnapped. So I decided on Israel when they began bombing Lebanon, and I think I was in Israel within days after I got out. I think I spent about a month there. I spoke with well, through CPAC, we spoke with a lot of Palestinian families, Israeli peace organizations. And I got the opportunity on my own after the CPAC delegation to talk to Israeli settlers, IDF soldiers, officers, reservists about the situation out there. And I still have friends I'm in touch with that. I'm I still get random updates from them. Again, I am so sorry that my time slot has ended and want to keep talking. I would love to keep talking and hearing more of this, but the next person I don't want to, you know, you know, make any bad vibes here so but thank you so much for coming on the show and it's been very, very informative and if you thank you so much. And this is Logan Latorre and he is with Iraqi Veterans Against War. And if you want to learn more about his organization, you can log on to WW dot IV. A W dot org and then actually under member profiles you can read more about Logan. His profile is up there and thank you so much and good luck to you. Thank you very much. Okay, Bye bye bye.