March 14, 2008

When Condoleezza Rice testified before Congress on Wednesday, we were there with bloody hands. As we approach the fifth anniversary of this obscene war, we must stop Congress from funding it and stop the military recruiters from enticing our youth to fight in it. As we deepen our commitment, we are grateful beyond words to receive the support of someone who knows the human cost of war first hand: Ron Kovic.

Ron, who wrote Born on the Fourth of July, is a former US Marine Corp Sergeant who was shot and paralyzed from his mid-chest down during his second tour of duty in Vietnam in 1968. He writes:

"I am sending my complete support and admiration to all those now involved in the courageous struggle to stop military recruitment in Berkeley and around the country. Not since the Vietnam War protests of the late sixties has there been a cause more just than the one you are now engaged in.

Over the past five years, I have watched in horror the mirror image of another Vietnam unfolding in Iraq. So many similarities, so many things said that remind me of that war thirty years ago which left me paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair for life. Refusing to learn from the lessons of Vietnam, our government continues to pursue a policy of deception, distortion, manipulation and denial. As we approach the fifth anniversary of this tragic and senseless war, I can not help but think of the young men and women who have been wounded, nearly 30,000, flooding Walter Reed, Bethesda, Brooke Army Medical Center and Veterans Hospitals all across our country. Paraplegics, amputees, burn victims, the blinded and maimed, shocked and stunned, brain damaged and psychologically stressed, a whole new generation of severely maimed who were not even born when I came home wounded to the Bronx Veterans Hospital in 1968.

It is time to use every means of creative nonviolent civil disobedience to stop the war machine. Military recruiters must be confronted in every high school, every campus, every recruiting office, on every street corner, in every town and city across America. The days of deceiving, manipulating and victimizing our young people must end. I stand with you in this courageous fight and I am confident your actions in the days ahead will inspire countless others across our country to do everything they can to end this deeply immoral and illegal war!"

Let us honor the sacrifice and courage of Ron Kovics by standing up and saying "No More!" Please join us in Washington, DC or one of our events around the country to protest Five Years Too Many or find a vigil near you. To find out more about our counter-recruitment actions, click here.

And click here to tell Congress, who will soon vote on Bush's request for another $100 billion for war, to only fund the safe and speedy withdrawal of our troops.

Thank you for helping us reclaim the future for our young people and our country.

With renewed determination,
Dana, Desiree, Farida, Gael, Gayle, Jodie, Liz, Medea, Nancy, Rae, Tighe and Vin