I went to the Dansih Social Forum over the weekend. Friday I went to hear Tina Garnanez, a US vetran from Iraq, talk about her experiences in Iraq and comming home from Iraq. She told some really horrible stories from the war down there. It was a bit strange thinking that someone at my age could have been through the things she talked about. And many of the soldiers (not to talk about the people of Iraq) are even younger.
She was a medic in the army so she had some really horrifying experiences to talk about – mostly involving US-soldiers. I won’t try to repeat any of them here – I would not be able to present them in any way that would do them justice, but hearing her tell about it made a very big impression on me.
She is now done with the army, but has not come out of Iraq without loss. She has not had any physical wounds or hurts while in Iraq – she has all her arms, legs etc. But she told that she does now suffer from ptsd. So she has nightmares and trouble consentrating, among other things.
Besides the personal stories about the war and what it has done to her, she also told us about the anti-war movement in the US (or the pro-peace movement, as she liked to call it), the army recruitment methods and the media coverage. Some of the things she talked about did not come as a surprise to me, but some of it really did surprise me.
It would seem that quite a lot of the US veterans from Iraq are against the war and occupation when they come home, but it is not really a message that the main-stream media in the US likes to cower. Nothing new there, but still interesting to hear from someone a bit more envolved with these things.
Unfortunatly for me I overslept, so I missed some of the other things I would have liked to have seen at the forum saturday.