Winter Soldier
Posted on | November 14, 2008 |
At KPFA on Tuesday my original assignment did not work out. The government offices that I needed to contact for my story on federal vouchers in Contra Costa County in the East Bay were all closed for Veteran’s Day. I could track down no housing activists. The one lady that I did speak to is no longer active.
After two hours of unfruitful effort, I told the news anchor who asked me about my Soundforge skills. They are good I said. So I spent the next 90 min. editing 30 min. of tape down to a packaged, coherent and relevant 5 min. piece. That is more of a task than might appear. To get it down, I had to edit orally. The soldiers sentences might have long gaps, pauses, repetitive phrasing, excesses. They would be telling a story and go off on a tangent. To get it all into my time constraints I had to take out all this fat without losing any of the flavor of their personality, their testimony–all while communicating the large picture.
John Hamilton reviewed my audio, came back to me and said, “Good job on that, It was exactly what I was looking for.” He only told me to edit it, no other directions.
The story is the “Winter Soldier” testimonials. I did not realize that there is a resistance movement among the soldiers in this current occupation. The times have changed from the big protests and widespread draft-dodging and revolt among the troops during Vietnam. The military has accumulated enough of a technological advantage over its enemy that I loosing relatively very few U.S. casualties. The Iraqis have died en masse. The Government is now much more adept at controlling information, and more importantly distributing information. It puts military advisors on television stations. Reporters abroad are embedded. Images are censored. Media conglomeration threatens to engulf all outlets into a handful of owners.
Reading through a resisting soldier’s testimony in the book “Winter Soldier” I discovered another aspect of the control of dissent. The military constantly rotates troops, bases, personel. Soldiers in Vietnam would meet at a off-base coffee house, share stories, poems, ideas. It was in the pockets of communication and solidarity that resistance press sprang up. They organized and began a systematic rebellion against fighting the war. Armed with knowledge and communication they could effectively usurp the power structure. Today, soldiers are shipped off to different companies, different bases reducing the opportunities for organized resistance.
The military and government learned their lesson in Vietnam very well.
Regardless, If you are unfamiliar with some of the stories of resistance in the military listen to these soldiers talk about their experiences. The is no higher truth than the youth awakened to the reality of his hell and crime in the midst of the nightmarish occupation. This is from Free Speech Radio News. Recorded in Portland, OR by the community radio station KBOO.
If you do not have time to listen to all 30 min., please check back next week when I will post my 5 min. edit. You will be able to listen to a young interrogator and understand how the military conducts intelligence. A trained specialist testifies about being replaced my incompetent employees of Kellog, Brown and Root, a Halliburton subsidiary. He trains them to do his job, while they make $75,000 a year. He refuses to load his gun and shoot Iraqi civilians.
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