Reply #112: Local Camp Casey's covered by local media across [View All]

the nation is difficult to ignore. Yes, I agree there needs to be more people with Cindy in Crawford and all those planning to go, kudos and my gratitude as a military family with 2 Iraq veterans facing second deployments to Iraq under stop loss. I do think though that rippling this as a movement across the nation is an idea with merit.

Contact your own local media to get coverage of your local 'Camp Casey' and contact local members of MFSO, IVAW, VFP, to endorse your own community Camp Casey. It will help in getting local media coverage. You need military families and veterans on board with your efforts. We, military families, need the activist and peace groups to help us in our own efforts.

What I have seen in my own experiences as military family speaking out in working with activists has been positive experiences, more so when the military family voice is elevated and a focal point of the activist event. I've also had experiences where the activist event is more focused on it's own agenda and loses or misses opportunity to capitalize on the military family voice.

I attended a rally as invited guest speaker for MFSO, and after 2 hours of anti-war and anti-Bush rhetoric and rabidity, my turn to speak finally came up. 5 minutes as the last speaker on the panel. Yet it was exactly the real experiences we have being a military family that captured the attention and got media attention at that rally. As our efforts are typically 'non partisan' we focus more on our actual experiences and holding the CIC responsible for the well being of our troops as every military family ought to be doing, no matter their partisan beliefs. For MFSO, IVAW, VFP and other military/veteran related organizations with like views, we view the war in Iraq as an unnecessary war, and call for an end and to bring the troops home.

Typically, troops and military families have a culture of their own and do not publicly say anything critical of the CIC. However, troops and their military families also have an implied obligation to look out for their own, the well being of the troops. It is difficult for a military family to speak out on behalf of their own loved ones as there is a reality of 'retaliatory' action against that very loved one. BUT, having acknowledged that reality, somehow military families still need to find a way to do their other implied duty as military family and call out for CIC accountability to the troops, who are also citizens.

I'm suggesting, I think, that efforts need to capitalize on the military family voice. The idea of Camp Casey in your own communities harnasses the kind of support that would be difficult to not call patriotic.