http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17846.htmVietnam Vets Call for Fort Benning Soldiers to Oppose the War in Iraq
By Bill Quigley
06/07/07 "ICH" -- --- Two highly decorated Vietnam veterans published a full-page color ad picturing dozens of white cemetery crosses and an American flag for several days in the Columbus (Georgia) Ledger-Enquirer titled “An Open Letter to the Soldiers of Fort Benning.” Fort Benning is located in Columbus Georgia and is home to thousands of members of the U.S. Army.
Calling the war in Iraq a mistake, veterans Charlie Litkey and Roy Bourgeois offered, as members of Veterans for peace, to help active duty soldiers oppose the war.
Charlie Liteky was awarded a Congressional Medal Honor for saving 20 soldiers in Vietnam. Roy Bourgeois, now a Maryknoll priest, a Navy officer for four years, was awarded a Purple Heart during his tour of duty in Vietnam. Both vets have years of history at Fort Benning calling for the closure of the highly controversial School of the Americas, Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. See www.soaw.org
Liteky and Bourgeois point out in their ad that Major General Paul Eaton, former commander of Fort Benning, told the U.S. Senate that “The U.S. has failed to secure the peace…We went in with a bad plan. Stay the course is not a strategy.”
The ad also quotes Major General John Batiste, Commander of the First Infantry Division of the U.S. Army in Iraq in 2004 and 2005. Batiste, offered a promotion to become a three star general instead resigned over the war in Iraq, saying “Somebody had to speak out. If not me, who? How long are we going to continue down this road to nowhere?”
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