Veteran Protests War (audio at link)

[unhappycamper]

Marine veteran Liam Madden of Boston, left, who served in Iraq, shouts “I am a veteran” to a counterprotester oin Kennebunkport 8.25.2007.


Veteran Protests War

BOSTON, Mass - September 11, 2007 - In the military, the code has long dictated that you do what your superiors say...and don't complain. But these days, more and more soldiers are questioning the war in Iraq.

The national group, "Iraq Veterans Against the War" started in 2004 to counter the pressure on vets to remain silent. One Marine from New England is part of those protests and, at one point, he faced military charges for his anti-war activities.

WBUR's Monica Brady-Myerov has this profile.


MONICA BRADY-MYEROV: When Liam Madden graduated from high school in Vermont in 2002 he admits he wasn't mature enough to succeed in college.
LIAM MADDEN: The Marine Corps offered me the opportunity to see a lot of the world that you wouldn't get to see otherwise, to challenge myself and to grow up, and I did.

MONICA BRADY-MYEROV: When the war began a year later, he grew into a protestor. Now he leads the newly formed Boston chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War, which has ten members and is growing. He's also a freshman at Northeastern University, studying international relations. But over the summer he rode on a bus tour of military bases from New York to Georgia to recruit members and promote an end to the war. Recently he was part of a platform of speakers at an anti-war protest in Kennebunkport, Maine.
LIAM MADDEN: The word that comes to mind as I look out in front of me to a sea of New England's most concerned and compassionate citizens, is conscience.

MONICA BRADY-MYEROV: Madden stands before several hundred people. He's wearing his Marine Corps combat camouflage shirt. It's a defiant act as the Marines have instructed him not to protest in his uniform because he is still part of the Individual Ready Reserves, which is made up of former active duty soldiers and reservists.
LIAM MADDEN: Our solution as Iraq Veterans against the war is to understand that this war will end not thru an act of Congress but thru an organized and collective act of conscience.


Rest of story and audio link at: http://www.wbur.org/news/2007/70285_20070911.asp