From IVAW: Tyler Zabel – War Resister, Afghan photos by Chris Vongsawat, and petition
From Iraq Veterans Against the War website
Afghanistan Awareness Update 10.30.09
Tyler Zabel on how he became a Conscientious Objector
“Basic training wasn’t all what I had thought it would be, as I callously screamed out brutal chants about slaughtering kids in schoolyards and laughing about the way napalm would stick to their skin. We must’ve screamed, “Kill!” hundreds and hundreds of times to get into our heads that this was our purpose as soldiers. But I played along, acting the part of the good soldier, nodding my head and doing what I was told, though the feeling in my gut told me something was wrong…” full story at http://ivaw.org/node/5528
Images of Afghanistan – photographs by Chris Vongsawat
Photographer and IVAW member, Chris Vongsawat, documented his entire experience as a soldier in Afghanistan while working with the Afghan mlitary and conducting convoys all across the country. “These photos were an attempt to maintain a connection with what was happening around me, to prevent the sometimes inevitable downward spiral into blindness that often comes with getting used to a place and seeing everything in tactical terms. I wanted to see people, not ‘targets,’ ‘civilians,’ or ‘potential threats.’ I wanted to see mountains and valleys, not ‘positions,’ ‘dead space,’ or ‘cover and concealment.’ I wanted to remember that I really was in a place called Afghanistan, that I wasn’t just a ghost with a rifle and a nervous dream of going home.”
View Chris’ photos here:
http://www.necessaryillusion.com/afghanistan/
PETITION–DEMAND CIVILIAN SOLUTIONS IN AFGHANISTAN
DOWNLOAD PETITION HERE: http://www.ivaw.org/afghan_petition.pdf
Tags: afghanistan, Chris Vongsawat, civilian solutions, conscientious objector, IVAW, petition, photos, Tyler Zabel, war, war resister
