The martyr of Danville Mountain

[LiberalArkie]

Last edited Sun Oct 26, 2014, 11:33 AM - Edit history (1)

http://www.arktimes.com/arkansas/the-martyr-of-danville-mountain/Content?oid=3514138&utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=Week%2Bof%2BOct%2B23

Jacob George, 'moral injury' and one soldier's losing struggle against the encroaching darkness of war.



"We just need to support the troops," is what they tell me.

Well, this is coming from a troop. So listen carefully ...

— Jacob George, "Support the Troops"

Given how tragically common veteran suicides are in this country, you have to know the whole story of Afghan war vet, peace activist and Danville native Jacob George to understand why the news that he'd taken his own life in Fayetteville on Sept. 17 hit the anti-war community like a punch to the ribs. Over the last month, the grief over his death has steadily seeped out via the Internet — dozens of eloquent testimonies about his kindness and caring, even as his own grasp on life silently deteriorated until it was gone.

Having emerged as a beloved figure in the anti-war movement in recent years through his protest music and near constant travel and activism — including riding his bicycle over 7,000 miles across America to speak to anybody who'd listen about peace and what the war was doing to soldiers — George seemed to be coming through his darkness. He was the one who talked other people off the ledge, doling out free bear hugs and helping vets through troubles only another vet can understand. He was the one who was supposed to make it.

Though some rushed in following the news of his death to try to reframe George's suicide as a statement on America's decision to re-entangle ourselves in Iraq and the Middle East, the portrait that emerges from the people who loved him is less that of an easy, two-dimensional martyr and more that of a flawed and vulnerable man who did his best to beat the ghosts that haunted him for as long as he could. If there's a silver lining to his death, it's that in the process of losing his own battle, he surely helped countless others get closer to winning theirs.

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http://www.arktimes.com/arkansas/the-martyr-of-danville-mountain/Content?oid=3514138&utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=Week%2Bof%2BOct%2B23



Edit: I thought I might add a few more links

http://www.chelseamanning.org/press/jacob-david-george-1982-2014

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/9/29/soldiers_heart_remembering_jacob_george_afghan

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/truthdigger_of_the_week_jacob_george_20140928

http://www.ivaw.org/blog/remembering-jacob-george

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/geoff-millard/jacob-george-hillbilly-st_b_6030246.html

http://www.commondreams.org/further/2014/09/29/soldiers-heart-jacob-georges-sorrowful-ride-till-end

http://www.operationawareness.org

http://www.popularresistance.org/another-casualty-of-war-jacob-george-rip/

[brer cat]

1. Well worth the read.

Very sad, but that young man had an incredible journey searching for peace. I hope he found it.

His mother's eulogy expresses what we should feel for all the young people sent to die:

'My heart breaks not only for the loss of my son, but for the songs left unsung, and the lives left untouched, and the stories left untold'