Soldier’s Heart: Remembering Jacob George, Afghan War Vet Turned Peace Activist Who Took Own Life

[KoKo]

Last edited Mon Sep 29, 2014, 09:08 PM - Edit history (1)

Soldier’s Heart: Remembering Jacob George, Afghan War Vet Turned Peace Activist Who Took Own Life/September 17, 2014

We air a remembrance of Jacob George, an Afghanistan War veteran and peace activist who took his own life on September 17. He was 32 years old. George co-founded the Afghan Veterans Against the War Committee, part of Iraq Veterans Against the War. George was also a musician who biked around the country playing music for peace, a campaign he called "A Ride Till the End." In 2012, at the NATO summit in Chicago, he was among the veterans who hurled their military medals toward the summit gates in an act of protest against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

George spoke openly about his struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder and with getting Veterans Affairs counselors to understand what he saw as a "moral injury" from his time in Afghanistan. In a storybook that accompanied his musical album "Soldier’s Heart," George wrote: "A wise medicine woman from Arkansas once told me that grief is pain trying to leave the body. If you don’t allow yourself to grieve, it gets stuck. But once you grieve, the body can heal itself. I won’t lie, some of this stuff is heavy. But telling my story is a part of my healing process. And it’s not just veterans who need to heal: all of us need to heal from war and the roster of ailments produced by a nation at war." Hear George playing the banjo and singing his song, "Soldier’s Heart."

His whole Song Here:
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/9/29/soldiers_heart_remembering_jacob_george_afghan

?list=UUzuqE7-t13O4NIDYJfakrhw

[KoKo]

1. This is a devastating watch. He could have been a Pete Seeger if he could

have stayed around. But, the pain was too much...and we lost an important voice for "connecting the dots" between the people who are sent off to kill and those who are targeted for killing who have much in common with the "killer."

Hope some who can deal with it will watch this. Amy's introduction and the song....."Farmer to Farmer."

[starroute]

2. Also this from Truthdig

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

It is not difficult to grasp why Jacob George was so beloved. Vietnam War era veteran Ward Reilly, who never saw combat but who does therapeutic work with veterans afflicted with what military psychologists call post-traumatic stress disorder, met with George during various stops on the former Afghanistan soldier’s 8,000-plus mile bicycle “Ride Till the End” across the United States. After departing his native Fayetteville, Ark., in May 2010, George spent three years telling the stories of his experiences and sharing with everyone he met his music, his passion for the United States and his opposition to those whose actions degrade it. The stops included Fort Hood in Texas, to date the location of the largest shooting on an American military base; New Orleans at the time of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill; the Occupy protest in Washington, D.C.; the opening of the George W. Bush presidential library in Dallas in 2013; and later that year the court martial of Pfc. Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning at Fort Meade in Maryland. The ride crossed paths for a time with antiwar mother Cindy Sheehan’s “Tour De Peace” bicycle tour through New Mexico. Reilly’s friendship with George began at the annual convention of Iraq Veterans Against the War in Austin, Texas, in 2010. (George co-founded the Afghan Veterans Against the War committee the of IVAW.) It was there that the “brothers,” as Reilly referred to his friend and himself, “got to hug for the first time, and where we bonded.” George “was a particularly strong and beautiful voice, a dynamic personality,” he told Truthdig by phone.

Reilly’s opinion of George tracked with that of everyone Truthdig spoke with. The young veteran had mined remarkable insight and wisdom. The lessons, of course, were earned at a terrible cost. “The realization that you are an oppressor of poor people is something that’s just incomprehensible, especially when you come from the land of John Wayne,” Reilly said, referring to the portrayer of romanticized cowboy heroes in mid-20th century Western films. “You’re gonna go liberate the world. The propaganda says we’re No. 1. The reality of criminal occupation is hard to accept for someone who still has his humanity.”

[DreamGypsy]

3. You were home for a couple of years, buddy. Then you lost the war...

A song for every war veteran.

Men go off to war for a hundred reasons
But they all come home with the same demons
Some you can keep at bay for a while
And some will pin you to the floor
You’ve been home for a coupla years now buddy but you’re
Still fighting the war

The bedspread is fraying, faded and tearing apart
Two strangers, holding each other in the dark
Tell me what were you dreaming, How did you think it would end?
How many heroes are scattered out into the wind?
And all the happily ever afters turn to broken dishes and slamming doors
You’ve been home for a coupla years now buddy but you’re
Still fighting the war