War veterans will address 22nd Annual Westheimer Peace Symposium
By
Randy Sarvis-
Wilmington College will delve into the often painful and long-lasting reality and futility of war from the viewpoint of those that actually have seen military action Oct. 17 at the 22nd annual Westheimer Peace Symposium.
Coalescing under this year’s theme, “Veterans Speak: The Reality on the Ground,” will be presentations by Lt. Col. Danny Davis, the most prominent active-duty service member to question the war in Afghanistan, at 10 a.m.; a panel of former military personnel that served in Iran and Afghanistan, 1:15 p.m.; the Wilmington College Chorale, 2:45 p.m.; the showing of the film, The Tillman Story, 3:45 p.m.; and Karl Marlantes, the bestselling author of What It Is Like to Go to War, 7:30 p.m.
All Westheimer Peace Symposium presentations taking place at the College are free of charge and will be held at Hugh G. Heiland Theatre in the Oscar Boyd Cultural Arts Center.
Also, documentary filmmaker Eugene Jarecki’s Why We Fight will be shown the evening before the symposium, Oct. 16, at 7:30 p.m., at the Murphy Theatre in downtown Wilmington.
Lt. Col. Danny Davis issued a damning report following his return from his second yearlong deployment in Afghanistan.
He drew upon 250 interviews with U.S. soldiers and Afghans across the country to conclude: “Senior ranking U.S. military leaders have so distorted the truth when communicating with the U.S. Congress and American people in regards to conditions on the ground in Afghanistan that the truth has become unrecognizable.” Davis asks “how many more must die” in support of a mission that’s not succeeding.
“When you’re given a mission that cannot — cannot — succeed militarily, then what is the purpose of the mission?” he said.
A panel of veterans, in a presentation titled “Three Lives, Three Stories, One Common Experience,” will share issues facing military personnel returning to the U.S. from Iraq and Afghanistan.
They include Sabrina Waller, U.S. Naval veteran and member of Iraq Veterans Against the War; Matt Southworth, U.S. Army veteran, legislative associate in foreign policy for the Friends Committee on National Legislation, Board Member of Veterans for Peace and member of Iraq Veterans Against the War; and Brock McIntosh, former specialist in the Army National Guard, military policeman and part of Veterans for Rethinking Afghanistan.
The Wilmington College Chorale has become one of the highlights of recent Symposia as director Catherine Roma, professor of music, selects an often-stirring repertoire reflecting the year’s Westheimer theme.
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Karl Marlantes does not shy away from recounting experiences that, outside the arena of war, are horrifying or embarrassing, and address a soldier’s self-imposed “code of silence” as an attempt to fit back in to a society that “simply wants us to shut up about all of this.”
His presentation is titled “Combat and the Spiritual.”
While American pop culture celebrates the warrior spirit and winning the battle, Marlantes claims, “reconciling the moral conduct we are taught…with the brutal acts we do in war has been a problem for warriors of good conscience for centuries.”
He believes one of the many tragedies of war is that we ask teenagers to fulfill this role without adequate psychological or spiritual preparation and “it messes up many of them for life.”
He cited quips that allude to the spiritual aspects of combat; for example, “There are no atheists in foxholes.” However, we rarely talk openly about the spiritual aspects of fighting, killing and dying, and their effect on the psyche and soul of the fighter.
Marlantes will explore his own experiences of the spiritual in combat; the fact, that what used to be an unusual and sacred space, “the battlefield,” is becoming increasingly conflated with “normal life” because of technology such as drones, cell phones, and the Internet; and the similarities of combat with mystical experiences.
He tempers the brutal truths of fear, power games and courage with a thoughtful prescription for soldiers’ wellbeing: caring for our soldiers and their families differently will benefit society as a whole.
In Why We Fight, documentary filmmaker Eugene Jarecki offers an in-depth look at how the United States has readied itself for battle, and why and how the nation goes to war.
Named for legendary director Frank Capra’s famed series of Second World War-era Defense Department films, Why We Fight features interviews with foot soldiers, Army recruits, Pentagon personnel, decorated veterans, members of Congress, national security advisers, top military strategists and others as they talk about the core philosophies of American military strategy and how they have changed since World War II.
Tickets for the film, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, are $5 ($2 for WC students with a College I.D.).
Coalescing under this year’s theme, “Veterans Speak: The Reality on the Ground,” will be presentations by Lt. Col. Danny Davis, the most prominent active-duty service member to question the war in Afghanistan, at 10 a.m.; a panel of former military personnel that served in Iran and Afghanistan, 1:15 p.m.; the Wilmington College Chorale, 2:45 p.m.; the showing of the film, The Tillman Story, 3:45 p.m.; and Karl Marlantes, the bestselling author of What It Is Like to Go to War, 7:30 p.m.
All Westheimer Peace Symposium presentations taking place at the College are free of charge and will be held at Hugh G. Heiland Theatre in the Oscar Boyd Cultural Arts Center.
Also, documentary filmmaker Eugene Jarecki’s Why We Fight will be shown the evening before the symposium, Oct. 16, at 7:30 p.m., at the Murphy Theatre in downtown Wilmington.
Lt. Col. Danny Davis issued a damning report following his return from his second yearlong deployment in Afghanistan.
He drew upon 250 interviews with U.S. soldiers and Afghans across the country to conclude: “Senior ranking U.S. military leaders have so distorted the truth when communicating with the U.S. Congress and American people in regards to conditions on the ground in Afghanistan that the truth has become unrecognizable.” Davis asks “how many more must die” in support of a mission that’s not succeeding.
“When you’re given a mission that cannot — cannot — succeed militarily, then what is the purpose of the mission?” he said.
A panel of veterans, in a presentation titled “Three Lives, Three Stories, One Common Experience,” will share issues facing military personnel returning to the U.S. from Iraq and Afghanistan.
They include Sabrina Waller, U.S. Naval veteran and member of Iraq Veterans Against the War; Matt Southworth, U.S. Army veteran, legislative associate in foreign policy for the Friends Committee on National Legislation, Board Member of Veterans for Peace and member of Iraq Veterans Against the War; and Brock McIntosh, former specialist in the Army National Guard, military policeman and part of Veterans for Rethinking Afghanistan.
The Wilmington College Chorale has become one of the highlights of recent Symposia as director Catherine Roma, professor of music, selects an often-stirring repertoire reflecting the year’s Westheimer theme.
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Karl Marlantes does not shy away from recounting experiences that, outside the arena of war, are horrifying or embarrassing, and address a soldier’s self-imposed “code of silence” as an attempt to fit back in to a society that “simply wants us to shut up about all of this.”
His presentation is titled “Combat and the Spiritual.”
While American pop culture celebrates the warrior spirit and winning the battle, Marlantes claims, “reconciling the moral conduct we are taught…with the brutal acts we do in war has been a problem for warriors of good conscience for centuries.”
He believes one of the many tragedies of war is that we ask teenagers to fulfill this role without adequate psychological or spiritual preparation and “it messes up many of them for life.”
He cited quips that allude to the spiritual aspects of combat; for example, “There are no atheists in foxholes.” However, we rarely talk openly about the spiritual aspects of fighting, killing and dying, and their effect on the psyche and soul of the fighter.
Marlantes will explore his own experiences of the spiritual in combat; the fact, that what used to be an unusual and sacred space, “the battlefield,” is becoming increasingly conflated with “normal life” because of technology such as drones, cell phones, and the Internet; and the similarities of combat with mystical experiences.
He tempers the brutal truths of fear, power games and courage with a thoughtful prescription for soldiers’ wellbeing: caring for our soldiers and their families differently will benefit society as a whole.
In Why We Fight, documentary filmmaker Eugene Jarecki offers an in-depth look at how the United States has readied itself for battle, and why and how the nation goes to war.
Named for legendary director Frank Capra’s famed series of Second World War-era Defense Department films, Why We Fight features interviews with foot soldiers, Army recruits, Pentagon personnel, decorated veterans, members of Congress, national security advisers, top military strategists and others as they talk about the core philosophies of American military strategy and how they have changed since World War II.
Tickets for the film, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, are $5 ($2 for WC students with a College I.D.).