de oppresso liber

I have another question if you don’t mind. If this guy Torres did sway some of the kids in his platoon, will the Sgt square them away? Do I need to worry about my kid? My feelings are that I probably shouldn’t. Torres is a Spec after what…6 years? My kid came out of basic as an E3, (JROTC etc) and is very motivated, why the heck would he listen to an underachiever? Is it necessarily a bad sign when he says KT is an OK guy?

SPIFF1669 on February 27, 2007 at 12:38 PM

I stand corrected on the 101st unit patch. My apologies to the 101st and anyone who served in it.

MSG(RET), USA

A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention….

You’ve probably seen this. Not cut and dry either way; clearly the troops are mcuh more optimistic than the general public, but there is significant dissatisfaction and growing pessimism. Assuming this poll is representative of course.

Specialist Kevin Torres was in my sons platoon. I just got off the phone with him and he says KT is an alright guy. They all just found out a couple days ago that he was going to be on 60 Minutes.

It’s a small world.

csdeven on February 26, 2007 at 8:01 PM

From what you’ve said here initially, it doesn’t sound as though KT spoke about his feelings towards the war around your son.

It makes me wonder if he hid his feelings for a reason.

Going to the website mentioned in the article:
http://www.appealforredress.org/
you can find a link where you can click to submit your
appeal:

http://www.appealforredress.org/php/appeal.php

Right clicking on that page and viewing the source,
you can see the information is submitted to:

info@appealforredress.org
Phone: 360-241-1414
Fax: 360-694-8843

…or if you just put your cursor over the info@appealforredress.org email address shown and look in the lower left corner of your browser, you can see the mailto:osokoni@mediumnews.net.

Doing a domain lookup on mediumnews.net points to what
seems to be a defunct Black News organization, Seattle
Medium Newspaper Group at:

http://seattlemedium.blackpressusa.com/news/default.asp

You can view the front end of the site at:
http://www.mediumnews.net/
but it redirects to the non-working
http://seattlemedium.blackpressusa.com/news/default.asp.

Doing a search on “osokoni” finds the email is for
Opio Sokoni, who seems active in a number of leftist
causes including veteransforamerica.org, Veterans
Against The Iraq War, Veterans For Peace, Iraq
Veterans Against the War, and Military Families Speak
Out, so it certainly is nothing new as claimed in the
article.

Doing a search on “Opio Sokoni” finds:

http://www.dcwatch.com/archives/election2002/init62a.htm
http://www.indymedia.org/it/2005/10/825808.shtml

and an interesting story at:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46992
and
http://www.independentconservative.com/2005/10/27/opio_sokoni/

Who is he?

http://inthefray.com/html/article.php?sid=816

Contributor, INTHEFRAY.COM

Opio Sokoni is a Howard University-trained lawyer
working as the general manager and talk show host for
a Portland, Oregon radio station. Mr. Sokoni is also
the editor of the Portland Medium newspaper. He earned
a B.A. in Political Science from Norfolk State
University. Opio has previously worked for the Drug
Policy Alliance as the campaign manager for Measure 62
(Treatment versus Jail initiative) which passed with
over 70 percent of the vote. He also worked for
Amnesty International, where he headed up their first
police brutality project. His writings have appeared
in the Boston Globe, the Black Commentator, the
Washington Times, and on numerous pop culture Web
sites. Opio has traveled to Cuba twice on education
exchange trips. A Hip Hop enthusiast and father, Opio
Sokoni is the author of an award-winning children’s
book entitled, “I Want to Be a Lawyer When I Grow Up”
and the newly-released activist resource guide,
Poli-Tainment: Making Struggle Sexy.

Articles by Opio Sokoni

It gets more interesting following some of the links
to:
http://www.albasrah.net/en_articles_2006/0906/GI%20Special%204I24%20The%20Appeal%20For%20Redress_240906.htm
which is at:
http://www.albasrah.net/index.php

whose domain record at:
http://whois.domaintools.com/albasrah.net
is very interesting.

One of the originators/signers of the appeal is Liam
Madden, who doesn’t mind working with Cindy’s bunch:

http://meetwiththemothers.org/article.php?id=310

Catie96706 on February 26, 2007 at 10:45 PM

Thanks for your kindness. Thank for husband for me and I’ll keep him in my prayers.

And how many pro-war … no, pro-LIBERATION soldiers did she interview for balance? Did she mention thew fact that MOST of our fine Troops are in favor of this Liberation policy? Nah, didn’t think so.

Tony737 on February 26, 2007 at 6:45 PM

This is the exact reason we need the “fairness doctrine” passed to stop this one sided propaganda…. /sarcasm

Somebody Army Airborne explain to me how this clown is wearing an Airborne tab with a black beret?

If he has an Airborne tab, shouldn’t he be wearing a maroon beret?

Bomb Doctor on February 26, 2007 at 9:52 PM

The Airborne tab is a skill identifier. It means you’ve made it through jump school and are jump qualified.

The maroon beret means you’re a member of an Airborne unit. Lots of folks in the Army are jump qualified but are not members of Airborne units. When I was an Airborne Infantryman more than 20 years ago, the 101st (the Screaming Eagles) was no longer an Airborne unit and hadn’t been for a long time.

It’s like the Ranger tab. Every infantry officer I ever knew when I was in service wore a Ranger tab (they’d all been through Ranger school), but unless they were assigned to one of the Ranger battalions they were not full-fledged Rangers. They wore the headgear appropriate to the units to which they were assigned.

If they don’t like the service, let them apply for a discharge or C.O. status, and then complain from civilian life.

Otherwise they misuse the uniform for their own petty ends.

You don’t want the half-hearted in your foxhole.

They end up fighting half-assed.

At least not in the English page…………

— Of course that’s how this 60 Minutes reporter would think that anyone to the right, and not anti-war, would feel about these brave men and women that chose to serve their country. I doubt I’m in the minority on this site that has nothing but respect for any soldier, regardless of whether or not they signed a petition or spoke out on this issue.

(8:16 of the clip)
Logan: For many in uniform there’s an unwritten code of honor that says, no matter how tough your situation is, or whatever your private doubts about the mission may be, you just never speak out publicly against it. And so for them, what the service members of this campaign are doing, is nothing short of a betrayal.

Soldier #1: That’s not something that I would do personally.

Logan: We spoke with soldiers from the first cavalry who are currently serving in Baghdad. They acknowledged that the servicemen and women that signed the petition have the right to do so. But that doesn’t mean they should.

Soldier #2: I think every American soldier throughout history has wanted combat to stop.

Soldier #3: As an American soldier I feel like, you know, we took an oath to obey the orders of our Commander in Chief and the officers appointed over us.

Logan: The war has been very difficult. The violence has not decreased at all, if anything it’s got worse. Is there a part of you that sort of says, yeah, I understand why someone feels like this?

Soldier #1: I know what I’m here fighting for, to give the Iraqi democracy and hope. So, I am one hundred percent behind this mission. You know, it’s not up to you to pick which war you get to go to.

– Wow, those three soldiers she interviewed that supported the war sure made clear their hatred and sense of betrayal. NOT. Sheesh, could they have been anymore understanding and diplomatic about the whole thing? But this was pathetically the best 60 Minutes could do to back up their initial extreme premise. The cognitive dissonance meters must have been off the charts at CBS as they were putting this one together… “to hell with it, let’s just script the story we want to tell, rather than tell the actual story.” Don’t they have even one non-propagandist honest producer or editor left at that show that can look at a piece and call “Bullshit”?

My kid is still wearing black. I think it’s an air assualt thing cause his buddies that went to the 82nd are wearing maroon.

I know people in both the 82nd and the 101st that aren’t jump qualified who wear maroon berets. I even know people assigned to SF that who wear a green beret without being SF qualified. It just seems odd to me that he wears the Screaming Eagle with an Airborne tab and a black beret.

Bomb Doctor on February 26, 2007 at 9:52 PM

My kid is still wearing black. I think it’s an air assualt thing cause his buddies that went to the 82nd are wearing maroon.

Catie96706 on February 26, 2007 at 9:35 PM

Honest to God, I’m really scared for the first time since he left last July. He was trying to get KT’s room when he left, so I have no clue how much influence this guy had on him. When I asked him if he knew Spec Kevin Torres…his response was “KT?”, Yeah, he was in my platoon. I don’t want to interfer with his training etc, so I’m reluctant to give him the third degree about his feelings. I just hope his platoon Sgt is squared away.