Shared by Peter S. Lopez
Memorial Day should be a day of solemn tribute to all soldiers who lost their lives during war times, especially Latino veterans who died in unjust wars forgotten by their families in unmarked neglected graves. Life is sacred and death is final.
In connected reality, a war is either just or unjust. There are no neutral wars. Since the dawn of civilization there have been wars fought out between nations when peaceful and political negotiations have become deadlocked.
A just war is waged when all other non-violent, political and peaceful means of resolving critical social contradictions have failed. Indeed, war is the continuation of politics by other means, that is, via violent all-out war. As humane beings, we should support all just wars and oppose all unjust wars.
Matthew 24:6-8 “And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.”
My father, Pete M. Lopez, was born in Chandler, Arizona to a poor Mexican family that migrated to San Diego when he was a young. He became a ‘Pacheco’ from Barrio Logan Heights and his ‘Picasso’ was ‘Peta’ ~ a nickname I keep alive today. Peta means ‘a rope hard to cut’ and reminds me of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
My Dad was too young to join up for World War II and I am glad he never fought in an unjust war. My Uncle Rudy Nunez fought in World War II and was in one of the first Army ‘dirty tricks’ units we know now as Special Forces. He told me about using a guitar string to slice the Nazi enemy’s neck off and other tactics, including sitting completely still. My Uncle Larry or ‘Chito’ was a U.S. Army Sergeant in World War II, marched through Normandy and helped liberate Paris. My Uncle Ruben was in the Korean War. In the late 60’s, my Cousin David was in the U.S. Honor Guard in Korea where he earned a karate red belt. Thus, for many of my generation there were positive ‘macho’ elements in ‘going into the service’. Then, the initial police action of what later became known as the Vietnam War blasted onto the stage of history forever changing the global geo-political landscape.
In June 1969, I graduated from high school, turned 18 years that November and signed up for the military draft as a Conscientious Objector in opposition to all wars as a Roman Catholic.
At the time I was involved with the UFW Grape Boycott, was in the Brown Berets and was generally an anti-Establishment militant. I decided that if drafted I would refuse to go and head for Mexico. My Dad said he would turn me in to the proper authorities. I was the oldest son and was never drafted.
As the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War escalated I took the time to study about the history of the heroic Vietnamese people. I knew the U.S. armed forces were waging an unjust war against a poor and oppressed people who were using the guerilla warfare method and fighting an invincible People’s War with a People’s Army.
On August 29, 1970, being a Brown Beret and anti-war protestor, I was in East Los Angeles in support of the Chicano Moratorium Against the War march and rally. I had driven from Sacramento to L.A. with a vanload of barrio youth. I was employed as a War on Poverty youth organizer. There was an actual unprovoked police riot at the park rally!
After the police riot our group had gotten scattered out among all the street chaos.
Journalist Ruben Salazar was instantly killed that day by a tear-gas canister at the Silver Dollar Café. We drove by after it happened with police in panic outside and people gathered around. It was a small miracle that we found all our youth and made it out of East Los Angeles unharmed with smoke curling black against the daylight sky behind us as we drove north back towards Delano and the UFW.
When I returned back to Sacramento, safe at home in the family front room my Dad had already seen the TV reports and made a critical negative statement about the stupidity of us being down there. He did not fathom what was going on in the real world and was like a cynical Chicano Archie Bunker. We were already generations and worlds apart.
In 1975, after the fall of Saigon and the end to the Vietnam War, I enlisted in the United States Air Force, got high test scores, went to Oakland Induction Center, took my oath given by a U.S. Marine and had a big Going Away Party! I was good to go!
In the late 60’s, I was a militant, the same as many others of my generation, and was involved with various political activities. However, I was a law-biding American citizen exercising my civil rights, including the right to protest.
Thus, I was surprised when a few days before I was scheduled to go I received a telephone call from Lackland, Texas Air Force Base. I was told I would NOT be accepted into active duty due to my involvement with a white radical group while in high school years before. I thought it was a strange lightweight excuse.
Later, I got an official form via the U.S. Mail that stated I was not activated ‘for the convenience of the government’ and given an official Honorable Discharge from the reserves. I burned it in silent protest.
Thus, I had joined the U.S. military machine, was rejected and further examined world history as a guide to future action, especially studying Third World liberation struggles. Life goes on within us and without us.
Nowadays, after 54-Earth years, I am against the American Occupation in Iraq. Latinos who die there in combat are not heroes, but dead mercenaries who all joined. No one is subject to a military draft anymore, so far.
We should strive to be objective about the mercenary role of U.S. soldiers so that our naïve youth do not die in an unjust war with false notions of a phony patriotism. We need to wage war for our humane rights here now inside the United States!
In the U.S.A. general population, Whites are around 75%, Latinos around 13%, and Blacks around 12%. Latinos are now the largest minority. In numbers, there are over 40 million Latinos inside the continental U.S.A. including about 12 million unauthorized migrants.
Latinos are the largest minority group who have died in Iraq at 11% and are routinely sent to the front lines. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, while Latinos make up 9.5 percent of the actively enlisted forces, they are over-represented in the categories that get the most dangerous assignments -- infantry, gun crews and seamanship -- and make up over 17 percent of the front lines.
Today, unless you have been living in a spider hole, we know that the U.S.A. is now involved in another unjust war I call Iraqnam. It is not Vietnam, in fact, it is worse than Vietnam, but in general Iraqnam has more in common with Vietnam than differences. Now we have many millions of the whole Muslim world hating the U.S. Empire’s War Machine and at best mistrusting the good intentions of an apathetic sleep walking American people.
“Our country is now geared to an arms economy bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and an incessant propaganda of fear.” ~General Douglas MacArthur
In conclusion, we should strive to solve the many critical social problems that plague the American people here now inside the United States involving our basic survival needs: food, clothing, shelter, medical care and basic education.
As humane beings, our just war to be waged is here now inside the United States for true social peace, liberty and democracy.
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” ~John F. Kennedy
The greatest costs of unjust wars is not measured by lifeless Amerikan dollars, but immeasurable in all the innocent lives already lost to eternal death, especially the innocent children and youth who never had a chance to grow up!
Amerikan Occupation Is Not Social Liberation!
Remove American Troops Out of Iraq!
Hands Off Latin America!
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Sources for further information and verification:
The Origins of Memorial Day
http://genealogy.about.com/library/blmemday.htm
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
http://www.peta.org/
U.S. Latino Patriots: From the American Revolution to Afghanistan, An Overview
By Refugio I. Rochin and Lionel Fernandez
http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/17.3.pdf
HISPANIC CONTRIBUTIONS TO AMERICA'S DEFENSE: By John P. Schmal
http://www.houstonculture.org/hispanic/memorial.html
Email: info@houstonculture.org
Brown Berets History
http://www.brownberets.info/history/
The Chicano Moratorium
http://www.laep.org/access/attitudes/chicano/
Hispanic Soldiers Die in Greater Numbers in Iraq: September 2003
by Miriam Kagan
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0922-02.htm &
http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=20226
Latinos Account for the Highest Percentage of Minority Soldiers Killed in Iraq: September 2005
http://latinalista.blogspot.com/2005/09/latinos-account-for-highest-percentage.html
Iraq Veterans Against the War
http://www.ivaw.net/index.php?id=1
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Humane-Rights-Agenda Blog
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De Todos Para Todos Blog
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c/s
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