As Vets Take to the Streets to Protest the War, McCain Snubs IVAW at the RNC

By Liliana Segura, AlterNet. Posted September 6, 2008.

When retired Army First Sergeant Wes Davey arrived, in uniform, at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul to deliver a letter to fellow veteran John McCain, it didn't take long for him to be turned away. "They wouldn't even meet me," he said later, standing on the steps of the Minnesota State Capitol, on what was to be day one of the Republican National Convention. Instead, the 28-year veteran of the Army Reserve and former St. Paul police officer was escorted off the premises.

Davey had come to the site of the RNC along with 60 fellow members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, who marched in formation, chanting cadences and leading hundreds of peaceful fellow protesters, including members of Veterans for Peace, Gold Star Families for Peace, and others who came to stand in solidarity with the veterans. Unlike IVAW's action in Denver a few days earlier, in which they scored a conversation with Obama's national veterans liaison, Phil Carter, who said he would try to set up a meeting with the campaign to discuss their goals of immediate withdrawal, benefits for veterans, and reparations for the Iraqi people, IVAW's objectives when it came to McCain were slightly more modest. "We actually chose not to pressure him on the issue of withdrawal," T.J. Buonomo, one of IVAW's Philadelphia-based organizers said. "There's nothing that's very controversial about the things we were asking. There's nothing that's very controversial in asking that people get the discharge they deserve, that people with PTSD not have it held against them."

Indeed, the letter from IVAW, addressed to The Honorable John McCain, focused on the medical needs of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, two wars that McCain has never flinched from supporting. "It is often said that a nation's character can be judged by how it honors its veterans," the letter read. "… We honor veterans by offering them full benefits, adequate healthcare (including mental healthcare), and other long-term supports."

"Enclosed with this letter is a list of recommendations which we believe will support those veterans still serving and those veterans who have taken off their uniforms and re-entered civilian life. It is our belief that most Americans would endorse these recommendations as we hope you will after careful thought and consideration.

Prior to the RNC, IVAW had mailed, faxed, and personally delivered invitations to the McCain campaign to meet to discuss the recommendations. Yet the campaign ignored them, refusing to send anyone to meet with Davey, let alone address IVAW as a group. For the man who has built his presidential candidacy almost entirely on war hero mythology, McCain's snub was only the latest in a series of refusals to acknowledge the needs of a new generation of veterans. His record has become an ugly symbol of the hypocrisy of the Republican party.

IVAW members seemed unfazed at McCain's snub that morning. "I was really delighted to hear that the police went and escorted (Davey) out," former Marine Sgt. Liam Madden smiled wryly, "He was either going to get arrested or he was going to be escorted."

"I'm not surprised that McCain is not responding," said Rebecca Hansen, an IVAW member from Madison, Wisconsin. " … I don't think (Republicans) want the American people to know that vets and active duty soldiers are not in support of the war anymore."

As for Davey, a 28-year veteran with a child who has served two tours of duty in Iraq, he shrugged. "It looks bad on them, not on us."

"If McCain says the VA's not working, it's in part because he hasn't funded it properly."

With the presidential election kicking into high gear and McCain's love affair with the press (reportedly) waning, the media has yet to take McCain to task for his dismal record on veterans' issues. McCain's opposition to Virginia Senator Jim Webb's GI Bill earlier this year -- which sought to provide veterans with college educations and which finally passed in May -- was just one of many displays of indifference the senator has shown towards soldiers returning from the wars he so unyieldingly supports.

In the spring of 2006, McCain voted against two components of an emergency Iraq supplemental that would have provided more funds for veterans' healthcare. One was an amendment to increase funding for medical services by $1.5 billion, "to be paid for by closing corporate tax loopholes." (That amendment, very similar to a 2004 amendment McCain also voted against, failed, 54-46.) The next month, McCain joined a handful of senators who voted against providing $430 million to the VA for "outpatient care and treatment for veterans."

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Liliana Segura is a staff writer and editor of AlterNet's Rights & Liberties and War on Iraq Special Coverage.

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