WAND Women Support Health Care for All

At WAND’s June Last-Friday-of-the-Month gathering, the Northern Indiana Chapter discussed the need for health care for all.  Chapter members had their photos taken with signs in support of health care reform.  Several members will deliver these photos to Senator Bayh’s South Bend office.

Tuesday, March 17:

Community-wide event, Camilo Mejia speaks at Iglesia Menonita Del Buen Pastor, 523 S. 6^th St., Goshen, Indiana, 7:00 p.m. Free and open to the public.

The son of Nicaraguan revolutionaries who helped topple the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza, Mejía moved to the United States as a young man, spending days working while attending night school to get his GED degree. Recruited into the U.S. Army by promises of college assistance, Mejia served in Iraq several months until he went AWOL while on leave in Florida, answering the call of his conscience that he could fight no longer in a war that condoned the shabby treatment of Iraqis and the immoral conduct of U.S. troops.

Mejía was court-martialed, and served almost a year in jail. Despite this, he felt that his decision to go AWOL was correct: “By now I had fully embraced the idea of conscientious objection and had spent countless hours filling out my CO claim. This process, together with the many underground interviews I gave, forced me to go back and relive my experiences in Iraq, and to reflect on their meaning. All this analysis and questioning of war, and of myself within the war, eventually served me as a vehicle toward absolute clarity of the wrongfulness not only of the war against Iraq, but of war in general.”

The above is only part of Camilo’s story; he emphasizes in the book the “unflinching account of how it felt to be a soldier on the ground in Iraq in the early months of the war.” Regardless of one’s political convictions, most will probably hear Camilo’s story and understand the progression of events which led to his application for a discharge from the National Guard on moral grounds.

*Cosponsors so far are IUSB College Democrats; Michiana Peace and Justice Coalition; Goshen College Student PAX organization;  WAND of Northern Indiana; Notre Dame Student Peace Fellowship; Notre Dame Progressive Student Alliance; Human Rights Notre Dame; Northern Indiana Seniors for Peace.

Monday, March 16 (also see GOSHEN event on the 17th):

IUSB Wiekamp Hall, Room 1001, 7:00 p.m., followed by a book signing for his book Road from ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejía (The New Press, 2007). Free and open to the public.

————————————————————————————————–

Doloris Cogan presents her book, “Guam:  How we fought the Navy and Won” to Ken Myers, III, Senator Lugar’s senior aide on the Foreign Relations Committee during a visit she and Karen Jacob made while they were in D.C. for the WAND/WiLL reception.

—————————————————————————————————

Kathy Crandall Robinson, (left) and Karen Jacob, (right) look on as Marie Rietmann pose with Rep. Debbie Halvorson, (D) ILL-11, one of the ten new progressive women in the 111th Congress that WAND/WiLL supported.————————————————————————————————–

Susan Shaer, (left) and Karen Jacob, (right), speak with a member of Representative Barney Frank’s staff

————————————————————————————————–

Two women from Afghanistan (center) attended the Hill reception.  They both work with women’s groups in Afghanistan and were visiting the United States as guests of Lisa Schirch of Eastern Mennonite University where she is a professor of Peacebuilding and Director of 3D Security Initiative www.3Dsecurity.org.

————————————————————————————————–

Karen Jacob, (president of WAND of N. Ind. and Chair of WAND’s national board), welcomes all to the celebration of the ten new, progressive women to Congress and 44 total WAND/WiLL women in Congress.

See more about WAND/WiLL’s February 3rd Hill Reception at:  http://www.wand.org/issuesact/actions/dcrecepinvite%2009.htm

Organized and moderated by Jackie Smith, Associate Professor of Sociology and Peace Studies, the panelists discussed the right to political participation in the 21st century against the historical backdrop of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Other Panelists included:

• Rev. Robert Dowd, CSC, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Faculty Fellow, Kellogg Institute for International Studies and Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies
• Robert Fishman, Professor of Sociology and Faculty Fellow, Kellogg Institute for International Studies
• Lisa A. Plencner, President, League of Women Voters, South Bend Area