When: November 11, 2004 from 11:00 AM-12:00 PM
Where: Corner of Wabash and Wacker Drive, Chicago

Details:

On Veterans Day Vets and Military Families Denounce Fallujah Civilian Casualties, Back-Door Draft; Call for Decent Benefits for All Vets

Vietnam Veterans against the War will hold its annual Veterans Day ceremony at Wacker and Wabash, at 11 AM on November 11, Veterans Day.

Speakers include Iraq vet Leah Byron, Bill Davis and Bill Shunas of VVAW, Stacey Paeth of Military Families Speak Out, and other military family members.

Byron, who served in Iraq from May-December 2003 will address the harm done to Iraq troops by extending their time in Iraq and by sending them back a second time after completing their tours. She is also very concerned about the dangers depleted uranium weapons pose for troops who are not even given adequate information about radiation dangers.

Other speakers will address the current crisis in Fallujah and how the Bush administration is abandoning veterans by underfunding veterans' programs.

"The war in Iraq is a disaster. The current operation in Fallujah will result in the deaths of hundreds of innocent civilians. According to The Lancet, Britain's premier medical journal, the invasion and occupation of Iraq has been responsible for the deaths of as many as 100,000 Iraqis since the war began," says VVAW National Coordinator Bill Davis.

Stacey Paeth of Military Families Speak Out has two sons in the military, one in Japan and one about to be shipped out to Iraq for his second tour. "I am opposed to this war and I am strongly opposed to the policy of sending young men and women back for second and third tours. My son was scheduled to get out in June. Instead, they have told him he will be going back to Iraq even though his time is up," says Paeth.

"The Bush Administration says it values veterans but shows its hypocrisy in its actual policies: trying to cut imminent danger pay, closing VA hospitals, requesting cuts in military housing and medical facility funding for active duty military, keeping sick and wounded soldiers waiting for months to see doctors," continues Davis.

Vietnam Veterans Against the War celebrated its 35th anniversary in 2002. Based in Chicago, the organization has more than 1,500 members throughout the country. The first group to organize Vietnam veterans in 1967, it was founded to voice returning service-men's and -women's growing opposition to the Vietnam war and grew to include more than 30,000 members.

The group started the first rap groups to deal with the war's traumatic aftereffects on GI's, helped make known negative health effects of exposure to chemical defoliants, and exposed Veteran's Administration attempts to cover up Agent Orange induced illnesses. Membership in the organization has rebounded dramatically since the lead up to the war in Iraq.