By Kelly Dougherty
Former Sergeant, Army National Guard
Executive Director of Iraq Veterans Against the War

On Nov. 26, Sammantha Owen-Ewing, one of IVAW’s newest members, the wife of my friend Scott, and a former Army medic like me, committed suicide in her Rhode Island home. Sammantha was only 20 years old, and in that short time had been an Army medic training to become a nurse while stationed at Walter Reed, then became a patient herself in Walter Reed’s mental health ward. In June, she married Scott Ewing, also an IVAW member, and was discharged from the Army. Despite an uphill battle to receive care from the VA, things seemed to be looking up; she was getting settled into life in Rhode Island, planned to continue her medical career, and was becoming active in Iraq Veterans Against the War. Although most of us were never fortunate enough to know Sammantha, she was one of us and we mourn her passing.

Sammantha Owen-Ewing

It is impossible to sum up the life of a person, their personality and how much they meant to the people who loved them, in a few short lines. In her obituary, Sammantha was described as “sweet, thoughtful, and loving. She brought joy to the lives of those around her.” I’m sorry I will never meet Sammantha and my deepest condolences go out to her family. I know that many IVAW members have suffered through depression, PTSD, and other forms of internal anguish, and many of us still deal with these things on a daily basis.

IVAW has set up a memorial fund on behalf of Sammantha Owen-Ewing to help her family offset her funeral costs. We will be accepting donations through the end of December, if you’d like to make a donation, go to www.ivaw.org/memorialfund.

Suicide is a very real threat, especially for veterans. A recent CBS news investigation found that in 2005, veterans were twice as likely to commit suicide as non-vets, with 120 veteran suicides each week. Those of us who are between the ages of 20-24 have the highest rate of suicides, between two and four times higher than our civilian peers. For many veterans, the fighting doesn’t end once we return from a war zone or get discharged from the military.

Why can’t I stand the sight of her?
By Candace Allen
The Guardian UK

Candace Allen has spent her whole life cheering on fellow African-Americans who have battled their way to the top. Yet the extraordinary career of Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, fills her only with revulsion and anger. Here she explains why.

I am African-American. We are a sentimental people in the main and we tend to track our own. We are aware of others of colour who cross our spaces. We look around asking: “How did she/he come to be here/there? Is his/her story extraordinary, coincidental or totally banal?”

At 80 years old, my dentist father has been a desegregator all of his adult life, both professionally and domestically. Although raised in Richmond, Virginia, he chose to rear his family up north, first in Boston, then in a Connecticut suburb of New York. When I call him to ask how things are going during the first week of the US Open, he tells me that the Williams sisters are doing fine, as is James Blake, and there are a young boy and girl playing in their first Open who won’t get too far this time but are looking mighty good. Unsaid, I know the nature of the report he’s going to give; unsaid, he knows what I want to hear: stories about black people coming on to traditional white fields of play and not just holding their own but kicking ass and taking names. Smiles, pride, a fist in the air.

So why the viscerally negative reaction, my gut literally roiling with distaste and disappointment, when I look at Condoleezza Rice, the first African-American female to be secretary of state of the world’s one remaining superpower?

She is a powerful woman, often coming first in lists of the world’s most powerful women. Unlike Hillary Clinton and Oprah Winfrey, she is seldom referred to by her first name only: as with Angela Merkel and Margaret Thatcher, she gets both her names. Her eyes, intelligent, usually veiled, often glittering hard, give up nothing. Her hair is now less iron-solid than it was but, as with Thatcher and Merkel, it is generally unmovable. And there is the posture: ramrod straight. The chin is held high even seemingly when notes are consulted, but that is very seldom, because Rice functions in public almost invariably without notes. A woman of impressive intellect – vast, profound and/or well-trained – holding her own, be it among or before the most powerful white men in the world. Again and again, she is generally the only non-secretarial black woman to be seen in such environments. Mercilessly kicking ass, taking names. Ready.

(A cultural footnote: back in the day, before any kind of mixing, before even Motown was heard on white radio stations, African-Americans had a play on the word “ready”. If someone acted a fool, the jibe was: “He/she ain’t ready.” Not ready for responsibility or integration, ie interaction with white folks.)

So why am I so loth to look in her direction? She is not unattractive; our ages and backgrounds are reasonably similar. Yet I must force myself to look at her. She is family, attenuated family, deplored family maybe, but family none the less. I do not have to condone or even explain family misdeeds.

But I take her complicity in what I consider the most disastrous US administration in modern times very personally. I want to take her by the shoulders and shake, if not throttle her. But very much more, I want to know, why? Why the Republicans and these Republicans? Why the rigidity? Why the hubris? Why so little compassion for those less blessed than yourself? So intelligent, so capable… how could you get it so wrong?

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