Still fighting for their country, now veterans of Occupy

[CHIMO]

11-11-11 is not a variant of Herman Cain's much-touted 9-9-9 tax plan, but rather the date of this year's Veterans Day. This is especially relevant, as the US has now entered its second decade of war in Afghanistan, the longest war in the nation's history. US veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are appearing more and more on the front lines – the front lines of the Occupy Wall Street protests, that is.

Video from the Occupy Oakland march on Tuesday 25 October looks and sounds like a war zone. The sound of gunfire is nearly constant in the video. Tear-gas projectiles were being fired into the crowd when the cry of "Medic!" rang out. Civilians raced toward a fallen protester lying on his back on the pavement, mere steps from a throng of black-clad police in full riot gear, pointing guns as the civilians attempted to administer first aid.

The fallen protester was Scott Olsen, a 24-year-old former US Marine who had served two tours of duty in Iraq. The publicly available video shows Olsen standing calmly alongside a Navy veteran holding an upraised Veterans for Peace flag. Olsen was wearing a desert camouflage jacket and sun hat, and his Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) T-shirt. He was hit in the head by a police projectile, most likely a tear-gas canister, suffering a fractured skull. As the small group of people gathered around him to help, a police officer lobbed a flash-bang grenade directly into the huddle, and it exploded.

Four or five people lifted Olsen and raced with him away from the police line. At the hospital, he was put into an induced coma to relieve brain swelling. He is now conscious but unable to speak. He communicates using a notepad.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/nov/02/still-fighting-for-their-country-veterans-occupy