The War Comes Home: A project by KPFA Radio - kpfa.org

I sleep with the radio on.

This morning around 5:30 a.m. a particular program caught my ear. It's called The War Comes Home, sponsored by KPFA out of Berkeley, Californina. That's right - Berkeley. Hotbed of political activism in the 60's and 70's. You're already thinking, "it must be an anti-Iraq war program if it's coming outta Berkeley." Not really. It's a presentation of facts presented by soldiers who where there.

KPFA launched this website, The War Comes Home, in an effort to put a human face on the conflict. Only by truly listening to the stories of soldiers who've come home, can we appreciate the realities of war and what we can do to help. More than 1.6 million Americans have served in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As of August 1, 2007, 73,00 of them had been killed or wounded. In addition, more than 250,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans had been treated at Veterans Administrations hospitals since their return home from combat.

A Montage That Cuts to the Heart of the War and Winter Soldier -
If you've just learned of Winter Soldier, Listen to this montage. It was produced by our own Esther Manilla after two days of heart-wrenching testimony from dozens of veterans. They spoke about the killing of innocent civlians, torture, mass arrests, sexual assault, and the dehumanization of the enemy - all of which they either committed or witnessed while deployed to the war-zone.


As part of The War Comes Home, KPFA and Pacifica Radio sponsored the historic Winter Soldier 2008 Gathering in Washington, DC, from March 14-16, 2008. The three day live broadcast was co-hosted by Aaron Glantz and former Army medic and KPFA Morning Show host Aimee Allison. During the gathering, the following topics were covered:

1) the killing and injuring of innocent civilians and unarmed combatants, as well as the destruction of the property, infrastructure and natural resources of Iraq and Afghanistan,
2) the neglect and abuse of veterans and service members with regards to their mental and physical health,
3) the government’s use of private contractors to replace soldiers in U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq,
4) the institutional policies of discrimination in the military and its impact on service members both on and off the battlefield,
5) the torture, abuse, mishandling and mutilation of the dead, and other derogatory treatment of Iraqi and Afghan civilians,
6) how war policy in Iraq and Afghanistan has led to a weakening of the U.S. military - including the lack of training and equipment for the troops, overuse of military personnel in multiple deployments and the record number of officer resignations, and
7) the spectrum of resistance within the military today and lay out IVAW’s program to build a GI resistance movement.

The War Comes Home was started by Aaron Glantz, who has visited Iraq three times during the U.S. occupation: for a month immediately after the fall of Saddam Hussein; from February to May 2004; and during the elections in January of 2005. His work from Iraq has also been syndicated to newspapers around the world by Inter Press News Service. He is author of the San Francisco Chronicle best-selling book How America Lost Iraq (Penguin/2005), which describes how the war turned to disaster from the perspective of the Iraqi people. He is author of two upcoming books The War Comes Home: Washington's Battle Against America's Veterans (UC Press) and Winter Soldier Iraq and Afghanistan: Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations (Haymarket), which he is writing in collaboration with Iraq Veterans Against the War. Aaron is a founding producer of Pacifica Radio's national newscast, Free Speech Radio News In the course of his work he has also reported from Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, South Korea, Indonesia, India, Vietnam, France, and Denmark. Before becoming an international reporter, Aaron served as California State Capitol reporter for Pacifica's flag-ship station, KPFA, in Berkeley CA, where he won the California Journalism Award for radio in 2000.