Category Archives: Clarence Kailin Chapter 25

Art on exterior of the Veterans Museum on the Capitol Square

Painting including Will Williams, Veteran for Peace/Vietnam Veteran—along the front of the Wisconsin Vets Museum (30 W. Mifflin Street, Madison, Wisconsin.)

Photos by P.T. McMahon [Heartland Images Instagram ] taken 23 Dec 2020

 

more on Will…

Patriots Defend the Country

Poser Patriotism is Fake Patriotism

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Doug Moe, WI State Journal, 27 Oct 2009

Vet’s struggle with Vietnam captured in ‘The Good Soldier’

Will Williams had this friend in Vietnam, DeMarchi, and they sang doo-wop together. “We were just tight,” Williams was recalling Tuesday. They also went on patrol together, and that’s when DeMarchi got hit.

“His brains fell out in our hands when we were moving him,” Williams would recall later. He sat with the corpse in a bomb crater overnight. That night has never left him, though Williams was sitting a world away this week, literally and figuratively, sipping from a coffeehouse cup in Fitchburg. He wore a green T-shirt that read: “Veterans for Peace.” But here’s the thing. It wasn’t that awful night that turned Williams into a peace activist. If anything, at first, seeing his friend die did the opposite.

 

“The more friends that were killed,” he said quietly, “the more hateful I became. I became an animal. If I couldn’t make a kill it bothered me.” It took years, decades really, for Williams to become an anti-war activist. His journey is one of five chronicled in a documentary film, “The Good Soldier,” that will play Nov. 11, Veterans Day [2009], at Sundance. Williams will be there to answer questions after the screening.

Official Website: The Good Soldier movie

War Stories: ‘The Good Soldier’ Examines the Cost of Combat

Dove Mound Effigy by David Giffey

 

“The Mourning Dove Mound is a symbol of peace at the Highground. It represents a constant presence of peace among numerous other memorials and monuments dedicated to wars and conflicts.

As the designer in 1985, I tell the story on this video of the mound and how Native American people built burial and effigy mounds for centuries before I designed the dove mound. It was dedicated in 1989. In recent years, I met hundreds of school children in person at the Highground to tell the Dove Mound story.” 

The artist:  David Giffey

Learn about the Dove Effigy Mound at the Highground Memorial Park

 

The Costs of War: Panel and Discussion [Watch Recording]

link to recording
 Zoom Panel and Discussion on The Cost of War

We had an excellent lineup of guest speakers.
 

All wars have large costs, which the political, financial, and governmental elites instigating the conflicts would rather the citizens minimize –but pay for. With a “volunteer military”, outsourcing, drones, and “smart bombs”, the war-makers attempt to hide the costs of war. The true story, however, is much grimmer.


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Panelists:
 
***Veteran of the “War on Terror” Brittyn Calyx who will talk about the cost of war on the individual veteran and the impact of war on their own life.
 
***Vietnam veteran, artist, and peace activist David Giffey, who will speak on the societal costs of war,
 
***Dr. Eileen Ahearn, a long-time psychiatrist at the VA in Madison, Wisconsin who will take a look at war and moral injury and
 
***Rev. David Couper, who brings his experience as a veteran, former Madison police chief, and Episcopal priest, and will discuss the militarization of policing.
 

Each panelist will be given about 10 minutes to speak, followed by Q&A. We will use the Zoom chat box to field questions from our panelists.

Facebook Event for Costs of War Discussion

 

Peace
Fran Wiedenhoeft, [email protected], 608-576-7416
Primary organizer
Veterans for Peace Madison

International Day of Peace Event at The Highground Memorial Park

Day of Peace 

Monday, September 21 at 1pm at the Peace Dove

Link to Peace Event on Highground Website

Directions to Highground

 

For peace-loving people in Northern Wisconsin, there will be “thoughtful words, acoustic music, zero politics…a gathering of fellowship to hopefully turn people’s thoughts toward peace, tolerance, joy,” at the Dove Mound in Highground Veterans Memorial Park, W7031 Ridge Rd, Neillsville WI 54456.

The peace event will begin at 1 p.m. on International Peace Day, Monday, September 21. Billed as “a good gathering of fellowship,” the Dove Mound was designed by Veterans For Peace Chapter 25 member David Giffey, a Vietnam war veteran, in 1985. It was built and dedicated in honor or POWs and MIAs in 1989, and is 100-feet in length, 130-feet in width, and 6-feet in height. Howard Sherpe (1944-2016), an Army medic in Vietnam, was a co-founder of the Highground project and chair of the design committee.

 

Sherpe wrote: “…what began as a memorial for POW-MIAs has taken on a much greater significance…it has developed a life of its own and has become a symbol of the peace we all seek.” The Native American influence is evident at the Dove Mound. Wisconsin has the greatest concentration of effigy mounds in the world. John Beaudin (1946-1993), a First Nation attorney from Madison, spoke during the Dove Mound dedication ceremony.

 

Beaudin, a veteran of the Vietnam war, said: “This effigy mound is a spiritual place where you can come and let your mother, the earth, hold you…leave your troubles and cares on the mound, as you walk away renewed and refreshed.”

Highground Veterans Memorial Park Website Home Page

Effigy Mound Historical Marker