Why I Go To The S.O.A. Vigil in Ft. Benning, Georgia

It was the baby's dress I saw in the video which described the atrocities committed by the students of the S.O.A. (School of the Americas). This tiny dress caked in blood and tears was unearthed when witnesses and investigators went to the village of El Mozote to document the tragedy. Fear indelibly woven into the fabric of this cloth. How could I turn my back on the owner of this little dress? She was probably 18 months old when she was executed for simply existing. How could a man point a rifle at a baby girl and pull the trigger? I fail to see how she could be considered a threat to the security of her country, El Salvador, circa 1981. Her cries call out to me from beyond and they lead me to this place. This place being the Gates of Ft. Benning, Georgia, USA. On November 20th, I will embark on a bus trip sponsored by the University of Detroit, Mercy, to the gates of the School of the Americas, also known as the School of the Assassins, located on the Ft. Benning U.S. Army base. The baby's dress is what propels me to stand before these gates and shake my fist at the heavens and demand answers and action from my government.

Others, several thousands, come as well. Yet the talking heads on television refuse to talk about the S.O.A. vigil. Only local reporters will be present, and even then, it will only be a blurb on the 5:00 news. The U.S. funded, supported, advised, trained, condoned, ordered, was complicit in blood shed, pain, death squads, executions, disappearances, torture and regime changing in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Chile, Argentina in the 70's and 80's. One way this was carried out was by bringing soldiers in from those countries and training them in "interrogation methods, crowd control, etc..." you get the picture...so water boarding should not have been a surprise. We have been doing it for years (and continue even today).

In December of 1981 over the course of two days, soldiers trained at Ft. Benning by the U.S. military, killed the approximate 1000 peasants of the village of El Mozote in El Salvador. First they lined up the adults and mowed them down with gun fire, then they raped the girls, some as young as 12 years of age, and then they killed the children. Our government did their darnest to deny this took place, denied that the U.S. had a hand in this destruction of life. Then when they could no longer deny, they tried to down play it, when that failed, they attacked the reporters who attempted to tell the world of what had taken place.

El Mozote is just one example of the continuing destruction caused by the School of the Americas; there are several more tragedies attributed to this training center of death. Bishop Oscar Romero was assassinated by graduates of the S.O.A. The soldiers drew lots to have the "honor" of killing him. Shortly after Bishop's death, there were the American churchwomen who were raped, executed and buried in shallow graves, also in El Salvador. Similarly murdered by S.O.A. graduates were the Jesuit priests of a Catholic University in El Salvador along with their cook and her teenage daughter. They were shot in the head at close range with high powered rifles.

Then, there is the Dirty War of Argentina, but that story I will tell when I get back from the gates of Ft. Benning where we will once again ask our government to stop training others in the devastation of life.