Veterans attempt to deliver message to Gen. Campbell
This morning, we went on to Fort Hood to Third Corps headquarters in order to meet with General Campbell. Our six Operation Recovery organizers, lead by Kyle Wesolowski, marched up to the reception desk and asked to meet with General Campbell today. Instead of sending us General Campbell, or a member of his staff, the command sent an E-5 Sergeant to deal with us. Since we expected this response, we had prepared a letter (link to letter) to be delivered to General Campbell with our demands. The sergeant accepted the letter under the pretences of delivering it to General Campbell.
Even though we were not able to talk with General Campbell, we were able to read our letter to the general in front of Third Corps headquarters. Kyle read off our demands, backed up by his sister and brothers in formation behind him. This action, however, drew the attention of the Third Corps security officials.
As we prepared to leave, we were asked to stop by Third Corps security officials. As we were being questioned by those officials, we were surrounded by military police vehicles and other security officials including Ft. Hood’s top anti-terrorism official. We were asked to surrender our identification and were questioned about our attempt to meet with Gen. Campbell. The officials seemed to be confused and concerned with our presence at Third Corps. We were asked if we were protesting; we were not. We were asked if we went through the official channels to meet with Gen. Campbell; we had tried. We then explained that we are all veterans, most of whom are disabled, and that we want to address General Campbell with our concerns as veterans. The demeanor of the officials immediately changed in light of this information. It seemed to be the case that the officials were concerned with the prospect of arresting veterans who are advocating for their brothers and sisters in the military. Not wanting to generate any bad publicity, the command dispatched higher ranking officials in an attempt to placate us. Not surprisingly, the officials seemed more open to our concerns than before.
Lt. Colonel Murray, battalion commander of Third Corps Special Troops Battalion, heard our demands with the promise that they will be relayed to the general. Empty promises, however, are not what we are looking for. We have been attempting to meet with General Campbell for over a month. IVAW, CSA, and our supporters have sent over 600 e-mails to Campbell urging him to meet with us. This morning, he failed to meet with us again. We were met by security officials for simply trying to voice our concerns. Since he has failed once again to meet with us, we are putting General Campbell on watch.
Our target —General Campbell — has now been made aware of our concerns through our many attempts to contact him. He has our contact information and can meet with us at any time. Until then, we will continue to escalate tactics. We will collect testimony from service members and veterans who are not receiving the care they deserve. We will bring our case to Congress. We will organize GI’s and educate them on their rights. We will put public pressure on General Campbell to meet our demand for service members’ right to heal.
Operation Recovery Deployment Update by Scott Kimball
