Justin Cliburn went to Iraq as a member of the Oklahoma Army National Guard in December 2005. During his tour, he experienced every facet of the war (socially; politically; militarily) as he and his comrades patrolled supply routes, trained Iraqi Police, dealt with the political nuances of working with the Iraqis, and befriended Iraqi children. He arrived back at the base everyday feeling like he had just made the world only a little bit more dangerous; a success in his mind was making the world only slightly worse, instead of drastically worse. Nothing was as it seemed and he never saw reality in the news conferences he saw at the White House. After his return to the United States, he found himself angry and full of anxiety when seeing story after story about Iraq on the daily news. After months of complaining to the TV and anyone with a beer and an open ear, he decided it was time to join IVAW.

While in country, Justin kept a blog (that he continues to update) of his experience. You can access it here: http://blog.myspace.com/justin_cliburn Justin's blog entries started around April of 2006 and got progressively more detailed and frequent from then.

Since returning from Iraq, he has gone back to work for UPS in his hometown of Lawton, Oklahoma and re-enrolled in school at Cameron University. As a journalism and political science student, he hopes to put his experience in Iraq to good use. A writer by nature, Justin will gladly write anything he can to help the cause. He serves as the South Central Region Coordinator for IVAW and is always looking for more veterans to join the cause; if you are an Iraq War veteran in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, or Louisiana, please email him at: southcentral [at] ivaw [dot] org

All that is necessary for evil to flourish is for good men to sit around and do nothing. Let's do something.