JUST WHO IS LT. EHREN WATADA?

By Peter J. Swing

In June 2006, Lt. Ehren Watada publicly refused deployment orders to Iraq, becoming the first commissioned officer of the United States Army to do so since 1965. After battling the military justice system for more than a year, he currently faces six years in federal prison and a dishonorable discharge.

During this time, Watada’s family and friends have mobilized a national movement supporting his refusal and protesting the war, and he has become an icon for the anti-war movement, especially among Asian Americans. Watada’s refusal to be silent is the act of an Asian American who adhered to his convictions despite the risk of severe consequences.

‘These Roots’

Born and raised in the farming community of Fort Lupton, Colorado, Ehren Watada’s father, Bob, remembers growing up amidst racism as one of the few Japanese in Colorado.

“Imagine going into a restaurant and sitting in the corner and not being served,” Bob Watada said. “You could sit there for two hours, and they wouldn’t serve you, even if they served everybody else. After a while, we would just walk out.”

But he would not continue to walk out quietly for long. “I was always an activist,” Bob Watada explained. From protesting the war in Vietnam and joining the Peace Corps in the 1960s, he instilled these values, “these roots” as he calls them, upon his son.

“My father has always been very community-minded, sometimes putting community things before family things,” says the younger Watada.

Ehren Watada’s mother, Carolyn Ho, a Chinese American born in Honolulu, is a descendant of a Chinese migrant who came to Hawai’i in the late 19th century to work on sugar plantations. Ehren was born in Honolulu in 1978, and Ho describes her son as always determined and a bit precocious. “Every time kids would fool around during soccer practice, I would see Ehren with a serious look on his face, calm and composed,” Ho laughingly recalled.

Growing up, Watada was a Boy Scout, which he views as a precursor to the military. “The rank, the discipline, the patriotism, the ribbons, the merit badges – it’s very similar.” Watada attained Eagle rank by the ninth grade — an extraordinary feat for a 13-year-old since the average Eagle Scout attains his rank at age 16.

Being a Boy Scout was a primary motivation for joining the military. “The sense of adventurism you get from scouting is the same that you perceive in the military,” he says, “Also, there’s that really deep sense of service and giving something back.”

Final Score, 42-0

Watada played football on Honolulu’s Kalani High football team in 1996, an experience which tremendously shaped and informed his character today. “Unfortunately, or fortunately, however way you see it, I played on a team with one of the worst records in football on the entire islands,” Watada said. He recalls one particularly humiliating defeat early in the season: “We lost 42-0; we were just getting creamed. I was getting picked on because three or four of those touchdowns must’ve [been] scored on me. I was getting beat up.” At the time he was 5′7″ and about 150 pounds.

The entire game was both physically and mentally exhausting, Watada recalls. The other team members saw the defeat in Watada’s face and decided to exploit that weakness: “They were kicking the kickoff to me, when we hadn’t even practiced for that … [One time] I got hit so hard I went out of bounds on one play.” For the first time, Watada experienced a strong sense of despair and dejection. “I came out of that game really feeling humiliated and defeated,” Watada explains. “I was just broken inside and outside. During the period of that game and after it, I just lost hope in myself and what I thought I could do.”

He internalized all of the negative feelings that were attached to this game and later looked back to realize that it had a positive impact on the development of his character: “They could humiliate you; they could try to crush your will; they can beat up on you physically, but when you really lose is when you give up on yourself.” He has brought that outlook to his current situation facing the court-martial trial: “I think consciously or subconsciously that situation has carried over to how I carry myself now.

That’s how I can stay as strong as I have been throughout this very difficult ordeal. The Army can try to ostracize me, try to discredit me in the media. They can send me to prison and punish me. But whatever they do, I always remember the lesson that I learned: you aren’t defeated until you tell yourself you’re defeated.”

Watada still thinks about playing on that losing football team. “I always wonder if I had been on a team that had won every game. Maybe that experience of being defeated, being the underdog and trying to struggle, wouldn’t have built my character to do what I have done.”

Dawson’s Lieutenants

After graduating from high school and obtaining his degree in Business Administration at Hawai’i Pacific University, Watada enlisted in the Army.

His first duty station was Camp Stanley in South Korea, considered one of the most demanding stations in the Army. “They say that a year in Korea is equal to three years back in the States,” Watada said. “You train as if you were going to war any day.”

In Korea, he was driven by the strict battalion commander Lt. Colonel Matthew Dawson. “He would cuss and swear at us; he would get in our face,” Watada said. “Normally, battalion commanders don’t get too involved with their lieutenants; they focus on their captains. But it was his mission to make sure that he had the best lieutenants.”

Under Dawson, Watada learned the value of comprehensive knowledge. “He would force us to read every technical and field manual. He told us many times that if you didn’t know everything about your profession and your mission, then you would just be a failure,” Watada said. Dawson instilled in Watada the desire “to know everything there is to know” about his duty.

Watada’s lawyer attempted to contact Lt. Dawson to be a character witness in the trial; Dawson said he respected Watada’s decision but would not “go to war” with him. “He doesn’t agree with what I did,” Watada said. “And that’s fine. You have to look at the broader issue. We’re not just soldiers trained to go to war; we’re trained to defend our country and the Constitution.”

A note in Watada’s fitness report remarked that he possessed an “insatiable appetite for knowledge,” according to a New York Times story in July 2006, and Watada credits this to Dawson: “Some of what he instilled in me, I carried over with me when I redeployed back to the States. It was vital for me to find out everything there is to know. That’s what led to this questioning and trying to attain knowledge of what the hell we’re doing in Iraq.”

Transformation

In January 2005, Watada received orders to Fort Lewis, Washington, in anticipation of deployment to Iraq. Watada felt neither frightened nor anxious, but extremely unprepared. “I was detailed to be a fire support officer with an infantry company,” Watada explained.

Watada applied his “insatiable appetite for knowledge” to his future duties in Iraq. He felt it was his obligation and duty as an officer to know what to anticipate. “I did this to better prepare myself and my soldiers. That’s what I was taught in Korea.”

He haunted the Fort Lewis library, which contains an extraordinary number of military documents, archives and databases, and scoured volumes on military history, particularly in Iraq. “I read the history of units that have gone during the initial invasion to gain a broader knowledge of what I could expect,” he said.

At the time, it was more than the war that was making headlines; the Valerie Plame case, Supreme Court nominations and the country’s heightened surveillance, all questioned the legitimacy of the war in Iraq. “I was looking at who was trying to protect us,” Watada said. “Who is standing up and speaking out for the soldiers” I told myself that nobody is.

“I just felt so saddened by what was going on and so frustrated, so disheartened,” he continued. “And yet I told myself there was nothing I could do.”

Watada recalls one radio show that especially touched him. “This guy calls, and he was pretty hysterical. His brother was being sent to Iraq again, and he was really scared for him. He asked ‘Why isn’t anybody doing anything? Where are all the protests and the rallies like there was in the Vietnam War?’”

Watada reevaluated his stance on the war in Iraq. “I just snapped. I said, ‘I can do something about it.’ Though I may suffer for it, though it may just be a blip on the radar, at least I know that I can do something about it.”

After being denied two resignation requests, Watada publicly announced his refusal of deployment orders in Tacoma, Washington, on June 7, 2006. Two weeks later, Watada was officially charged with three violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice on six counts.

Peter Swing served as a nuclear, biological and chemical warfare defense specialist for the U.S. Marine Corps from 1998 to 2002 in the Middle East and Central America. He is currently the administrative coordinator for the AsianWeek Foundation.

Peter Swing served as a nuclear, biological and chemical warfare defense specialist for the U.S. Marine Corps from 1998 to 2002 in the Middle East and Central America. He is currently the administrative coordinator for the AsianWeek Foundation.

Ehren Watada: Free at Last

By Jeremy Brecher & Brendan Smith

William Rodriguez, is a native of Puerto Rico, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of the State of New Jersey. On September 11, 2001, and for approximately nineteen years prior thereto, Rodriguez was employed as a maintenance worker at the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York, New York.  

On 9/11, Rodriguez  single-handedly rescued fifteen (15) persons from the WTC, and as Rodriguez was the only person at the site with the master key to the North Tower stairwells,  he bravely led firefighters up the stairwell, unlocking doors as they ascended, thereby aiding in the successful evacuation of unknown hundreds of those who survived. Rodriguez, at great risk to his own life, re-entered the Towers three times after the first, North Tower impact at about 8:46 A.M., and is believed to be the last person to exit the North Tower alive, surviving the building's collapse by diving beneath a fire truck. After receiving medical attention at the WTC site for his injuries, Rodriguez spent the rest of 9/11 aiding as a volunteer in the rescue efforts, and at dawn the following morning, was back at Ground Zero continuing his heroic efforts.

Rodriguez lost his employment of 19 years and his means of earning a living as a direct result of the attacks on the WTC on 9/11. Deeply affected, as one might imagine, by his experiences of 9/11, Rodriguez has, in a variety of capacities and through several different organizations, worked ever since that terrible day to help others who were affected by the atrocities committed. He has continued in these labors, notwithstanding the fact that, due to the loss of his employment, he has been unable to earn a living, and was even homeless for a time.

Rabbi Michael Lerner, author of the forthcoming The Left Hand of God: Taking Our Country Back from the Relligious Right (HarperSanFrancisco, 2006)  is not only rabbi of Beyt Tikkun but is also the editor of TIKKUN magazine: A Bimonthly Jewish Critique of Politics, Culture and Society. TIKKUN is one of the most respected intellectual/cultural magazines in the Jewish world, but also one of the most controversial because of its stand in favor of the rights of Palestinians, on the one hand, which locates him in the minds of many as the leader and most prominent spokesperson in the U.S. of Jewish supporters of the Israeli peace movement, and on the other hand, because of his stand critiquing the anti-religious and anti-spiritual biases of the secular Left, insisting that they need to address the spiritual hunger of Americans as equally important to their material needs (he calls this a hunger for "meaning" and says that for many Americans the desire to transcend the individualism and selfishness of the competitive marketplace and connect their lives to higher meaning is as important as any interest in money or things, and that one reason why people who might on purely economic grounds be supporting the liberal and progressive social change movements actually end up supporting the Right is that the Left doesn't have a "politics of meaning").  He is the co-author with Cornel West of a book entitled Jews and Blacks: Let the Healing Begin, and several other books.

About Tikkun Community

We are an international community of people of many faiths calling for social justice and political freedom in the context of new structures of work, caring communities, and democratic social and economic arrangements. We seek to influence public discourse in order to inspire compassion, generosity, non-violence and recognition of the spiritual dimensions of life.

For nearly 70 years as a performer, Pete Seeger has embodied the ideals of folk music – communication, entertainment, social comment, historical continuity, inclusiveness. The songs he has written, and those he has discovered and shared, have helped preserve our cultural heritage, imprinting adults and children with the sounds, traditions and values of our global past and present. A fearless warrior for social justice and the environment, Pete’s political activism – from the Civil Rights movement and anti-McCarthyism to resistance to fascism and the wars in Vietnam and the Middle East – has become the template for subsequent generations of musicians and ordinary citizens with something to say about the world.

While his frequently unpopular stances have perhaps cost him a greater and more superficial popularity through media and performance blacklisting for during the ’50s and ’60s, 88-year-old Pete’s fearless contributions have nonetheless earned him a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, a Harvard Arts Medal, the Kennedy Center Award, the Presidential Medal of the Arts, and even membership in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. There’s currently a grassroots movement collecting signatures to nominate Pete for the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize.

Congresswoman Maxine Waters is considered by many to be one of the most powerful women in American politics today. She has gained a reputation as a fearless and outspoken advocate for women, children, people of color and the poor.

Elected in November 2016 to her fourteenth term in the U.S. House of Representatives with more than 76 percent of the vote in the 43rd Congressional District of California, Congresswoman Waters represents a large part of South Central Los Angeles including the communities of Westchester, Playa Del Rey, and Watts and the unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County comprised of Lennox, West Athens, West Carson, Harbor Gateway and El Camino Village. The 43rd District also includes the diverse cities of Gardena, Hawthorne, Inglewood, Lawndale, Lomita and Torrance.

Congresswoman Waters serves as the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Financial Services. An integral member of Congressional Democratic Leadership, Congresswoman Waters serves as a member of the Steering & Policy Committee. She is also a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and member and past chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Legislative Leadership

Throughout her 37 years of public service, Maxine Waters has been on the cutting edge, tackling difficult and often controversial issues. She has combined her strong legislative and public policy acumen and high visibility in Democratic Party activities with an unusual ability to do grassroots organizing.

Prior to her election to the House of Representatives in 1990, Congresswoman Waters had already attracted national attention for her no-nonsense, no-holds-barred style of politics. During 14 years in the California State Assembly, she rose to the powerful position of Democratic Caucus Chair. She was responsible for some of the boldest legislation California has ever seen: the largest divestment of state pension funds from South Africa; landmark affirmative action legislation; the nation’s first statewide Child Abuse Prevention Training Program; the prohibition of police strip searches for nonviolent misdemeanors; and the introduction of the nation’s first plant closure law.

As a national Democratic Party leader, Congresswoman Waters has long been highly visible in Democratic Party politics and has served on the Democratic National Committee (DNC) since 1980. She was a key leader in five presidential campaigns: Sen. Edward Kennedy (1980), Rev. Jesse Jackson (1984 & 1988), and President Bill Clinton (1992 & 1996). In 2001, she was instrumental in the DNC’s creation of the National Development and Voting Rights Institute and the appointment of Mayor Maynard Jackson as its chair.

Following the Los Angeles civil unrest in 1992, Congresswoman Waters faced the nation’s media and public to interpret the hopelessness and despair in cities across America. Over the years, she has brought many government officials and policy makers to her South Central L.A. district to appeal for more resources. They included President Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, Secretaries of Housing & Urban Development Henry Cisneros and Andrew Cuomo, and Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve System. Following the unrest, she founded Community Build, the city’s grassroots rebuilding project.

She has used her skill to shape public policy and deliver the goods: $10 billion in Section 108 loan guarantees to cities for economic and infrastructure development, housing and small business expansion; $50 million appropriation for “Youth Fair Chance” program which established an intensive job and life skills training program for unskilled, unemployed youth; expanded U.S. debt relief for Africa and other developing nations; creating a “Center for Women Veterans,” among others.

Rep. Waters continues to be an active leader in a broad coalition of residential communities, environmental activists and elected officials that aggressively advocate for the mitigation of harmful impacts of the expansion plan for Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). Furthermore, she continues initiatives to preserve the unique environmental qualities of the Ballona wetlands and bluffs, treasures of her district.

She is a co-founder of Black Women’s Forum, a nonprofit organization of over 1,200 African American women in the Los Angeles area. In the mid-80s, she also founded Project Build, working with young people in Los Angeles housing developments on job training and placement.

As she confronts the issues such as poverty, economic development, equal justice under the law and other issues of concern to people of color, women, children, and poor people, Rep. Waters enjoys a broad cross section of support from diverse communities across the nation.

Throughout her career, Congresswoman Waters has been an advocate for international peace, justice, and human rights. Before her election to Congress, she was a leader in the movement to end Apartheid and establish democracy in South Africa. She opposed the 2004 Haitian coup d’etat, which overthrew the democratically-elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti, and defends the rights of political prisoners in Haiti’s prisons. She leads congressional efforts to cancel the debts that poor countries in Africa and Latin America owe to wealthy institutions like the World Bank and free poor countries from the burden of international debts.

Congresswoman Waters is the founding member and former Chair of the ‘Out of Iraq’ Congressional Caucus. Formed in June 2005, the ‘Out of Iraq’ Congressional Caucus was established to bring to the Congress an on-going debate about the war in Iraq and the Administration’s justifications for the decision to go to war, to urge the return of US service members to their families as soon as possible.

Expanding access to health care services is another of Congresswoman Waters’ priorities. She spearheaded the development of the Minority AIDS Initiative in 1998 to address the alarming spread of HIV/AIDS among African Americans, Hispanics and other minorities. Under her continuing leadership, funding for the Minority AIDS Initiative has increased from the initial appropriation of $156 million in fiscal year 1999 to approximately $400 million per year today. She is also the author of legislation to expand health services for patients with diabetes, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

Congresswoman Waters has led congressional efforts to mitigate foreclosures and keep American families in their homes during the housing and economic crises, notably through her role as Chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity in the previous two Congresses. She authored the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, which provides grants to states, local governments and nonprofits to fight foreclosures, home abandonment and blight and to restore neighborhoods.  Through two infusions of funds, the Congresswoman was able to secure $6 billion for the program.

She is lauded by African American entrepreneurs for her work to expand contracting and procurement opportunities and to strengthen businesses. Long active in the women’s movement, Rep. Waters has given encouragement and financial support to women seeking public office. Many young people, including those in the hip-hop music community, praise her for her support and understanding of young people and their efforts at self-expression. One testament to her work is the Maxine Waters Employment Preparation Center, a multimillion dollar campus providing education and employment opportunities to residents of the Watts area.

Personal Background

Maxine Waters was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the fifth of 13 children reared by a single mother. She began working at age 13 in factories and segregated restaurants. After moving to Los Angeles, she worked in garment factories and at the telephone company. She attended California State University at Los Angeles, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree. She began her career in public service as a teacher and a volunteer coordinator in the Head Start program.

She is married to Sidney Williams, the former U.S. Ambassador to the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. She is the mother of two adult children, Edward and Karen, and has two grandchildren.