Watch The Moment British Soldiers Throw War Medals To Floor With These Powerful Words

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By Sophie McAdam at trueactivist.com

 

“These are my medals, these were given to me were given to me as a reward for invading other peoples countries and murdering their civilians. I’m now handing them back.”
 

Last Friday, Veterans For Peace UK staged an important protest which has been entirely ignored by the mainstream media. Just two days before Remembrance Sunday- that time of year when the British press savagely attack anyone who doesn’t look like they are showing respect for the troops- three ex-soldiers who are now self-proclaimed pacifists threw down their medals outside the Prime Minister’s residence.

Outside Downing Street, the veterans lined up to face the police barricades and made the following statement:

“We are members of Veterans For Peace UK, an ex-services organisation of men and women who have served this country in every conflict since the second world war. We exist in the hope of convincing you that war is not the solution to the problems of the 21st century. We have come here today to hand back things, given to us as soldiers, that we no longer require or want.”

These veterans believe that war is a senseless, brutal act of terror, and they should know. The ex-soldiers are John Boulton, Kieran Devlin and Ben Griffin. Boulton served in the Armoured Corps and was deployed on operations to Cyprus and Afghanistan. Devlin served in the Royal Engineers and was deployed on operations to the Gulf War and N Ireland. Griffin served in the Parachute Regiment and the SAS. He was deployed on operations to N Ireland, Macedonia, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The men threw their Oaths of Allegiance and their army berets to the ground in rejection of violence. “I used to wear this hat as a soldier, it used to have great significance to me. I no longer want to keep hold of this symbol of militarism,” said Griffin.

He was joined by Boulton, who spoke the words: “These are the medals given to me for the sick dichotomy of keeping the peace and waging war. They are trinkets, pseudo payments. But really all they represent is the self-interest of those in there, who hold power.

Devlin, who joined up at just 16 years old, had this to say: “These are my medals, these were given to me were given to me as a reward for invading other peoples’ countries and murdering their civilians. I’m now handing them back.”

War has left Griffin with the same bad taste in his mouth. “I was given these medals for service on operations with the British Army,” he said. “This particular medal here was given to me for my part in the occupation of Iraq. Whilst I was over there, I attacked civilians in their homes and took away their men, off to be tortured in prison. I no longer want these despicable things.

The three veterans then walked away from Downing Street leaving the oaths, berets and medals lying scattered on the floor. The actions of these brave men has been met with venom by many on social media. They have been insulted and called ‘scum’ for rejecting war and militarism. If you support them in their campaign for a peaceful world, please visit their website and share this video in solidarity.


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8 COMMENTS

  1. Those men have full respect from me. They have been scarred by the orders they were given and had to execute against innocent people from another country. I hope they find the peace within themselves that they deserve and continue on with there message we are all puppets and made to believe what they want and expect us to believe. Fight wars againt people they tell us and expect us to hate.

    • Yes, agreed, and there is so much more BS we need to clean up. When the British prime minister came out and said he was sorry for the invasion of Iraq, and how it was planned a year prior to the invasion, and nothing was done to him, these are war crimes on a massive scale. No one would be the wiser if it wasn’t for whistle blowers, so we need laws protecting whistle blowers. No one will come forwards with the truth’s if they are subject to criminal charges.

  2. Dear Lads, finest of warriors, truest of soldiers, Brave men, for not a living soul can deny that.

    You have deserved yourself that highest of medals, that one that is never issued, the one you can not pin on your chest and show off, you have earned, by your example, by your greatest victory, not a single shot fired, the medal that a million unheard voices desire to give you if ever they could.

    I am an officer, reserve, I will remain an officer, for may that day ever come, that I have to stand up, when another nation invades my country. Until that day I will remain an officer, honourably discharged, after refusing to be part of that what unfolded during the year 2003, I had to to appear before committees of higher ranking officers and undergo degrading questioning, as if I was the crazy one. In 2005 I finally received my discharge papers and I was relieved that I was at least honoured in my decision, to listen to my feelings, my conscious, but most of all my extensive knowledge of history, instead of the media, and I will always remain proud of that decision, of that chance I was given to take responsibility for my own actions, not being mislead by the financial bonus and the chance to obtain military bling in different levels of honorary metal. I do not have to defend my actions by the famous words, “Befehl ist befehl.” I do not have to doubt, my choice that one day, leading to the death of entirely innocent people, nothing to regret, though I do really miss the army. When the request by the British army / minister of defence was going around as a rumour, in my army, confirmed by my commanding officer, for the assistance of one battalion of tanks to supplement a British Division, for deployment in Iraq. Of our three tank battalions only one was available, though I had seriously contemplated being send to Srebrenica, like my friends were, years before. I had never contemplated an invasion of a nation, of a country with already ill fortunes, of a people I had no quarrel with, and whose background was familiar enough to me, as a failure of western nations. A failure, to observe the simple fact that centuries, or better, millennia old cultures being at war and at peace rather randomly throughout history not unlike the Roman Catholics and the Protestants of Europe, should have not been forced to become one country. Though my nations government declined, even before I had made the decision, this request, which was not even official had made my army buzz like a beehive, while all their minds went towards Iraq, mine went quite the opposite way, and my officer-behaviour, my shiny character started to erode, even my colleagues saw that, I was in discord with my army and that would only be repaired if my government had had the guts to simply say, “NO.” No to Iraq and no to Afghanistan. It was clear to me that my ten year military career was at an end.

    Denying each nation within that country their right to self determination, is simply an international crime, and even if that would not be the case, it would simply go against all human decency. The problems in Iraq, or what remains of it, or the problems in Syria, are not the making of the different local populations. The ever worsening relations between the Arabs, the Israelis and the Western world is nothing more and most certainly nothing less, than the cumulative consequences of: the Sykes–Picot Agreement, and many more of such patch works. Decolonization by ruler, instead of decolonization by honour. Leaving an apt pupil, ready to venture into the world as a proud and brave nation, creating meaning from its own existence, for better or for worse, united as a single minded people, where the rule of law holds precedence over might and wealth and the abuse of such means. A nation, young but viable in its respect for the law and respect for each-other, where trust is the measure of conduct, not fear.

    Countries like Iraq, formed by Shiites, Sunnites and Kurds, and most likely many small minorities, with tribal cultures, were never meant to succeed, they were meant to eternally balance on the edge of the abyss called civil war. So only the most brutal and most powerful tribal leaders could succeed as the dictators of said countries. Dictators easily manipulated by Western money, arms, support and ‘gifts’ of all kinds, making their rulers fabulously wealthy while the majority of the populations would suffer the consequences of millennia old resentment, hate and strive. Three almost traditional emotions most perfectly abused by western nations to design the failed state and the eternal dictatorship, time and again creating easy pickings for western nations in their resource based plundering of nations without any prospects to speak of, merely kept in a status quo of fear and changeless existence. Seemingly with only one ‘fortune’, to be the submissive doormat of insanely rich Westerners, only out on manipulating western and Middle Eastern opinions, to sow discord, division and disharmony as the true priests of Eris, to create that ever profitable conflict, revenue is the word and all that time the media has been a most perfect priest to Ares, sacrificing Aletheia, or Veritas almost a century ago, dooming the Middle East, and eventually driving Lawrence of Arabia to his death. For words broken and trust damaged. And they are not the only victims.

    In our innocence, in being naive, in choosing the easy way, in trusting the democratic system would eternally run itself unattended just like the fabled perpetuum mobilee, we have damaged ourselves as well, with accepting, without any form of evidence, time and again, claiming that we need not worry since we have it good, that the democracy would be run magically for us, all we had to do was fill in a ballot so now and then, and go back to sleep. Don’t worry about those backward nations, we will hand them some money so now and then, but never that what they really needed. A painful fact of many of those fledgeling nations is that poor they may be, their lands are richer than any western nation, Diamonds, Uranium, cobalt, Bauxite, fertile soil to plant cacao, coffee, to create a sustained rainforest, for research and wood. Instead of behaving like a bigger brother or a wiser sister, guiding them, helping them, not giving useless handouts, only creating warlords, since those nations are rich enough, a bit of friendly guidance, so their history would be not like our history, filled with a symphony of failures, like WWI and WWII. No we have failed, we as great western nations with science, and high standing cultures have blinded ourselves, with all that high and mighty thinking. We demanded of them, that what we could not even demand of ourselves, we asked of them to slowly grow and stand on their own legs, while we simply plundered that what they had, or worse, we never gave them their oilfields, think of Nigeria, a disaster, happening right under our noses. We failed, you failed, I failed, he failed, we thought ourselves better than the Africans and indeed, Rwanda, what a shit hole, and that is how easily we have forgotten the Holocaust, where did these people learn that behaviour, that wealth and power allow you to do anything you wish? King Leopold comes to mind, and no, he is not the only one. We are guilty, you are guilty, I am guilty, I know I am, and he is most definitely guilty as well. We chose with our eyes open to believe for no good reason at all, that we could trust people with power, and that we could control them by filling in one ballot every 4 years. We thought that we could trust people to bring us the important and trustworthy information from all over the world most of what appeared on TV and in the Newspapers or was said on the Radio is utter nonsense, go back to sleep. It was my government in exile in London demanding from the Dutch railways to keep running tight schedules, to keep deporting the Jews, not a single day of strike was allowed. Every-time mr. Giesberger director of the state company called NS (Nederlandse Spoorwegen) asked: “Can we go on strike please?” He kept hearing the same answer: “Niets! Doorgaan!” “Nothing, continue.” Hardly a few days after the last train had left for the camps in the East, mr. Giesberger was finally allowed to go on strike, September 17 1944…….Operation Market-Garden. Even Adolph Eichmann in 1961 at his trial in Jerusalem declared that the Dutch trains were a delight. This is information from the parliamentary Inquiry of 1955, this is not conspiracy theory, this is simply an entire nation in denial of reality, not one history book used in even one school shows this as important information concerning Dutch history. A nation trying to feel good and ignore simple well documented facts. I know I failed, I know she failed and I know you failed just as miserably. Leidsch Dagblad November 5 1955, Leidsche Courant 21 December 1985, Leidsch dagblad 10 November 1998, Leidsch dagblad 12 August 1997, De burcht 14 July 1945, Veritas wednesday 29 November 1944……..Epic failure.

    I took another look into that most epic of conflicts, going on from the Second World War to deep into the seventies, the Vietnam war, millions of Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian victims, against a mere 60,000 American deaths, something was out of place, a sinister feeling that I had witnessed before, that utterly asymmetric death-toll, so characteristic of the war of extermination called the Eastern Front, where one nation was bound to reduce the other nation to only 15% of its former number, to be kept as the source of future slaves. So seems Generalplan Ost to outline the 25 years after the capture of Moscow. That my career as officer in the army, was at an end, that was clear, seldom have I seen with such clarity, I would not be part of such massacre of such useless destruction, of such vile abuse, of this most disgusting of manipulations. But most certainly of all, I would not be part of the destruction of innocent lives I had never ever have the chance to meet, shake their hands, or whatever custom is appropriate and to philosophise about what now really is the good life, of course while enjoying a hot mug of mighty strong coffee. Leave the army. But than what? Twelve years and I have not really answered that question, quite likely I never will, I felt hopeless at times, the whole western world following the media, like an evil carnival. Until that one day I read of Benjamin Ferencz, lonely fighter for justice, deep in his nineties still going strong, still going on, from his first major case as a prosecutor in his case at the Nuremberg trials 32 SS generals, talking about facing death, until this very day. He managed and I had to manage as well, and so I did, slowly crawling out of my mental foxhole, grasping to straws like Benjamin, and later a general, who had spoken, what I feared, but knew to be true, so profoundly, that when you ever only have the chance *to only read one book,* let it be his, not one book covers the earliest days of Sumer, till today, so profoundly deep, exact, entirely calculated, not a cent missing, as his book, if one seeks the understanding of history, this book provides that in a mere 208 pages.

    I will quote the least known, but the most important general ever, the only general I know of to stand with his men before, during and after their war, demanding their pay, for battles served, for their government in which they had put their trust. During the great depression, these jobless, underpaid, or robbed veterans from the trenches of the First World War assembled in mass. Their pay invested in warbonds by the government, bought back from these boys for 83% or less of their original value, their bonuses promised made to only mature by 1945. With 43,000 marchers on Washington, they demanded a fair chance to a future. This greatest of generals who had taken his young son Thomas with him, to say to these men that they were fine soldiers to not loose their sense of humour and that they had the right to lobby congress, just like any corporation. This man, true to his men, also when it was not so convenient, trying to establish himself as a man of politics, would stay the night at the camp of the Marchers, with his son and in the morning gave speech, halfway this month of July. On July the 28th, another general, general McArthur would lead several cavalry units to disperse this bonus army, using gas, killing several veterans, while of all the important men in Washington, only two ever came to the veterans. One to support them and One to destroy them.

    This man, this US marine, this major general, this highest decorated US marine ever, once said AND I QUOTE: “War is a Racket”
    That is a truth told, as only a marine with the rank maj. gen. could say, especially a double recipient of the MoH.

    Major General Smedley Darlington Butler “Old Gimlet Eye” “The Fighting Quaker” “Old Duckboard”

    War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.

    I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we’ll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

    I wouldn’t go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

    There isn’t a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its “finger men” to point out enemies, its “muscle men” to destroy enemies, its “brain men” to plan war preparations, and a “Big Boss” Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.

    It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

    I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

    I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

    During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.
    People who think they know war, because they were in one, don’t know shit, people who think they know war, because they suffered from one don’t know shit, those who studied it, unimportant. the Only way to know war, is by reading Maj. Gen. Smedley Darlington Butler’s book, called “War is a Racket”

    Momentum is not important, neither is concentration, command and control is bull shit. MLRS, or AK47 doesn’t matter. The only thing that has strategic importance is to remember that Gen, Westmorland claimed 40- 50k enemy troops as insurgency in Vietnam. NATO SOP states for such a war overall numerical superiority 15:1.
    Thus: 15 X 50,000 = 750,000 American troops needed to swiftly end the war, within 1 year the war would have most likely been won. there would always be another unit close by to follow up upon an enemy unit attacking. that is why gen. Westmorland never got better than 10:1, the war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be milked

    Smedely Butler:

    Take our friends the du Ponts, the powder people — didn’t one of them testify before a Senate committee recently that their powder won the war? Or saved the world for democracy? Or something? How did they do in the war? They were a patriotic corporation. Well, the average earnings of the du Ponts for the period 1910 to 1914 were $6,000,000 a year. It wasn’t much, but the du Ponts managed to get along on it. Now let’s look at their average yearly profit during the war years, 1914 to 1918. Fifty-eight million dollars a year profit we find! Nearly ten times that of normal times, and the profits of normal times were pretty good. An increase in profits of more than 950 per cent.

    International Nickel Company — and you can’t have a war without nickel — showed an increase in profits from a mere average of $4,000,000 a year to $73,000,000 yearly. Not bad? An increase of more than 1,700 per cent.

    The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be milked

    And let us not forget the bankers who financed the great war. If anyone had the cream of the profits it was the bankers. Being partnerships rather than incorporated organizations, they do not have to report to stockholders. And their profits were as secret as they were immense. How the bankers made their millions and their billions I do not know, because those little secrets never become public — even before a Senate investigatory body.

    But here’s how some of the other patriotic industrialists and speculators chiseled their way into war profits.

    Take the shoe people. They like war. It brings business with abnormal profits. They made huge profits on sales abroad to our allies. Perhaps, like the munitions manufacturers and armament makers, they also sold to the enemy. For a dollar is a dollar whether it comes from Germany or from France. But they did well by Uncle Sam too. For instance, they sold Uncle Sam 35,000,000 pairs of hobnailed service shoes. There were 4,000,000 soldiers. Eight pairs, and more, to a soldier. My regiment during the war had only one pair to a soldier. Some of these shoes probably are still in existence. They were good shoes. But when the war was over Uncle Sam has a matter of 25,000,000 pairs left over. Bought — and paid for. Profits recorded and pocketed.

    There was still lots of leather left. So the leather people sold your Uncle Sam hundreds of thousands of McClellan saddles for the cavalry. But there wasn’t any American cavalry overseas! Somebody had to get rid of this leather, however. Somebody had to make a profit in it — so we had a lot of McClellan saddles. And we probably have those yet.

    Why oh why always send just not enough men? to lengthen the time of the milking of the war, Americans only ever get tired of war after a decade…….then voices are slowly rising .

    And then suddenly I find this video, a few good men, striding as the bravest soldiers, determined, focused knowing that this will be their end, as soldiers carrying a burden they should have never had to carry, 15 years old, 19 years old, life has barely started, and then without grasping the full intensity of something that is always deliberately depicted as heroic, as something to aspire to, simply to fool the young. FLAWLESSLY Designed treachery.

    Lads, I know I am in good company now, thank you

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