Calling attention to America’s national security threat from global warming, Operation Free toured South Dakota Thursday with impressive town hall roundtable events and press visits in Watertown and Sioux Falls. At Watertown, Vietnam War fighter pilot veteran Orrie Swayze led the town hall event in the historic Goss Opera House downtown Watertown, featuring five of the veterans on the Operation Free bus tour. The veterans at the event were:

• Rick Hegdahl, a native of Mitchell and crrent resident of Bellevue, Washington. He’s a 24-year veteran of the U.S. Navy, retired in 2006. He’s had two calls to active duty having served on a patrol boat guarding oil tankers at Kuwait.
• Peter Granato, a vice chairman of VoteVets.org, manages both legislative issues and veterans outreach for the organization. A native of Brooklyn, New York, he participated in the initial invasion of Iraq in March 2003 as an Army Reservist with the 800th Military Police Brigade. He served in Iraq until March 2004.
• Andrew Campbell, a resident of Portland, Maine, served for six years with the 133D Engineer Combat Battalion of the Maine Army National Guard. From 2004 to 2005, he was deployed with his battalion to Mosul, Iraq during the second year of the Iraq war.
• Robin Eckstein, Appleton, Wisconsin, joined the National Guard in 1999. In 2000 she volunteered for active duty and was deployed to Germany with the 123rd Main Support Battalion of the First Armored Division. In 2003 she and her unit deployed to Iraq shortly after the initial invasion. Eckstein served in Iraq for three months. There, she drove supply convoys in and around Bagdad.
• Rep. Alex Cornell du Houx, currently serving his first term in Maine’s House of Representatives, joined the Marine Reserves in 2002 and was deployed to Iraq with the Marines’ Alpha Company in 2006 – spending a year patrolling the streets in and around Fallujah. Cornell du Houx works to improve veterans’ issues both in Maine and nationwide, including access to higher education and healthcare. He currently works with the Truman National Security Projects on National Security and energy issues.

In Sioux Falls, retired Army Lt. Col. Paula Johnson of Sioux Falls led the press conference at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post. Johnson said she hopes the Clean Energy Jobs act before Congress passes to prevent future wars over foreign oil and to prevent worldwide famine and drought created by climage change. Click here to see details from the press conference in today’s Argus Leader.

Afterward, Andrew Campbell and Leighann Dunn, a National Guard veteran of the Iraqi War and USD student from Pierre, appeared on the KSOO Viewpoint University show Thursday evening with host Rick Knobe to discuss the national security threat from climate change, while Rick Hegdahl appeared at the top of the news on KSFY TV, which you can see by clicking here.

With a supportive crowd of about 40, the evening program at the VFW started with welcome remarks from National Inspector General for the VFW Rick Barg of Sioux Falls, seen in the group photo standing at the podium, who thanked the veterans for their continued service. Each of the eight veterans on the stage described their wartime experience and encouraged support of the Clean Energy Jobs bill in the U.S. Senate. They said the Pentagon and the nation’s intelligence community are developing strategies in preparation for drought, famine and flooding brought on by climate change as well as contingencies to protect oil fields and tanker routes. Refugee camps and mass destitution are targets for terrorist groups to recruit people who are desperate and angry.

The veterans said they support the Clean Energy legislation not only because it will prevent future wars created by climate change and protecting foreign oil resources, but because it will lead to a new clean energy-based economy which will spawn millions of clean energy jobs and economic growth.

Comments (0) · Leave a Comment

There are currently no comments.