The Winter Soldier 2008 investigations from last weekend, held in Silver Spring, have been broadcast in excerpts over Democracy Now (can be found at http://www.democracynow.org ). (Link has the latest episode and archives in several formats - mp3, real audio, podcasts, etc.) Iraq Veterans Against the War have brought veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts to testify to what they have seen and participated in...

The investigations are named for the first Winter Soldier investigations - held in 1971 by the Vietnam Veterans against the War in Detroit - and named in inversion, after Tom Paine's reference to the Summer Soldiers and Sunshine Patriots who by contrast deserted the armed forces and the country after Valley Forge, and would not do their duty. (Yes, I suppose it may be held that the Winter Soldiers are "deserting" - I by contrast would agree with the organizers that by holding forth and testifying they are giving great service to their country, much bravery and much service in warning of the many dangers this war - like that war - poses to our (as, more obviously, to their) country's spirit, economic body and  physical person (in future hospitalization costs, though I suspect that other examples will occur in due course...), as it were.