If you could crawl inside the head, heart and soul of a military veteran, what you would see would be what is on The American Veteran’s Art Wall (The AVAW). Visceral and vivid visions of pain, humor and self-reflection.

Veterans helping veterans tell the one in pain to “get out of your head.” That’s therapy talk for “Stop thinking and DO something!”

What The AVAW does is help you get “IT” out of your head. “It” could be a good “it,” or a bad “it,” or just an “it” that doesn’t belong there. While DOING that, YOU thus get OUT of your head.

That’s a really good thing!

Veteran Jarrod L. Taylor explained his visit to The AVAW this way:

“The idea that sharing a photograph, a drawing, a memory would make anyone feel differently at the end of the day…was too simple. Veterans already post and share on Facebook, so I wondered how this ‘wall’ could be any different. I looked at The American Veterans Art Wall, and as my buddy instructed, I read the descriptions that went along with each veteran’s post. Only a few images in, I understood the difference. This was individual veterans who were sharing parts of themselves with the world. It was raw and sometimes hard to look at, but it was very powerful. The American Veterans Art Wall, is a space where the men and women who have served our country, have a voice. I love that it is by veterans for veterans, and that is why I decided to make a post. Posting made me proud to have served and reminded me why I joined.”

The wall was the brain child of friends and colleagues, David W. Hahn (President) and Ricky Schultz (Executive Vice President). Their resume’s look like they belong in a Who’s Who of Hollywood and music industry hall of fame, but to talk with these men, you’d never know it. Humble, engaged and philanthropic, these two men share a passion for giving back to veterans that is unsurpassed.

The inspiration for the art wall came from Ricky’s dad, who was a decorated war hero. The wall project is dedicated to Col. Harvey L. Schultz, best remembered for his service to country, to community, to family and to God. Col. Schultz saw action in WWII, served in Korea, continued his military career in the Reserves until 1979, and earned the Legion of Merit. Col. Schultz died in 2010 but left a glowing example of how a man should live his life, with joy, honor and dedication.

In Col. Schultz’s honor, they discussed what would be fitting, and Mr. Hahn told me, “America’s common ground is found in its diversity, and what makes that diversity accessible to all?  American art and crafts.  Once held in esteem they have, like so much else, become a political football.  So we decided it was time to reintroduce the country to its common ground, the source of its uniqueness.  Art.  American Art.”

And who better to provide this unique expression of self than veterans?

After visiting and then contributing to The AVAW, Jarrod Taylor had this to say, “Not only is The American Veterans Art Wall a way to help our nation’s veterans feel connected, but it is a way to preserve the history of my generation’s wars for future Americans and to better understand other generations who served. You have created a continuum for this nation’s military.”

A connection. A continuum. Things hauntingly absent from a veteran who feels alone, un-cared for and forgotten.

Messer’s Hahn and Schultz emphatically say that once a veteran contributes his head, heart and soul to the wall through art, photography or creation, he or she can say, “I AM. I HAVE WORTH. I AM NOT ALONE.”

They say “art is the answer.” And I say, how could it not be?

The feeling of joy and completeness was unexpected, when on a whim I asked Mr. Hahn if I could contribute photographs of ceramic iguanas I made while serving with the Joint Detainee Operations Group, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, from February to June 2002. I took care of bad guys. A job I describe as “hatred and empathy colliding in an emotional train wreck.”

I would later serve in Iraq, but emotions I experienced on my Gitmo deployment, my first after September 11, 2001, took me by surprise. I was wracked with guilt over leaving my wife and three sons, the youngest of which was born two days before I left for Gitmo.

When The AVAW accepted my art I was surprised, and then elated.

We all have our stories. We all have our baggage and our pain. But sharing those simple items I had made out of grief, solitude and anguish helped me move forward, and out of my head.

My Brother and Sister Veterans, it will for you, too.

I am a three times mobilized retired U.S. Army Reserve major, and author of “Saving Grace at Guantanamo bay: A Memoir of a Citizen Warrior,” dedicated husband, father, educator, veteran and Branded Contributor for TheBlaze.com.

The U.S. Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been in existence since 1903, when Teddy Roosevelt signed a lease agreement with the new Cuban government, by mutual consent. U.S. Marines had landed there in June of 1898 in order to defeat the Spanish during the Spanish-American War.

In 1934, President Franklin Roosevelt signed a new lease agreement with Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista. The agreement states:

“Until the two Contracting Parties agree to the modification or abrogation of the stipulations of the agreement in regard to the lease to the United States of America of lands in Cuba for coaling and naval stations… the stipulations of that Agreement with regard to the naval station of Guantánamo shall continue in effect.”

In 1959, revolution, led by communist Fidel Castro, deposed Batista. This also ended an era of technological and social advancement for the people of Cuba, who enjoyed prosperity and achievement via investments and tourism, chiefly by U.S. companies and by Americans. Today, the country looks as though it was stopped in time at that point.

Because of Castro’s belligerence and close relationship with the communist Soviet Union during the peak of the Cold War, President John F. Kennedy imposed an embargo on Cuba in 1961. Castro had allowed the construction and placement of Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) bases by the Soviets, which posed an in-your-face-threat.

The embargo is still in place, but not for long if current trends prevail. Our enemy/neighbor to the south is howling about the return of the naval base at Guantanamo Bay as a first step toward normal relations.

Who needs normal relations with Cuba?

President Barack Hussein Obama’s legacy does.

What other bright shining star of achievement could Obama hope to have as a centerpiece to his future presidential library? Giving up Iraq, Russian aggression, The Arab Spring, Chinese opportunism, The Islamic State? No, no, no, no and no. He desperately needs a win before sailing off into the Caribbean sunset.

Cuba actually presents an opportunity for a double win for Obama, should he succeed in sneaking into normal relations with Cuba. He promised even before becoming president that he would close the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, and now he has his best chance yet.

If Obama agrees to give the naval station back to Cuba, the detention facility goes with it. This would be at least a 100% improvement in jail standards for Castro’s Cuba, as current political and other prisoners suffer in real gulags at the communist dictator’s hands.

There is no right to freedom and liberty for citizens in Cuba. The vast majority of unprivileged Cubanoslive a meager existence, struggling with meager government jobs that pay only in non-convertible Cuban pesos, a devalued currency reserved for the masses.

There is a second economy in Cuba, one reserved for the ruling elite and foreigners. Western goods can only be purchased with a convertible peso tied to the value of the U.S. dollar. International tourists are forbidden from using the non-convertible Cuban peso, and can only purchase the higher priced items reserved for them with the convertible peso or with foreign currency.

This economic repression will not change due to new diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba. This is the big secret not discussed by even the investigative branch of the U.S. media [sic]. Lifting an embargo will only enrich those Cubans Castro decides should be enriched, and the masses will be left with nothing new, including the absence of hope.

In fact, the public relations behind the apparent thaw in relations is that the Cuban people “have suffered enough,” and that the old policy of isolation “hasn’t worked.” This has had the result of near hysteria among the low information liberals who still cling to Obama as their messiah.

Even a liberal arts public school in Sag Harbor, New York, announced it was planning a school trip to the island nation next year to develop “a global vision.” Will they tour the gulags, ogle the poorest of the poor; observe struggling Cubanos in their wretched second economy, working meager nowhere lifetime jobs? Now THAT’S a trip worth taking in order to develop a “global vision” . . . of communism. Be sure to get lots of photos to show the folks back home, kids!

All this unmerited attention has emboldened the Cuban government, namely younger brother to Fidel,Raul Castro, to demand the return of the U.S. Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay, affectionately called Gitmo (or GTMO in Navy speak).

The path to relinquishing Gitmo is clear. No matter how the White House wants to spin it, we are on a collision course with full diplomatic relations with Cuba, despite the lack of even ONE required change or concession on their part.

This recalls the free give back of the Panama Canal to Panama. A geopolitical blunder of global proportions made by liberal President Jimmy Carter. We built it, they keep it. Oh, and we get to feel good about it, too.

We built a city at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on 45 square miles of hard won territory fighting against the Spanish. We helped establish stability for the native Cubanos, and our investors and tourists helped establish a jewel in the Caribbean.

It is estimated that billions of dollars of investments, property and economic interests were confiscated by Castro when he seized them during the Cuban Revolution. Not a peep out of either the White House or Castro about reparations.

And so it goes.

It’s as if we are all passengers on the caboose of a runaway train, only able to see where we’ve been, and there are demons at the switches. And there are demons at the switches.

Barack Hussein Obama’s administration has released six more detainees from the U.S. facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. That begs the question: Do you feel safter with detainees in or out of Gitmo?

It’s a question every American needs to ask themselves.

If your answer is “out,” remember that over 640 detainees have been released so far, with about a 30 percent recidivism rate. It’s the other 70 percent you should be concerned about.

If your answer is “in,” then you need to contact your Congressional representatives immediately and let them know how you feel.
It appears Congress is powerless to stop the release of unlawful combatants from the facility and for all you know these guys will end up back in the fight, or maybe even in YOUR neighborhood.

The idea that Gitmo is a recruitment tool, or detainees are “goat herders,” or other myths are old, tired and never proven.

You could probably hold these guys in Hawaii and they would have something to complain about.

That is their training, you know?

That’s right. Before we even admitted we were in a War on Terror the British captured an Al Qaeda training manual which drives detainee behavior at Gitmo.

Police in Manchester, England, discovered the manual, which has come to be known as the “Manchester document,” in 2000 while searching computer files found in the home of a known Al Qaeda member. The contents were introduced as evidence into the 2001 trial of terrorists who bombed the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998. The FBI translated the document into English.

Among the chapters were lessons 17 and 18 on how a “brother” should behave if captured and then put on trial. [Note that they EXPECT to be put on trial and not executed by Western powers.]

• “Be careful not to give the enemy any vital information [during interrogations].”
• “At the beginning of the trial … the brothers must insist on proving that torture was inflicted on them.”
• “Complain [to the court] of mistreatment while in prison.”
• “The brother has to do his best to know the names of the state security officers, who participated in his torture and mention their names to the judge. [These names may be obtained from brothers who had to deal with those officers in previous cases.]”
• “It is possible to resort to a hunger strike, but it is a tactic that can either succeed or fail.”
• “Take advantage of visits to communicate with brothers outside prison and exchange information that may be helpful to them in their work outside prison.”
• “When the brothers are transported from and to the prison [on their way to the court] they should shout Islamic slogans out loud from inside the prison cars to impress upon the people and their family the need to support Islam.”
• “The brothers should create an Islamic program for themselves inside the prison….”
• “[For God’s sake, this mujahid (fighter) will obey, in order] to establish a caliphate along the lines of the prophet.”
• “There will be a Caliphate according to the prophet’s path [instruction], if God so wills it.”
• “Upholding religion . . . will necessarily require an all out confrontation against all our enemies, who want to recreate darkness.”
• “It is imperative to stand against darkness in all arenas: the media, education, [religious] guidance, and counseling, as well as others.”

And we’ve known this for 15 years. All of it and more. Yet the mainstream media refuses to reveal it, comment on it or present it in opposition to the actions of the administration of Barack Hussein Obama.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld expressed frustration over this effort during a June 21, 2005 interview on the “Tony Snow Show.”

“These detainees are trained to lie, they’re trained to say they were tortured, and the minute we release them or the minute they get a lawyer, very frequently they’ll go out and they will announce that they’ve been tortured,” Rumsfeld said.
The media jumps on these claims, reporting them as “another example of torture,” the secretary said, “when in fact, (terrorists have) been trained to do that, and their training manual says so.”

Instead of being a gulag, Gitmo is the finest military detention facility on earth. Not one detainee has ever been executed, beheaded, hacked to death, blown up, dragged naked and lifeless through the streets or BURNED ALIVE. All things our enemies have done to us and/or our allies. In fact, the Islamist equivalent to Gitmo is a PILE of HEADS and ASHES.

International Committee of the Red Cross physicians I worked with at Gitmo in 2002 told me “no one does [detention operations] better than the United States.” In 2005, another ICRC physician I escorted at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (after and in spite of the abuse scandal there) told me the same thing.

This administration has turned Gitmo into a joke in the eyes of our enemies. It is nothing more than an Islamist rest and recreation center where detainees receive world class health care, can share stories and names and tactics, and then get released.

The value of keeping your enemy detained is to keep them off the battlefield and obtain valuable information which could save many lives. This was effective under George W. Bush.

According to the Geneva Conventions and Law of Land Warfare, even lawful combatant POWs may be held without charge, “until the end of hostilities.”

This fact too has lost its way to the general public.

Gitmo is legal, ethical, moral and NECESSARY in the Global War on Terror.

Our problem is that our president unilaterally declared the War on Terror OVER in 2013. And he is behaving as if all Gitmo detainees are VICTIMS.

The Geneva Conventions and Law of War were written to protect INNOCENT civilians, not to protect those who PRETEND to be civilians in order to murder them.

Releasing Gitmo detainees will not help win the War on Terror.

Many groups other than the White House who want Gitmo closed also want us dead.

Unless we all band together and then shout to Congress with one voice we may be facing a completely replenished and inspired enemy after the President has his way with Gitmo.

As Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ariz) said, we should be filling Gitmo up, not emptying it.

I am NOT Charlie Hebdo. I am an American Christian Soldier.

I believe the Global War on Terror in the modern era started on November 21, 1979, with the wanton killing of U.S. Marine CPL Steven Crowley, guard at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, by militant Islamists who mistakenly believed that U.S. military units occupied their most holy mosque at Mecca.

In May of 2013, President Barack Hussein Obama declared the War on Terror OVER. He releases known unlawful combatant Islamists back into the War on Terror as if they were VICTIMS and not at least potentially deadly adversaries.

I believe the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is the finest such faiclity on earth. The islamist equivalent is a PILE of HEADS. I believe that Gitmo is a reasonable cost of doing business in the War on Terror, and that releasing detainees will not help win the War on Terror.

With that, and in this post-9/11 world one must take precautions. If one has been threatened and then had their office firebombed one should take reasonable measures to prevent an attack by those who threatened and then firebombed them.

Charlie Hebdo’s response to the threats and firebombing was to move their offices and install locked doors, not stop what some have called “hate speech.”

Charlie Hebdo continued to insult, demean and ridicule those who threatened and then firebombed them. Was this smart? Was this rational? Was this naïve? Some have called it bold, fearless and courageous.

Continuing behavior deemed offensive to the point of violence by others is at least bold, isn’t it? The principle of liberty is in play. “Give me liberty or give me death!” is as American as apple pie, and we got that attitude FROM the French. Heck, they even gave us a statue called “Liberty.”

Free speech is treasured in the western democracies of Europe and North America. Being able to depict anyone in any way one wishes is highly valued in art and journalism.

However, there are limits, and there are consequences apparently for surpassing those limits.

Yelling the “N” word in Harlem at noon on a workday may bring some stares, some comments, and perhaps some confrontations, possibly violent confrontations. Wearing a Nazi uniform in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY, may bring some stares, some comments, and perhaps some confrontations, possibly violent confrontations.

Depicting the Muslim prophet Mohammad, and/or Allah himself in an offensive, or ANY manner in an Islamist enclave would bring some stares, some comments, and most likely some confrontations, and probably some violent confrontations.

In this day of Internet and social media we enjoy a buffer from those with whom we interact. For that reason, some people feel they can say or do pretty much anything without consequences. People are much more inappropriate and bold on the Internet and in print or on TV or in the movies (have YOU seen “The Interview” yet?) than they would be in person.

That personal interaction is governed by a different set of mores and expectations. If you offend someone in person there is always the possibility the person you offended will respond violently, so we tend to be more polite in person, less so the more people we are around who feel the same way we do. But one-on-one we tend to size up our opponent and then instantly determine whether or not this is someone we could “take” physically should the need arise, before saying something disparaging about their mother, or their deity. Some parents spank their children, or an offended woman might slap a “fresh” potential suitor, to get their attention and to send a message that their behavior was inappropriate or unacceptable. Grown ups, especially grown up males, tend to raise the stakes a bit. In general terms, “Oh, yeah? Say that to my face,” creates an entirely different set of possible circumstances with men than it does with children or women.

On the Internet, in print or television media or the movies this is seldom a consideration, as there are few consequences to free expression in these venues. In journalism and art the writer/creator is less concerned with offending someone than they are with making whatever statement they want to make. They think less about consequences. Yet, they still revel in the idea of getting a reaction out of someone, any reaction.

Strong reactions can mean accolades, awards, and . . . MONEY. After all that’s really what Charlie Hebdo is all about, isn’t it, money? The paper is in business to make money. They make money if people buy the paper and advertisers buy ads.

Shock and smut sell. And today probably 3 million copies were sold – unprecedented.

Were the writers, cartoonists and editors of Charlie Hebdo sincerely in the business of serious journalism, or were they in the business of peddling smut? In a free society that values liberty above all else that wouldn’t matter so much, especially if there were enough people around to buy the art/smut. If no one bought the paper/magazine would they still do what they do or would they create something else to sell? Does that matter?

After all, twelve people died creating art/peddling smut, shouldn’t that matter more than why they did what they did? Isn’t it enough to say they were exercising their right to free speech? It should, but it doesn’t. It doesn’t because they were murdered for it in cold blood. If they had been in the building when it was fire bombed they would have died then.

The Judeo-Christian ethic teaches us to love one another, and to treat others as we would have them treat us. But in a decidedly secular society, anything goes. “If it feels good do it,” humanism, and “if it’s useful to me it’s good,” utilitarianism rule the day, not tried and true religious principles. Christians would say one treads on thin ice if one tempts fate by ignoring the Golden Rule. Sooner or later . . . call it karma, call it yin and yang, call it just desserts, the world has a way of balancing itself out, seeking equilibrium, entropy.

France has allowed hundreds of Islamist enclaves that shun French culture and society, and that disallow French civil services in their communities, and that operate their own religious courts that enforce their own religious laws. These enclaves are not unique to France. They exist throughout Western Europe, and evenin the U.S.

What then should be our reasoning in the aftermath of the Paris shootings by alleged Islamists?

Perhaps a realization that certain segments of society get pissed off enough to kill people if those people insensitively insult them. As anti-social as that response is, it is a response. Killing someone when life in the here and now means so little to some people is like the smack in the face for getting fresh to others. Believe it. Allegedly, the Islamist attackers said they wanted to “die as martyrs.” Life is so very cheap to those who would make such claims.

Dealing with murderers is difficult and complex. One segment of society wants to know “why?” the perpetrators did what they did, and want to defend them with public resources. Others would rather see the killers killed, rationalizations and psychology be damned.

The French avoided that complexity by killing the SUSPECTED Islamists. Everyone here is ASSUMING those persons killed by the French police (if any were killed at all) were the perpetrators. We may never know for sure. We only know what we are told. We assume the French are telling the truth about the whole thing. If not, what would be their motive?

For all we know the perpetrators were goaded into acting in order to flush out more of them, to lead authorities to the planners and facilitators. It would be stupid to cut off the only source of information about the bigger fish in this story, wouldn’t it? Unless of course you already had all the valuable information you thought you could get from them, i.e., their communication with their superiors.

If the French goal was to create a scenario wherein EVERYONE would buy-in to eliminating Islamists in France, including the leaders of Israel and Palestine, this was it.

With no live perpetrators in hand the French can say whatever they want to about it. Who’s to question them?

What we are witnessing currently are vast emotional outpourings over the destroyed innocent lives of heroic artists and journalists – who are supposed to enjoy neutrality in war, aren’t they? Seems to me theIslamic State has TARGETED journalists for capture and dismemberment.

For all we know the whole thing was fabricated in order to extract a certain public and world sentiment the liberal French government could NEVER perpetrate on their own without Islamist fall guys. And all this has acted as a smoke screen to Boko Haram’s worst atrocity in Nigeria, where they reportedly slaughtered hundreds of innocent people, not twelve, hundreds. Where are the outpourings and marches for them?

Multiculturalism is a hallmark of socialism. “We are the world,” is a favorite refrain. “Tolerance,” “understanding,” immigration appeasement, etc., are all liberal agenda items thrown in more conservative faces as political correctness and social justice, humanism, utilitarianism, commonism (exploitation of the commons for minority greed).

The false narrative of liberals has come home to roost. Terrorism is alive and well and living in Paris. Or is it?

Je suis NON Charlie.

I am the author of “Saving Grace at Guantanamo Bay: A Memoir of a Citizen Warrior,” and three times mobilized U.S. Army Reserve Major (Retired). Twitter @mjgranger1

I am the author of “Saving Grace at Guantanamo Bay: A Memoir of a Citizen Warrior,” and three times mobilized U.S. Army Reserve Major (Retired). Author web page: http://sbpra.com/montgomeryjgranger/ Twitter @mjgranger1