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“When somebody asks, ‘Why do you do it to a gook, why do you do this to people?’ your answer is, ‘So what, they’re just gooks, they’re not people. It doesn’t make any difference what you do to them; they’re not human.’

“And this thing is built into you,” Cpl. John Geymann testified almost 44 years ago at the Winter Soldier Investigation, held in Detroit, which was sponsored by Vietnam Veterans Against the War. “It’s thrust into your head from the moment you wake up in boot camp to the moment you wake up when you’re a civilian.”

The cornerstone of war is dehumanization. This was the lesson of Nam, from Operation Ranch Hand (the dumping of 18 million gallons of herbicides, including Agent Orange, on the jungles of Vietnam) to My Lai to the use of napalm to the bombing of Cambodia. And the Winter Soldier Investigation began making the dehumanization process a matter of public knowledge.

“This Veteran's Day, Columbus taxpayers might want to reflect on the desecration of Vets Memorial and the rip-off of the government money designated for local veterans' well-being,” said combat veteran John Dreska.


If you're counting, here's the latest round of funny numbers that are killing Veterans Memorial. In one of the most fiscally irresponsible decisions in Franklin County history, the Commissioners will now spend nearly $10 million to demolish the structure and prepare the site for a new building. They are also giving away 12 acres to developers. Also, they've pledged a subsidy to cover operating deficits for any new facility built on the site.

Tyshawn Hancock’s family wonders whether or not he was targeted for death by probation officers trained to kill because of his affiliation with the sovereignty movement. Here’s what happened the last day of his life.

John Lasker won a Project Censored award for his stories regarding Military Sexual Trauma in 2012. The following is the story of a female veteran from Seattle who is desperately trying to leave Iraq behind and reclaim her past life.

 

If someone skated during the past 27 years, Donnie Humes probably skated with and/or caught them pulling a trick that made their week.

Mr. Humes has been putting out at skateboard zine Smelly Curb since 1987.

Smelly Curb and Old Skool Skateboards are putting on a Halloween Curb Contest on October 26th at the Westerville Skatepark. Issue 44 of Smelly Curb is also on the way.

Humes laughed when I inquired about the content of Smelly Curb Issue one, replying. “The First Issue was really corny. Think about you being awkward and 17, thinking you know everything.”

We were standing on a hill above the Dodge Skate Park bowl on the West side of Columbus, that is part of Dodge Recreation Center. This is the skateboard wing of the Dodge Park Rec Center which Humes helped open and run from 1990-1995.

During these formative years of Columbus skateboarding, Humes and his buddies were pulling grinds on curbs around town on their way to punk shows at Staches.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last two months, you know that English heavy metal band Spinal Tap is coming to Ledo’s Tavern on Halloween night (Friday, Oct. 31st). Having been a huge Tap fan since their psychedelic period in the late 1960’s, I was absolutely thrilled to sit down with singer David St. Hubbins and lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel to discuss the upcoming show.

 

FREE PRESS: So to begin with, Spinal Tap hasn’t toured in at least a decade. Why did you choose to kick this tour off in Columbus?

ST. HUBBINS: Well, we used to have a tendency to confuse Columbus with Cleveland and Springfield, which saddened our Columbus fans tremendously.

TUFNEL: We felt we had a karmic debt, so to speak.

ST. HUBBINS: Exactly. So to square things with the universe, we decided to start the tour in Cleveland.

FP: How did you settle on Ledo’s Tavern as a venue?

ST. HUBBINS: Well, there is a great deal of mystical symbolism in the letter L

TUFNEL: And they had the best insurance.

After 19 years of working for the Columbus Crew, the three construction workers who represented the Major League Soccer franchise’s logo were laid off Oct 8.

Anthony Precourt, the Columbus Crew SC Chairman and Investor-Operator, unveiled a new, construction-worker free logo at the #NEWCREW revealing party at the Lifestyle Community Pavilion.

Austin Jones, one of the 1,500 soccer fans who attended the rebranding event, said the makeover was overdue. “I think the new logo’s pretty cool. I like how they incorporated everything over the last (19) years,” Jones said. “I liked the old logo with the shield but I thought it needed some updating. I like the new one better.”

Jones is not alone. USA-Today writer Nick Schwartz said the Crew’s updated look “is now the best in the MLS.”

The current look corrects some of the rather egregious omissions from the previous logo.

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