If you don't recognize this name, the blame is on the main stream media.
Jacob George is a hero, a 3 tour Afghanistan combat veteran, a farmer, a musician, a warrior for peace.
I used the present tense, "is," but Jacob George is dead. He died on Sept 17; he committed suicide one week after Obama announced his plans for the new, next...(what?) battle, conflict, war...against another peoples, of another color, in another country.
Through the wounds to his soul experienced in Afghanistan, Jacob George became a warrior for peace. He drew a clear disctinction between a soldier and a warrior. In the song, "Warrior," George explains the difference:
A soldier...is loyal. A soldier is technically and tactically proficient. A soldier follows orders. Now a warrior ain’t so good at following orders, because a warrior follows the heart. You see a warrior has empathic understanding with the enemy, so much so that the very thought of causing pain to the enemy causes pain to the warrior.
Read more at
Truthdig
...more beneath the orange gong of awareness..
Viet nam veteran and fellow farmer, Paul Appell who became a friend of Jacob, told this to Truthdig:
Many veterans of war have bonded with and feel an endearment to Jacob because he was willing to bare his soul. He quoted an introduction George wrote for his album: 'A lot of us veterans feel we entered into a relationship with our nation through our service: a sacred contract of protection signed with the soul. … This contract isn’t for the interest of international corporations or greedy people. Its fulfillment hinged on the needs of the people. Through the misuse of this contract, many of us feel betrayed, deceived, cheated on, and abused emotionally, physically, intellectually, and spiritually.'
...snip
The veterans told Truthdig that they do not blame George for “doing the surefire therapy for ending the pain, as one put it. Some confirmed they had come close to suicide themselves. '...these times for war veterans are tough because we know exactly what is going to happen with the actions that Obama talked about in his recent speech [09/11/14]. Jacob and other war veterans know the pain and suffering that will be done to our fellow man no matter what terms used to describe war, whether it is done from afar with drones and bombs or up close eye to eye.' ...[several vets] reiterated Appell’s opinion that the announcement of renewed battle in the Middle East has “triggered post-traumatic stress in veterans nationwide.”
In one of his many attempts to find help from the VA, Jacob recounted that one of his therapists had told him that he was "...obsessed with non-violence."
I can only hope and pray that more people become obsessed with non-violence till we accomplish Jacob's stated goal:
We're gonna bring war to an end.
That is the mandate of evolution. Either we end violence or violence ends us.
“The greatest purveyor of violence in the world : My own Government, I can not be Silent,” The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"With the splitting of the atom, everything changed save man's way of thinking..,"
Albert Einstein
We must change our actions, our thinking, our way of being to be in accord with the soul values expressed by these truth warriors. I also wish to express my thanks to another truth warrior, Viet Nam vet S. Brian Wilson who lost his legs to a US Navy train while protesting weapons shipments to Central America in the 1980s.
Jacob George was featued on Democracy Now today.
Find Jacob's albums on You Tube under his name and "Soldier's Heart."
Apologies for one last, final word. I would like to propose changing the wording for PTSD to OTSD. The trauma is ongoing, affecting all of us and all of society. May Jacob and all Wariers for Peace rest in peace, work for the change which is mandated and absolutely necessary, and accomplish the sustainability of this planet.
Thank you for reading.