Five Years of the Iraq War: The Winter Soldier Returns to California

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Dick Price
Northeast Democratic Club of Los Angeles

In 1971, a group of veterans—current Massachusetts Senator John Kerry prominent among them—staged a protest called “Winter Soldier” that helped end the Vietnam War but that also unfairly saddled the Democrats with a “soft on defense” label that dogged the Party for decades.

Today, a new generation of antiwar veterans similarly hopes to help end the Iraq War with its own Winter Soldier protest. But with “Certified War Hero” John McCain heading the Republican presidential ticket, the question already arises whether Democrats will once again suffer at the polls for years to come for ending another unjust, unwise, and immoral war.

In his first-time political campaign for a city council post in a suburb south of Los Angeles, Iraq War veteran Tim Goodrich (pictured) might help answer that question.

A Family Tradition

As nationally known voice on veterans affairs and cofounder of the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), Goodrich’s Torrance City Council race promises to shed an authentic light on what might be the single most important issue—how we got into Iraq and what we do about it now—affecting the presidential race and the Democratic Party’s hopes for solidifying its gains in Congress in next November’s elections.

Following in his family’s footsteps, Goodrich joined the Air Force straight out of high school in Buffalo, New York. "One grandfather fought in World War II, the other grandfather in Korea, my uncles in Korea and Vietnam, and even now I have cousins serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. It’s in our blood,” he says. “Some of them disagree with the stand I’ve taken against this war, but they respect and support my positions. It has created some funny family relations.”

Based twice in Saudi Arabia and once in Oman for Afghanistan, Tim served three tours in the Middle East where he maintained electronics on the Air Force’s AWACs airborne radar systems used to monitor “no fly” zones before the Iraq War began in earnest.