Veterans Day: Soldiers and Birds of Afghanistan

Mondrian Vets near Broadway and 23rd

Looking like they’d wandered into a Mondrian painting, these vets were part of a crowd of soldiers and veterans that gathered at Madison Square Park for last Thursday’s Veterans Day Parade.  The sky was a cloudless blue and the morning bright and mild.

Rhythms with Black and White by Piet Mondrian

Vets of every description gathered before the parade

So young

Older

Veterans for Peace

Smiling?

Lost in thought

Laughing

A notably young crowd of vets gathered to march with IAVA, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

IAVA volunteers greet a marcher

Stylin'

IAVA gave out hoodies that proclaim “We’ve got your back.” And they do, providing resources and assistance to soldiers transitioning back from Iraq and Afghanistan as well as advocating for better services for veterans and their families.

It’s a good thing someone is looking out for these men and women. By the time they are in their early 20s, many of the soldiers have served multiple deployments, fighting in wars that began when some were still children.

IAVA.org "We've got your back."

While the lives of many Americans remain untouched by the wars, the nearly two million soldiers who have served so far bring their experiences home to their wives and husbands, children and parents, friends and co-workers. More than 5,700 American soldiers have been killed and over 41,000 have been wounded; coalition deaths number 1,148. Civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan are in the hundreds of thousands.

Colorful patches brightened the streets

Operation Iraqi Freedom Coalition Forces

Disabled American Veterans

Vietnam Veteran

Strangely, the discount stores that line the side streets were all hawking camouflage clothing, $20 a jacket, less for a T-shirt. So if you’d lost your uniform or just wanted to look like a soldier, you could blend right in. Sort of.

 

The real thing

I watched the start of the parade, then headed for the subway. Along the way, I passed several bus kiosks sporting advertisements for war video games.

Call of Duty. Yeah, right.

Much later, I walked in the park, admiring the fall colors, the hordes of dark-eyed junkos and one elegant little female downy woodpecker.  As I walked, I checked the weather in Kandahar and Kabul on my iPhone, and was surprised to find mild temperatures not much different than this year’s mild New York City autumn.  I wondered what animals might be spotted by soldiers in Afghanistan.

An exceptionally lucky birding soldier might spot the extremely rare Large-billed reed warbler, only recently discovered to reside in Afghanistan

or perhaps a steppe eagle

Soaring steppe eagle

For several months this year, Navy SEALs in Afghanistan, along with an American contractor trained in ornithology, cared for a Steppe eagle that had been shot in the wing by an Afghan soldier.  A U.S. Army veterinarian splinted the wing, and the men built a large cage on their base, and fed the bird by hand.  The eagle eventually healed, although it will never be able to fly.

With their deployment drawing to an end, the men worried that the bird would not survive their departure. “We redeploy back to the states in about 3 months,” wrote a SEAL in a letter seeking help for the bird, “and I doubt that the crew relieving us will want to put the effort into caring for it.”

The men finally located a bird sanctuary in New York that agreed to keep the eagle. New York Senator Schumer helped to clear bureaucratic and diplomatic hurdles, and in October the bird arrived at the Berkshire Bird Paradise Sanctuary in Grafton, NY.  The Steppe eagle known as Mitch now shares living quarters with an American eagle called Eddie.

Mitch and Eddie at Berkshire Bird Paradise Sanctuary

Nothing that lives escapes suffering in a war zone.

What Shall We Do Without Us? by Kenneth Patchen

Explore posts in the same categories: 2010, Birds, Hawks, In the City, November, Wildlife/Natural History

Tags: animals in war zone, birds of Afghanistan, IAVA, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Large-billed reed warbler, Mitch the steppe eagle, Mondrian, Navy SEALS and eagle, soldiers who bird, Veterans Day, Veterans Day Parade NYC 2010

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