Photos: South Dakota Veterans Promote Clean Energy

My friends at Repower America get some photos from yesterday's Operation Free bus tour through South Dakota. Operation Free, you will recall, is a group of veterans and national security advocates urging passage of sensible clean-energy legislation, like the American Clean Energy Security Act. For these veterans, clean-energy legislation is as much about protecting the environment as it is about protecting the lives of American soldiers. Remember, if climate change causes more natural disasters, the United States Armed Forces will have to conduct more and more dangerous humanitarian interventions and peacekeeping operations in destabilized nations. And the longer we wait to kick our dependence on foreign fossil fuels, the longer we face the prospect of wars fought for oil.

The Operation Free bus stopped in Watertown for an afternoon town hall hosted by Vietnam vet Orrie Swayze from Wilmot, then rolled down to Sioux Falls for an evening town hall.

U.S. Navy Gulf War veteran Rick Hegdahl speaks to KSFY TV outside the Sioux Falls VFW during the Operation Free tour of South Dakota to promote clean energy legislation. Hegdahl served the Navy for 24 years. He now lives in Washington State.


South Dakota VFW Adjutant Quartermaster Rick Barg addresses the Operation Free town hall meeting at the Sioux Falls VFW Club. Barg is also the National VFW Inspector General. Also at the table is Iraq War veteran and USD student LeighAnn Dunn, who survived an IED explosion in Iraq.