'Please listen,' say veterans of Iraq war
Nearly a dozen Iraqi war veterans gathered in Madison Saturday to tell war stories. These were not tales of honor and glory.
There were descriptions of a macho military culture that cracked jokes about gays and called Iraqis "rag heads" and "towel heads." There were accounts of an army that sent soldiers into battle with broken equipment and insufficient training. They told of trucks that ran over young children and soldiers who played cruel games with prisoners and panicked and shot civilians. There were stories of commanders indifferent to their troops' medical and mental suffering.
"I joined an institution that I thought stood for honor, but instead it stood for intolerance," recalled Martin Smith, who told how his comrades would cheer as they watched Iraqis eviscerated during violent training videos. Smith, an Illinois resident, served in the Marine Corps from 1997 to 2002, when he was discharged with a Navy Achievement medal.
A sparse audience of only 200 attended the Memorial Union Theater event, which was coordinated by the Iraq Veterans Against the War. IVAW is a national organization with 1,200 members in 48 states. Over the past year, IVAW has held a handful of similar panels across the country in an effort to mobilize opposition to the war. Several of the veterans on the panels said that they hoped their stories about the reality of war and the difficulties of coming home again would correct the official accounts of events overseas.
Eric Hughes was in college in January 2003 when he got a call that he needed to report to duty in 72 hours with the Illinois National Guard. It took his caravan 48 hours to get up to Fort McCoy in Wisconsin, he said, partly because 12 trucks broke down on the way.
"That's what they were sending us over with," he said.
John Knox claimed that once he and the other Marines in his unit were in the chaos of battle, all normal rules disappeared. Especially after March 31, 2004, when four U.S. contractors were killed and dragged through the streets of Fallujah.
"Before then our rules of engagement were pretty strict," said Knox, who served as a truck driver in the Marine Corps between 2001 and 2006. "But after that the line became very blurry. We could shoot someone who was coming at us with a shovel. We could shoot them if they were coming carrying a cell phone. If you felt a threat, you could pull the trigger. Shoot them dead. Everything became a hostile act."
Knox, now a student at UW-Oshkosh, described a "game" his fellow Marines played with detainees. During the day, he said, they would leave the Iraqis out in the hot desert sun without water. Finally at night they would give the prisoners some water. Knox spoke of the guilt he now feels remembering that time.
"I didn't say anything, so I'm just as guilty for letting it happen," he said.
Many of the veterans described similar feelings of helplessness and guilt.
"I dehumanized people. I oppressed people. And I allowed them to die," said Benjamin Thompson, who served in the U.S. Army Reserve between 1999 and 2007. Thompson, now a student in Ohio, gave a mesmerizing description of what it was like to be in charge of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
"Some of them spoke English and were very good friends of mine," he said. "We had to explain to them that we didn't hate them. And we didn't know how to make things better."
Thompson said that speaking out is his way of keeping a vow he made to some of his prisoners.
"I made a promise that I would talk about this. People don't know what really happened over there," he said.
Their memories and experiences, the veterans said, make it tough to adjust to life back in the States. "You see these things, and you become a broken person," Thompson said.
Michael Mlekowski, an Illinois resident who served as an artilleryman with the Marines from 2000 to 2004 and was part of the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003, fought tears as he spoke about his struggles with anxiety and flashbacks. The first flashback occurred when he was in a calculus class and a thunderstorm reminded him of the explosions of battle.
"All of a sudden I'm back in Iraq on the open desert," he said. "I just ran out of class to the liquor store and went on home and hid under the blankets," he said.
Jason Moon, who now lives in Milwaukee and served in Iraq for the Wisconsin National Guard in 2003 and 2004, said he has been to the Veterans Administration nearly 100 times in the past four years looking for a diagnosis for vomiting, insomnia, and depression. After he attempted suicide he was finally diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
"Our country is really good at sending you off with parades and banners, but when you get home, they throw their hands up in the air and say they don't have time to deal with you," he complained.
The veterans stressed the need for the public to hear their stories.
"People don't know what really happened over there," Thompson said. "One day I will die. One day I will stop talking about this. So please listen."
Yet to the disappointment of organizers, who had expected a full house in the 1,300-seat Union Theatre, barely 200 people showed up to listen. Mackenzie Heinrichs, 18, was one of them. She is a member of the Campus Anti-War Network, and she says the organization is lucky to get 15 or 20 students to attend its weekly meetings. Several old-time protesters from the Vietnam War era said that fewer students are protesting this war because there is no draft. They don't have to worry that they, like the veterans, might end up stuck in Iraq.
"Students do not feel their lives are at stake. Nor are the body counts as high," said David Williams, a former librarian who recalled protesting the Vietnam War with thousands of UW students in the '60s. On the other hand, Williams said, during the Vietnam War, there was little opposition from groups like the veterans who spoke today. "It took years for us to get any sort of GI resistance."
Nate Toth is one of the local IVAW organizers who pulled together the panel. He offered several theories for why the turnout was so disappointing. Both the Badgers and the Brewers had games. Obama had a big rally in town.
And there is one other explanation: "Maybe this is stuff that people really don't want to hear," he said.
http://madprogress.blogspot.com/2008/09/mad-progress-tv-breaking-silence-on.html
