[Peace-discuss] an interview with warriors

[Dlind49 at aol.com]

Two US Soldiers Ask: "When Will We Stop Dying So Senselessly?"

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0402/S00006.htm

Interview by Jay Shaft
Coalition For Free Thought In Media
1/30/04  

Over the Christmas holidays I managed to find two US soldiers who were back
from Iraq. They were both somewhat willing to be interviewed and describe
their time in Iraq in their own words.

One was imminently returning to Iraq within a few days and the other was
home for an unknown length of time. Both knew at some point they would be
returning to a bloody guerilla conflict, and they did not know if they would
be coming back.  

The holidays for them were overshadowed by the somber nature of seeing the
news reports of troop deaths on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. During
their festive times they always had the specter of Iraq looming at the back
of their minds like a ghost of Christmas past. I was really amazed that they
were able to forget about the war and just enjoy being with their families,
even if only for a short time.

You could see the strain in their faces, and an almost haunted look in their
eyes. They were doing their best to put aside all the bloodshed and horror
they had recently seen, and get into the holiday spirit that the whole
country was enjoying.

Thoughts of all the troops they had left behind were weighing heavy on their
minds. Neither one knew the other before coming back on leave. They had met
in the airport and realized they were both returning to the same hometown
for leave. On the trip home they got to talking, and shared their
experiences as officers leading combat troops on patrols and into battles.

I talked to one of the men first and conducted an initial interview with
him. He mentioned that he knew of another officer in the area who had come
home for leave who might also speak out about Iraq. I knew I had to get them
both to describe their experiences as officers in charge of combat units. I
have interviewed many enlisted men and gotten their eyewitness accounts of
Iraq, but had not been able to get any officers to talk to me.

I will present the interviews as they occurred, in the men¹s own voices as
they requested. I wanted to give them the opportunity to speak directly to
the American people and the world. I have changed as little of the actual
interviews as possible. I have left out some personal details, and any unit
details, which might be used to identify these soldiers. I am dedicated to
protecting them from military reprisals and harassment, and I have taken
every precaution to keep their identity hidden.

I will refer to them as O1 and O2.

JS- When did you deploy to Iraq?

O1- I went with a unit from Afghanistan to Iraq. We got there a good little
bit before the official war started. Believe me when I tell you that there
were some units already across the border doing scouting and intelligence
gathering and other missions like bomb targeting and artillery plotting.

O2- About a month before the war started. I don¹t want to get to specific on
that date. They are going to be looking for any small way to track me down.

JS- Okay, before we go any farther, I want to get into the details behind
breaching the Iraq border before the war officially started. If the US did
break the border that is a violation of the Geneva Convention and a whole
list of international treaty declarations and charters. It violates the UN
charter and goes contrary to NATO treaties and declarations also.

There had been a group of international peacekeepers and many humanitarian
organizations that maintained that the US illegally invaded Iraq weeks or
even months before the actual war was started. The US has denied any of
these accusations, but I have heard from several US soldiers who say that
the border was breached for weeks before the invasion. Was it? And if it
was, how extensively?

O1- I really didn¹t want to get into this one. I know that there were at
least 100 or more special ops and CIA types in Iraq in the months leading up
to the war. This is pretty open knowledge among many officers and higher
level NCOs. In the weeks right before the ground invasion there were various
Spec Ops and Intel guys in Iraq doing target location and plotting, working
with the Kurds in Northern Iraq, trying to find Iraqis to fight on our side,
and gathering intelligence on where the WMDs might be located.

O2- I don¹t know anyone who went in early, but I know guys who talked to
some spooks who said they had been right in downtown Baghdad about a month
before the ground assault. I can¹t verify that with any hard facts, but it
was pretty openly known. We completely ignored some of the same
international conventions that we said Iraq violated in 1990 when they
invaded Kuwait. I find it very disturbing that we went to war over that in
1991, but then broke a whole bunch of the UN charters when we invaded Iraq.

O1- Let¹s get off this one, I wanted to talk about other things that have
been bothering me. The border thing is done long ago; my guys are still
dying today.  

JS- Okay, let¹s move on to the recent casualties. While you were talking to
me yesterday you mentioned opening up Christmas presents and seeing the news
reports about the deaths on Christmas Eve. How hard is it to be home and
know your fellow troops are still dying and getting maimed?

O1- I can¹t stop feeling like I shouldn¹t be back home. I left a whole lot
of my men over there, and a few have been killed while I was home. That
really makes you feel like sh.t, and you want to be there to get some
payback or something. I wasn¹t even able to eat Christmas dinner because I
lost my appetite after seeing the news. I came back home but many of my men
will not be coming back, and some will be coming back horribly scarred and
injured. Makes you really think about what Christmas means and to value
being with your family.

O2- I started crying in front of my whole family and all my friends when I
saw that come on the news. I won¹t let my wife turn on the news right now. I
am going back in a few days and I want to just relax and forget the war for
a few days. I don¹t think I can put it out of my head, but I am trying. I
knew one of the guys killed on Christmas Eve, and some of the guys that got
wounded in the last week were my friends. I hate being here and feeling
helpless to do anything. I want to be there trying to lead my men safely on
patrol, and make sure they can come home to see their families again.

JS- I¹m sorry if talking to me is making you think about all that stuff
while you are trying to rest and be with your family.

O2- I want to talk about this and tell people how bad it really is in Iraq.
It is a complete fu..ing slaughter and it is only going to get worse. The
attacks in the last month or so have been meticulously well planned and
executed. We are seeing a level of sophistication that the chain of command
did not ever expect. Many of the officers knew that they were going to be
dealing with well trained Iraqi army and militia units. There might or might
not be outside support and insurgents, but I know the Iraqis are more than
capable of messing up your day. These guys have been trained to fight
guerilla style and they don¹t give up. We are in deep sh.t now that they
have started to get more organized.

O1- I don¹t think that some of the higher level planners expected this kind
of resistance and guerilla activity. We tried to tell them months ago that
it wasn¹t just Ba¹ath party members and Saddam supporters. Some of the most
highly trained guerillas are Shiite and Kurdish. We are going to be in some
real trouble if the Kurds ever decide to join together with the Shiites and
fight against us. Throw the Sunni radicals into the mix and it¹s total chaos
with our guys stuck smack in the middle. It¹s one giant cluster f..k and the
US soldiers are going to be the one that gets hurt and killed. That country
is on the brink of civil war right now. Years of subdued hatreds are now
boiling over. That is why you see all the different targets that are being
hit by the car bombs.

O2- Yeah, we are in a real meat grinder right now. The real danger is that
the whole country will erupt in civil unrest and the US troops will be
caught between many different rival factions. I don¹t look forward to going
back there, but I don¹t have a choice.

O1- You know, right after the invasion, the average Iraqi was happy to see
us get rid of the Saddam regime. You ask the same Iraqi how they feel about
us now, and they will openly admit that they hate us as bad as Saddam, or
even worse than Saddam.

JS- Why is that in your opinion? What made them change their feelings toward
US forces?  

O1- You want to know the biggest reason? We still haven¹t accomplished the
mission we started out to do. Iraqis will tell you they don¹t fell any
freer, there is hunger all over the place, over half the country is out of
work, there is a huge lack of clean drinking water, and their children are
dying everyday from contaminated water, and from our cluster bombs. The
people do not see us living up to our promises of liberation and democracy.
Until we do what we promised them and get out of there, they will keep
killing us and hating us. Put yourself in their shoes for a minute. Every
American needs to ask themselves what they would do in the same situation. I
guarantee you that they would not sit back and do nothing. They would want
to fight back in whatever way possible.

O2- Good point! I get really mad when they kill or injure one of my men, but
I have to examine why the attacks are happening. I am there to lead and
protect my men, and that means I have to be aware of what is causing the
attacks and what would stop them. I have asked many Iraqis what it will take
to get the attacks to stop. They all tell me that the US needs to do what
they said they would do, and leave them to run their own country. The
majority of Iraqis believed that the US would come in, get rid of Saddam,
and then go right back home. You and I both know that is not going to happen
anytime soon. We are going to be there for at least another year or more in
a very large force. There is no way that Bush and his cronies are going to
give up all that oil and contracting dollars.

O1- Every day that we stay in Iraq, the resistance builds, and the attacks
are bigger and more prevalent. We are going to see many more US soldiers die
because of the failure of the US to live up to their basic promises. In the
end it is the basic line grunt that is the victim of the Bush regimes drive
for oil and profits. You won¹t see one of the senator¹s kids over there. You
will not see one of the board members of Halliburton, Bechtel, KBR, or the
other big contractors losing a son or daughter. All they are going to do is
make money and send more troops to guard their convoys and assets.

We can¹t even go out in convoy with anyone from Halliburton or Bechtel
without drawing a crowd of angry Iraqis. They hate the Halliburton and
Bechtel guys worse than they hate the soldiers. It¹s like painting a target
on your back just to travel with those contractors and try to protect them.

O2- Let me jump in here. I want to say that I am extremely mad that
Halliburton and Bechtel have better equipment than our own troops do. The
contractors have fully armored Hummers and the best body armor. The have us
escort them in our lightly armored Humvees and they ride in heavily armored
vehicles. That is bullsh.t and every American needs to know about it. It¹s
been in the paper recently about how bad the casualties have been from the
older Hummers. Our vehicles don¹t provide adequate protection, and that is a
fu..ing outrage that needs to be fixed.

O1- I was getting to that, and it is a big problem. I think about 80 percent
of my unit casualties were coming from the Humvee crews. Do you know that
bullets go through an older hummer like it¹s made of paper? Most of the
hummers have canvas tops and plastic windows. If an IED (improvised
explosive device) hits you from the side, you are going to get hurt or
killed if you are in an older, lightly armored hummer. The recent increase
in the amount of roadside bombs has been decimating my men. Almost all my
recent KIAs (killed in action) and WIAs (wounded in action) were riding in a
hummer. I was there when the CNN guys riding in the hummer were injured. The
attacker just chucked the grenade right through the top of the vehicle. Most
of the hummers are not designed for heavy combat ops.

O2- I would say that at least half of my WIAs and KIAs were in a hummer when
it got hit. I think that in the last few weeks before I left, the average
was more like 70-80 percent. It was something I have begged my higher ups to
take care of. I have not seen a significant response to the problem yet.
Man, they sent us to war in what is basically an aluminum can with a canvas
topper. How messed up is that? But of course Halliburton and the other
private contractors have the best and newest vehicles and body armor.

O1- I saw some Saudi police or militia, I don¹t know which, that were
brought in by Kellog Brown and Root to provide security for the oil fields.
Those fu..ers had the body armor our own forces were supposed to get.
Bechtel got a whole bunch of body armor given to them for the police force
they are training. Our own Reservists and National Guard are using Gulf War
era equipment and some supplies are even older than that. They are getting
wiped out and needlessly wounded because they don¹t have the proper body
armor and vehicles.

The contractors seem to be able to keep their security forces supplied with
the newest and best gear. Some of the oil field security had brand new
Humvees and other equipment the reserve units would kill for. There were a
lot of the reservists lost because they didn¹t get sent over with the right
flak jacket. Let America think about that one for a while.

Every American should demand a congressional injury about why our troops
were not equipped with the proper equipment to save their lives. I know of
at least 50 men that were killed because they did not have the newer body
armor, and some didn¹t have any body armor at all. How the hell can the
Pentagon justify sending a man into battle without body armor? That is like
driving down the freeway at 100 without a windshield or doors.

JS- So beyond a shadow of a doubt, there were some of our troops that died
because they just didn¹t have the right body armor or a properly armored
Humvee? They actually sent units over with inadequate equipment or no
equipment at all?  

O1- Yes, absolutely without a doubt! In my mind there can be no mistake
about it. Some of our soldiers, a large percentage even, died needlessly or
were permanently disabled because there was improper or missing equipment.

O2- Are you kidding me? You are actually asking me if there is any doubt
about it? I saw it with my own eyes and lost men because of it. I didn¹t
have to know it was happening to another unit. That fact that it was
happening to my men told me that. Some of the chemical protection suits were
completely useless, and our vehicles were absolute pieces of shit. We were
driving one hummer as a command unit and it had three bullet holes in one
side. We reinforced the doors with whatever heavy scrap metal we could find.
We were scavenging for sheet metal ourselves and competing with the Iraqis
to see who could find the heavy gauge steel and aluminum first.

Yeah, they knew some of our units didn¹t have any of the proper equipment.
How the hell could they not know, we told them enough and some of us wrote
to Colonel David Hackworth about it. I know one guy in my unit who wrote one
of the letters Hack put up back in October.

O1- So I guess you got the answer you were looking for right? At least make
sure everyone finds out about this. I would hate to say all this stuff and
then you don¹t do anything with it. I read the articles you wrote back in
October. I thought they were bullsh.t at first, but I met a guy you talked
to. I didn¹t think I would ever give an interview like this. A lot can
change in a few months time.

Now I am just about done with the Army¹s bullsh.t and the Pentagon is about
worthless as sh.t. It is going against everything the Army has ever told me.
I am just sick of seeing good men and women die. In the end is it going to
really mean anything that all these Americans shed their blood in the sand?
I don¹t think most of America really knows how bad it is. We getting our
asses kicked and no one is winning this thing.

O2- If you look at it really hard, the only ones that come out ahead are
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest of those corrupt old bastards. I mean
come on, if all the soldiers who are actually fighting this war can see
that, what the hell is wrong with the American citizens? We knew it was
about oil from the beginning. Oil and building huge bases that the US will
have to staff for years to come. There is no end in sight for the people
serving in this war. How about us, don¹t we have a say in this?

JS- Let me ask you how you feel about serving in Iraq and being involved in
the war.  

O2- I¹m proud that I served my country, I am proud to be an American
soldier. That is why it is so hard for me to say stuff like this about our
leaders and the government. I hate doing this, but what the Pentagon and
Bush are doing to our soldiers makes me sick. I also get sick when I think
about how many Iraqi civilians I saw killed and terribly maimed. I have seen
hundreds of kids missing body parts or dying from dysentery and diarrhea
from contaminated water. I saw orphans who had lost every family member and
were starving in the street.

There are whole packs of orphans roaming around Baghdad and some of the
other cities. They scavenge for scraps and beg for food. It got really bad
after the Red Cross and the UN pulled out. Seeing hundreds and hundreds of
maimed and starving children is one sight you will never forget. I can¹t
sleep sometimes, and I hear the kids crying in my nightmares. I saw little
kids with injuries like I never dreamed possible.

I was near a hospital for a few weeks after the ground war ended. I saw
hundreds of dead kids, and kids dying from gangrene and infection. If you
ever smell someone who has severe gangrene and flesh rotting you would know
what I was talking about. That is one smell you will never forget. To see a
little child with their arm or leg rotting off is one of the most gruesome
sights I could have imagined.

I never was prepared for anything like I experienced in Iraq. There is no
way in hell that the Army can train you to be able to handle something like
that. No amount of practice can even come close to the reality I found in
Iraq. There just wasn¹t anything to prepare any of us who had never been in
that kind of combat environment. I thought I had seen some really nasty sh.t
in Bosnia and then in Kosovo. Boy was I ever wrong about that being as bad
as it could get. I feel sorry for the newer guys who hadn¹t ever seen any
combat, or ever shot at a real person.

Coming under fire was another thing that fu..ed up some of my guys who had
never seen any action before. Some of them just froze and got shot because
they just didn't have the proper training to react the right way.

I must have seen at least five hundred dead bodies, and those were just the
ones you could see in plain sight. We could smell the ones that hadn¹t been
found in the rubble, and there were bodies in some of the canals rotting for
days or weeks. Some of those canals were downright ugly looking, and the
smell was incredibly foul.

O1- I will never be ashamed of being in the Army or going to Iraq. I do hate
some of the things that we had to do to stay alive, and sometimes it wasn¹t
in any training manual or class you could take. I thought I knew what it
would be like, and had some ideas about what I would do in certain
circumstances. I had so many situations that we just are not trained to
handle.  

I was not prepared to have to be a police officer or a peacekeeper. I heard
that over and over again from my men. They simply didn¹t know how to be in a
police force capacity or know much about doing the urban peacekeeping
patrols and standing checkpoint duty. I thought it was a joke when they kept
referring to us as a peacekeeping force.

There is no way we were able to act effectively to keep the peace. It was
all we could do to keep the patrol areas contained long enough to bring in
enough reinforcements to get us out of trouble. We got shot at from
rooftops, windows, and fields as we went by. Basically they attacked us from
anyplace they could get off a shot or two.

I know that seeing the kids dead and injured was one of the worst things for
me too. There just wasn¹t a damn thing you could really do. We didn¹t have a
lot of food to spread around, and it was extremely hard for us to get clean
water.  

The madness and chaos that hit the whole country was completely
overwhelming. I know a lot of my guys will come home with PTSD or worse. We
had a lot of guys flown out for going off the deep end. You could just see
it in their yes. They were right at the breaking point or already over the
edge. I heard about million mile stares, and now I really know what they are
talking about.  

I am about done with this if you got what you need. You won¹t get me to say
much else. I just wanted to get some of this stuff on record. I think that
enough people will believe it that it might make some kind of difference. I
just hope the people stop letting us die so senselessly. Let us get the job
done and get the hell out.

I don¹t want to have to write another letter to parents or a wife ever
again. I know that I will have to do way too much over the next couple
months, or however long we are really over there. I just don¹t want to have
to tell another mother that her son or daughter is dead or crippled for
life.  

Well so far we got rid of Saddam and the rest of his henchmen, and the
attacks on our troops still keep happening. I don¹t see the insurgents or
resistance backing down anytime soon. They are only going to fight harder
the longer we stay.

What I want to say as my final statement to America is "Stop letting your
proud men and women die so senselessly. If we are going to die for our
country let it be for something we can really be proud of. I just don¹t see
us making the US any safer from terrorists because of what we are doing in
Iraq. Bring us back home so we can defend the US from real threats to our
shores."  

O2- Yeah, I pretty much agree with that. I am proud to serve my country and
even die for it. I know the risks of putting on the uniform and accepting
command. But damn it, if we are going to die, make it for something that
really is helping to defend the US. I agree that we are dying senselessly
for an idea of democracy in Iraq that the US government will never really
let happen. I just want to be able to look back on my service with total
pride and that is not really what I feel right now. I hate the ones in power
that have made me question my sense of duty and honor. I get so confused
about it and there is no one you can really talk to about that.

Don¹t let me have to ship anyone else¹s body back home. I don¹t want to get
shipped back in a box either. I have a family and I don¹ plan on being in
the Army forever. I want to have my mind intact, and not wake up with
nightmares about dead kids.

JS- One final question if you will permit it. The Pentagon has said that one
in five soldiers will come back with PTSD, or some form of battle trauma. Is
that about right or do you think there are going to be many more than that
who are permanently affected by this war?

O1- I think it is probably affecting at least half the men over there. It¹s
probably way more than that out of the ones in combat situations everyday.
They have had to evacuate at least 5000 soldiers for mental reasons already.
Who knows how many are having problems and are afraid to tell anyone. I know
that I will never be the same again. I have nightmares and can¹t sleep very
well. I know I won¹t ever forget some of the things I saw, there is no way
you can ever wipe out the sight of dead kids and women, or seeing your men
get slaughtered.  

O2- Of course there are more soldiers with PTSD and mental problems than the
military will ever admit too. Look how long it took for some of the Vietnam
vets to get counseling and help for their mental problems. I do think it is
affecting about half the troops in Iraq. It has to be affecting at least
that many soldiers with as much combat as we have seen. I don¹t think I got
that many problems with it, but I haven¹t had time to really stop and try to
see how bad it has affected me. It had to affect me at least a little bit. I
wouldn¹t be human if it hadn¹t scarred me a little. I feel sorry for the
guys who don¹t feel anything at all. I hope this war never makes me stop
feeling emotions like I did when I saw all those terrible things.

JS- I don¹t think you could have said it any plainer. Anything else you want
to say?  

O1- No, I think I said way too much if I know what¹s good for me. That is
one thing that I am really upset about. I go off to fight for democracy and
freedom in Iraq, and I am scared to have my name on this interview when I
get back home to this supposed democracy. That just pisses me off that I am
afraid to speak out in my own country. How the hell are we supposed to bring
democracy to Iraq when the government is going after all the soldiers that
have been speaking out?

O2- You have to have been out of the country for a few months to notice it.
I almost felt like I was coming home to a police state or something. They
were screening everyone at the airport and pulled aside some elderly guy who
was a prominent anti-war activist. I didn¹t catch his name but a few people
at the airport said he was a Christian peace missionary who had been over in
Iraq during the bombing campaign.

What are we coming to when we harass old men who have the courage to
challenge our notions of war? That was like a slap in the face to me when I
saw how rude and nasty they were to this kind looking old man. He had the
courage to stand up for what he believed in and that is why I am in the
military. I took an oath to defend our liberties and to see them trampled on
was insulting.  

O1- I saw them screening several people when I came through, and it just
pissed me off. These were very peaceful looking people and I heard one of
them asking the security screeners what crime they had committed. He said
all he had done was question the war and the facts behind it. One of the
security goons said something like "You should have thought about that
before you had the nerve to question the US. We don¹t like unpatriotic
people in this country."

We are supposed to be fighting the war on terror against the terrorists, not
the people who should have the right to stand against war if they want to. I
hope that the country can see how dangerous it is getting to speak out
against this current administration. I don¹t really think the war protesters
are right on most of their issues, but I would fight to the death for their
right and freedom to say it. I know a lot of guys who have had their family
protest the war. What¹s gonna happen when they start arresting the soldiers
families, or stop them from flying on a plane?

O2- I know that some of my family has spoken out against the war. If they
were to try and arrest my mom or dad they would have a real fight on their
hands. I don¹t think the government realizes how volatile something like
that would be. How ironic it would be if I go back to Iraq to help them get
a freely elected democracy, and they put my family in jail for trying to
protect our own democracy? We are in real critical times right now. I don¹t
think many of the military or their families actually support this war. I
don¹t know of any other time of war when so many people with military family
have spoken out in opposition of a war.

Some of the men in my unit have family members that go to all the protests,
and are very active with anti war groups. Imagine if the FBI were to just
start arresting all those people. That is a very real possibility if you
look at the lengths the FBI and Homeland Security has gone to keep track of
protestors and activists.

O1- I want to say one more thing to all the American people. I guess I just
can¹t figure out when to shut my mouth.

WAKE UP! This war has become bogus if it ever had any legitimacy at all, and
it is only when you speak out that you will hold our leaders accountable.
Don¹t forget what this country was founded on. God Bless America! I hope
that everyone listens to what I had to say. Don¹t just push my words off and
go on about your daily routine. Ask yourself what could have been so bad
that I would speak out like this. Ask yourself how bad it must be when I am
willing to put my career on the line to speak out.

O2- Yeah, that about says it for me too. Just think about what could have
possibly made me go out on a limb and do this interview. I am not ready to
go back to Iraq and die, but I don¹t have much choice. I just want everyone
who supports this war to think about this, and realize that it must be one
hell of a mess to get us to say all this. I never would have thought I would
be doing this type of interview. I would have laughed in your face a year
ago if you told me it would happen.

JS- Thanks for your time and for having the courage to speak out. This will
make a difference to the soldiers in Iraq and to all the families who are
supporting them. You really are true heroes. I wish you and all the rest of
our troops continued safety and that you come home as soon as possible.

**************  

Jay Shaft, Editor- Coalition For Free Thought In Media

Email- coalitionforfreethoughtinmedia at yahoo.com

CFTM home site- 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/coalitionforfreethoughtinmedia/