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Welcome Home, Soldier: Now Shut Up
- Text size
Paul Rockwell / Common Dreams | June 27, 2008
There are two kinds of courage in war — physical courage and moral courage. Physical courage is very common on the battlefield. Men and women on both sides risk their lives, place their own bodies in harm’s way. Moral courage, however, is quite rare. According to Chris Hedges, the brilliant New York Times war correspondent who survived wars in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans, “I rarely saw moral courage. Moral courage is harder. It requires the bearer to walk away from the warm embrace of comradeship and denounce the myth of war as a fraud, to name it as an enterprise of death and immorality, to condemn himself, and those around him, as killers. It requires the bearer to become an outcast. There are times when taking a moral stance, perhaps the highest form of patriotism, means facing down the community, even the nation.”
More and more U.S. soldiers and Marines, at great cost to their own careers and reputations, are speaking publicly about U.S. atrocities in Iraq, even about the cowardice of their own commanders, who send youth into atrocity-producing situations only to hide from the consequences of their own orders. In 2007, two brilliant war memoirs — ROAD FROM AR RAMADI by Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejia, and THE SUTRAS OF ABU GHRAIB by Army Reservist Aidan Delgado — appeared in print. In March 2008, at the Winter Soldier investigation just outside Washington D.C., hard-core U.S. Iraqi veterans, some shaking at the podium, some in tears, unburdened their souls. Jon Michael Turner described the horrific incident in which, on April 28, 2008, he shot an Iraqi boy in front of his father. His commanding officer congratulated him for “the kill.” To a stunned audience, Turner presented a photo of the boy’s skull, and said: “I am sorry for the hate and destruction I have inflicted on innocent people.”
The Winter Soldier investigation was followed by the publication of COLLATERAL DAMAGE: AMERICA’S WAR AGAINST IRAQI CIVILIANS, by Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian. Based on hundreds of hours of taped interviews with Iraqi combat veterans, this pioneering work on the catastrophe in Iraq includes the largest number of eyewitness accounts from U.S. military personnel on record.
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The Courage to Resist
We cannot understand the psychological and moral significance of military resistance unless we recognize the social forces that stifle conscience and human individuality in military life. Gwen Dyer, historian of war, writes that ordinarily, “Men will kill under compulsion. Men will do almost anything if they know it is expected of them and they are under strong social pressure to comply.” “Only exceptional people resist atrocity,” writes psychiatrist Robert Lifton.
How much easier it is to surrender to the will of superiors, to merge into the anonymity of the group. It takes uncommon courage to resist military powers of intimidation, peer pressure, and the atmosphere of racism and hate that drives all imperial wars.
Silencing the Witnesses to War
War crimes are collective in nature. Especially in wars based on fraud, soldiers are expected to lie — to their country, to their community, even to themselves.
The silencing process begins on the battlefield in the presence of officers, power-holders who seek to nullify the perceptions and personal experience of troops under their command.
In his war memoir, Aidan Delgado describes attempts of his commanders to suppress the truth about Abu Ghraib. First his captain says the Army has nothing to hide, Abu Ghraib is just a rumor. But then the captain continues: “We don’t need to air our dirty laundry in public. If you have photos that you’re not supposed to have, get rid of them. Don’t talk about this to anyone, don’t write about it to anyone back home.” In the U.S. military, the truth is seditious.
Two years ago, Marine Sergeant Jimmy Massey published his riveting autobiography (written with Natasha Saulnier) in France and Spain. How the Marine Corps – through indoctrination and intimidation – transforms a homeboy from the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina into a professional killer who murders “innocent people for his government” is the subject of Massey’s unsettling, impassioned, Jar-head raunchy, and ultimately uplifting memoir, COWBOYS FROM HELL. (No U.S. publisher has picked up the book. A Marine who speaks truth to power is not without honor save in his own country.) In Chapter 18, Jimmy describes a seemingly minor encounter with his captain. Here Massey gives us a look into the process of human denial in its early phase.
Massey has just participated in a checkpoint massacre of civilians. His sense of decency, his sanity, is still in tact. Like any normal human being, he is distraught. The carnage of the war, the imbalance of power between the biggest war machine in history and a suffering people devoid of tanks and air power — the sheer injustice of it all — begins to take its toll on Massey’s conscience.
In the wake of the horrific events of the day, his captain is cool. He walks up to Massey and asks; “Are you doing all right, Staff Sergeant?” Massey responds: “No, sir. I am not doing O.K. Today was a bad day. We killed a lot of innocent civilians.”
Fully of aware of the civilian carnage, his captain asserts: “No, today was a good day.”
Relatives wailing, cars destroyed, blood all over the ground, Marines celebrating, civilians dead, and “it was good day”!
The Massey incident goes beyond the mendacity of military life. It concerns the control, the dehumanization of the psyches of our troops.
As one Vietnam veteran put it years ago: “They kept fucking with my mind.”
In 1994 Jonathan Shay, staff psychiatrist in the Department of Veterans Affairs, published a pioneering work on post traumatic stress — Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character. According to Shay, who recorded volumes of testimony from Vietnam veterans, commanders routinely try to efface the perceptions and the normal feelings of compassion among American troops. Military necessity, including the ever-present need for political propaganda, determines what is perceived, and how it is perceived, in war.
It was an extremely common experience in Vietnam, Shay writes, to be told by military superiors dealing with crime and trauma: “You didn’t experience it, it never happened, and you don’t know what you know.” And it was fairly common for traumatized soldiers to say to reporters: “It didn’t happen. And besides, they had it coming.” Shay recorded the testimony of one veteran who, in great anger, describes the pressures to alter his perceptions of collective murder.
“Daylight came, and we found out we killed a lot of fishermen and kids…You said to the team, ‘Don’t worry about it. Everything’s fucking fine.’ Because that’s what we were getting from upstairs. The fucking colonel says, ‘Don’t worry about it. We’ll take care of it. We got body count.’ They’d be handing out fucking medals for killing civilians. So in your mind you’re saying, ‘Ah, fuck it, they’re just gooks.’ I was sick over it, after this happened. I actually puked my guts out…But see, it’s all explained to you by captains and colonels and majors. ‘Fuck it, they was suspects anyways. You guys did a great job. Erase it. It’s yesterday’s fucking news.’”
Willful Ignorance at Home
The collective process of denial on the battlefield eventually extends to the homeland. Returning soldiers, to be sure, are often honored, but only so long as they remain silent about the realities, the pathos, the absurd evils of war. Willful public ignorance is a source of pain for veterans.
Ernest Hemingway’s brilliant short story, Soldier’s Home, published in 1925 after World War I, gives us insight into the reluctance of civilians to address the psychic needs of soldiers back from war.
The simply told story is about a young man named Krebs who returns to his home in Oklahoma. At first Krebs does not want to talk about the war. But soon he feels the need to speak — to his family, his neighbors and friends. But as Hemingway tells us, “Nobody wanted to hear about it.” His town did not want to learn about atrocities, and “Krebs found that to be listened to at all he had to lie.”
There’s the rub. His ability to assimilate into civilian life depended on his willingness to fabricate stories about the war. Soldiers are not only expected to lie on behalf of the military during the course of war, they are also expected to participate in homecoming rituals that preserve the civilian fantasy of war’s nobility.
In Hemingway’s story, the pressure to lie is so powerful, Krebs begins to manufacture stories about his experiences in battle — just to get along, just be able to lead a normal life.
Repression, however, is a major cause of mental illness and loneliness. Krebs morale deteriorates. He sleeps late in bed. He loses interest in work. He withdraws into himself.
That’s all Hemingway tells us. It’s a quietly told story, all the more powerful for its understatement.
There is a connection between Hemingway’s war-informed fiction and real life. As Shay notes, there is a tension between a soldier’s need to communalize shame and grief and the unwillingness of civilians to listen to troops whom they sent into battle. One Vietnam veteran told the following story:
“I had just come back from Vietnam and my first wife’s parents gave a dinner for me and my parents and her brothers and their wives. And after dinner we were all sitting in the living room and her father said: ‘So, tell us what it was like.’ And I started to tell them, and I told them. And do you know that within five minutes the room was empty. They were all gone, except my wife. After that I didn’t tell anybody what I had seen in Vietnam.”
Welcome home, soldier. Now shut up.
Notwithstanding clichés and pieties about support for troops, those who promote war are often the least likely to share the burdens and memories of war when soldiers return. When Ron Kovic, who was paralyzed from the chest down during the war in Vietnam, steered his wheelchair down the aisle of the Republican National Convention in 1972, the delegates spat on him and cheered for Nixon — “Four more years.”
W.D. Erhart, Vietnam veteran and author of Passing Time, never forgot the horrific episodes of his tour in Vietnam. In his first autobiography, he tells a friend about his speech at a Rotary Club. “I even put on a coat and tie and went to the Rotary Club. The Rotary Club, for chrissake. I laid it all out for ‘em. I told ‘em about search and destroy missions, harassment and interdiction fire, winning hearts and minds, all that stuff…Was I ever sharp that day.
“Now listen. You won’t believe this. I got done and nobody said a word. No applause. Nothing. Then this skinny old fart shaped like a cold chisel gets up and says he’s a retired colonel, and he thinks we should keep on pounding those little yellow bastards until they do what we say or we kill ‘em all, and he tells me I can’t be a real veteran because a real veteran wouldn’t go around badmouthing the good old U.S. of A., and the whole place erupts in thunderous applause.”
Welcome home, soldier. Now shut up.
Today Georgia Stillwell is a mother of a 21-year-old Iraqi war veteran. Her son is now homeless, unemployed, and despondent. Early one morning he drove his car over an embankment. She says that her son is a mere physical shell of himself. “My son’s spirit and soul must still be wandering the streets of Iraq.” It is not simply what happened in Iraq, but how veterans are treated at home when they seek to unburden their souls, that reinforces post-traumatic stress. On the night he drove the car off the road, he was crying, talking about the war. “His friends tell me he talks about the war. They describe it as ‘crazy talk.’ He wants the blood of the Iraqis he killed off his hands.”
“Each generation,” writes Chris Hedges, “discovers its own disillusionment, often at a terrible price. And the war in Iraq has begun to produce legions of the lost and the damned.” For our morally courageous veterans — for all of us, really, who seek forgiveness — only the truth can heal.
BlackCommentator.com Guest Commentator, Paul Rockwell, is a writer living in the Bay Area. He is also a columnist for In Motion Magazine. Click here to reach Mr. Rockwell.
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June 27th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
theres a good but horrible to watch movie out in 2007 called redacted and it shows and deals with alot of the drama that goes on in Iraq from the american soldiers doing stuff to innocent civilians. No one should have to go through it and also just the other day in the news an american soldier kicked an innocent dog of a high cliff with the dog yelping in the air as hes going down. The dog is so helpless it makes no sense for this type of behaviour.
It really is sickening and the iraqis have only one way to fight back is to throw stones and strap bombs on them to get at the soldiers.
June 28th, 2008 at 6:31 am
In times of trouble and not before, God and the soldier we love and adore. When the war is over and the trouble is righted, God is forgotten and the soldier is slighted.
Support the troops while opposing the war.
June 28th, 2008 at 7:42 am
…beautifully written article about the inherent evil of war…american government, warmongers…
June 28th, 2008 at 8:19 am
Check out http://www.documentarywire.com to watch 100’s of documentaries for free!
June 28th, 2008 at 10:37 am
>>>“I rarely saw moral courage. Moral courage is harder. It requires the bearer to walk away from the warm embrace of comradeship and denounce the myth of war as a fraud, to name it as an enterprise of death and immorality, to condemn himself, and those around him, as killers. It requires the bearer to become an outcast. There are times when taking a moral stance, perhaps the highest form of patriotism, means facing down the community, even the nation.”<<<
wow…just wow! Thats the best paragraph I’ve read in a loooong time. It reasonates with so much truth that its deafening. Men of moral courage need to step forward (in huge numbers) and join Ron Paul and the march to Washington!
June 28th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
The US has a long track record of sending their young military men and women off to slaughter with great shouts of RAH RAH RAH!
But when they return home, broken, damaged of body and soul and hollowed out….they turn their backs on them and they pretend they don’t exist.
I have always maintained that any government who wants to go to war, should take their president/dictator and members of congress, give them some weapons, take them to a neutral island and let them fight to the death.
Whoever survives, is the winner. We’ll put it on Pay Per View and generate some income (good for the economy). If I had my way, Bush would be strapped to a parachute and dropped first, then Cheney and don’t forget Condi Rice to keep the troops happy.
June 28th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
THAT’S RIGHT, DON’T BETRAY YOUR COUNTRY. SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP. THAT’S WHAT’S EXPECTED OF YOU.
June 28th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
I am sorry you guys are all broken, but you know what you have done, So fuck you. I am Xmarine and I will surely see you in hell. again I will fight you dirty bastards to the death, we all know.
June 28th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
This war is the right thing to do. The Iraqis love us there , were their protection from the terrorists. We are the best thing thats ever happened to them. These soldiers are just looking for their 15 min of fame , trying to stir up anti-American sentiment here in the motherland. Makes me want to puke. Dont believe any of this garbage.
June 28th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
One thing that I am incredibly tired of is the constant complete lack of understanding from civies about the realities of any of the services. As a Marine I can tell you that my job was to kill people and break things – just like I could have told you the day that I enlisted. Luckily enough I never had to, but if I had it though it would have scared me I can honestly say that any time that I felt my life in any danger I would have oipened up, killed on orders, and LIVED to hate myself. That’s the real mindset that we’re talking about here.
And that’s how it’s supposed to be.
Military people are supposed to have the discretion to kill on the slightest provocation or barest hint of need. Don’t like that, try not sending us places where we will have to adopt that attitude to survive to come home. Or better yet, get your Congress to declare war so that none of this is an issue.
Or better yet get them to bring EVERYBODY home from every country we have them in. Now that I’m back in civilian life that’s sure as hell what I’m trying to do.
June 29th, 2008 at 5:41 am
Some of you seem angry at soldiers. Some of you are soldiers angry at soldiers. Many do not
understand the mind-conditioning soldiers bear. It is necessary for war, but it sucks for the indivi-
dual. My heart breaks for our soldiers, and I feel upset at those of you who say,”Fuck you”, to our
soldiers. It ain’t right. How will you feel when we REALLY need them? The time is coming, and it won’t be what most of you expect. And THEY know it. You don’t. Show some respect. They will be among our heroes who take charge against the machine. Lighten up!
June 29th, 2008 at 7:18 am
Jarhead, maybe one should actually use their head before they go into the military.
Nothing personal but people who volunteer to kill others have a loose screw.
To top that off with the fact that the US starts bogus wars, I can’t believe anyone would want to join in the first place.
You want to stop fighting these stupid wars? Don’t sign up!!!!!!!!!!!
June 29th, 2008 at 8:43 am
There will come a day when the troops wake up from being treated like shit and kill their masters. Its bad enough they don’t seem to realize that they are a bunch of suckers right now but at least they shouldn’t be kicked around back home too. Alot of them actually believe Bush. But thats just because they’re young and impressionable, thats why the army wants young people.No older people would fall for the dumbshit. So we should give the young ass lames a break. If they come back alive, give ‘em what they want. College, Health care, Retirement. Fuck it.Hopefully they wont make a stupid-ass mistake like this again.
June 29th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
roaddog you are a fucking moron.
What kind of asshole shit-talks true patriots for doing what they believed was serving their country?
You should be fucking ecstatic that people will actually do things like that so:
A) You won’t have to.
or
B) Some Iraqi doesn’t come over here and blow your brains out in front of your father.
Funny thing is, you’d only say shit like that on the internet, because if I ever heard you call me or any other soldier a “young ass lame sucker” for joining the army to protect your fucking freedom, you wouldn’t be standing long enough for that shit to finish spewing out of your ignorant fucking mouth.
June 29th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
it is necessary in war to condition a soldiers mind. are you for the war or just the one their going to have to fight in their own country against the machine as you call it. people have every right to be angry but some people making these comments are really scary. by the way do the iraqis iranians have the right to protect their freedoms from people who invade their country with lies or does that only apply to the good ole usa?
June 29th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Jimmy Massey is an attention starved whiny lying bitch. I’ve served with men who were in his unit during the time he says all these war crimes happened, and they all denounce his lies. None of these men are “moral cowards.”
We have not been trained to kill indscriminately, we have been trained to positively identify and engage enemy combatants. Most of the time when collateral damage occurs, it is someone running through barriers at a checkpoint in an area that has a high incidence of suicide vehicle bombs, and being engaged after the proper escalation of force measures have been taken. These are the only instances of civilian casualties caused by U.S. forces that I have seen in my 3 deployments.
Our enemy, however, has no scruples whatsoever when it comes to cold-blooded murder of civilians. They wage a campaign of murder and intimidation against their countrymen for offenses against their extreme interpretation of Islam, for simple participation in the democratic process, for receiving humanitarian aid. They would rather see their nation’s children dead than have them fed, clothed, or medically treated by us. The things I have seen that have sickened me have been perpetrated by the so-called holy warriors. Children sick because the terrorists disrupt their water supply and their parents are afraid to risk their lives by leaving their homes to take them to the hospital. A little girl wounded in a suicide vehicle bomb attack. An elderly man shot in the head for voting.
If you want to know what’s really happening “over there”, take your own advice and listen to a veteran. Not some publicity-hungry whiner who couldn’t take the realities of a shitty situation, but your ordinary, humble vets who are all around you. Better yet, just fucking thank a veteran.
June 29th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Hey Active Infantryman:
You are full of shit and definately dont sound like any grunt I ever served with.
Because if you were the real deal you would not be supporting the war period and all
that “thank a vet” crap is pure propaganda. The worst thing I ever did in my life was to
allow myself to be a part of the US empires killing machine. FTA baby…
June 29th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
http://www.thereignofchrist.org
To God’s Commandments:
1. You shall not have any other God but Me.
2. You shall not take the Name of God in vain.
3. Remember to keep holy the Sabbath Days.
4. Honor your father and your mother.
5. You shall not commit adultery.
6. You shall not kill.
7. You shall not steal.
8. You shall not bear false witness.
9 & 10. You shall not covet the goods and wife of another.
Antichrist opposes with:
1. False idols.
2. Blasphemes Almighty God.
3. Sunday is just another day.
4. Cohabitation, loose living and homosexuality.
5. Justifies impurity, and acts against nature.
6. Contraception, abortion, euthanasia.
7. Theft, violence, kidnaping.
8. Deceit, lying, duplicity.
9 & 10. It works to corrupt the depths of conscience, betraying
man’s mind and heart.
Antichrist counters the Seven Cardinal Virtues with his seven
deadly sins, compared as follows:
Cardinal Virtues Deadly sins
Faith. Pride.
Hope. Lust.
Charity. Greed.
Prudence. Anger.
The Conspiracy of the 6-6-6
Fortitude. Sloth.
Justice. Envy.
Temperance. Gluttony, including hedonism, materialism,
godless pleasure, etc.
“And the ten horns which you saw are ten kings, who have not yet
received a kingdom, but shall receive power as kings, one hour after
the beast. These have one design, and their strength and power they
shall deliver to the beast. These shall fight with the Lamb, and the
Lamb shall overcome them because He is Lord of lords and King
of kings, and they that are with Him are called, and elect, and
faithful.” And he said to me: ‘The waters which you saw, where the
harlot sits, are peoples and nations and tongues. And the ten horns
which you saw in the beast, these shall hate the harlot and shall
make her desolate and naked and shall eat her flesh and shall burn
her with fire, for God has given into their hearts to do that which
pleases Him, that they give their kingdom to the beast, till the
words of God be fulfilled. And the woman which you saw is the
great city which has kingdom over the kings of the earth.”
June 30th, 2008 at 12:17 am
This is the result of the cowardly republicans who lead our country. They send men to a war
based upon lies for the sole purpose of enriching their cronies, and then they condemn the
brave soldiers who speak out against the shame that the war has caused and wash their hands
of the blood that they have caused to be spilled. Damn you stinking draft dodging republicans!!!!
June 30th, 2008 at 12:35 am
Only in the most narcissistic generation in human history do griping and complaining about military service equate with Moral Courage. It largely comes from non-Combat Arms. For the uninitiated, the awareness of the difference between Combat Arms personnel (10%) and other Military Occupation Specialties (90%) does not prevail. Unfortunately, non-Combat Arms people are more in harm’s way than in any of our past wars, generally speaking. They weren’t ready for this. I was involved in over 50 high-intensity engagements in 7 months before being medevaced home from Iraq. Never once did I witness any American troop fire upon a non combatant. Standing orders were perpetual. Fire only on identified targets after they have fired first. Or in defense during ambush or IED attack. Or upon unauthorized enemy weaponry such as RPG launchers. All households were allowed one AK47 and males were allowed to bear them at will in public. Some Combat Arms troops had to go that route due to low test scores. However, most volunteered and had abundant information about what to expect. Let’s stop fighting amongst ourselves brothers and sisters. Take a breath. Ask yourselves this: Excepting those who were forced to retire (Gen. Eric Shinseki) or silenced (Secy of State Gen. Colin Powell) during the planning stages, How many of the Bush Administration Iraq War architects served in combat? Answer: 0. Now ask yourselves, what does that mean to us, the citizenry? When you vent your steam on people at your level, you become nothing but little toy figure on a gameboard. Moral Courage. This writer feels that we should just say War Is Wrong and then go check email on an iPhone or go to the movies and call it Moral Courage. When you’re in a 360 degree engagement, surrounded by trained killers who want you dead (whether you’re a deployed American or Middle Eastern fighting on home sand), there is no difference between Physical Courage and Moral Courage. There are those who act, and those who hide under the Humvees. Courage is Courage. I watched our medics cover children with their bodies during a mortar attack. War? It is an artifact of centuries past, perhaps. But we ain’t out of the woods yet. It is so easy for Americans with all their gadgets and toys and internet and cash and credit cards to place themselves up on a pedestal of learning and say War Is Wrong and then wait for it to go away. It won’t. Not until the whole Planet is enlightened. I worked in WTC Tower 2. I joined the Army. I didn’t believe the story. Didn’t matter. I was 33. I figured if I went that was one less 18 year old who had to go. I wanted to go. Myths? Boxcutters. Vertical free fall of Building 7. THESE are myths. War? War is not a Myth, children. War is only a Myth to those who have not lived it. And I’m not talking about writing about it. I’m talking about running missions 24 hours a day. Pulling guard, Sleeping in 2 hour shifts. Getting sick. Keeping going. Getting hurt. Driving on. If you were a Soldier, Sailor, Airman, Marine, or Coast Guardsmen, have some pride. Don’t let bad government or writers on the sidelines of the World take that away from you. The World is made of Light. Try to remember. Johnny sends. OUT.
June 30th, 2008 at 12:53 am
I am not a combat veteran, but I spent a year and 15 days in Vietnam, from 5/6/68 – 5/2269,
having been drafted and sent to a war I didn’t believe in. I can tell you that the hardest thing for
me to deal with during my time in Vietnam was not the training I went through or even going to
that war – it was remaining true to my belief that I was in the wrong war. It was a matter of
honor to me that I never gave in and accepted that war. The only thing I regret is that I went
there in the first place.
June 30th, 2008 at 2:34 am
The various vets that replied:
Don’t really matter what you did or didn’t do.
You should not have gone over there.
There is no good reason for the attack on Iraq.
Those poor people didn’t deserve this.
And if you guys didn’t sign up, then they would have no one to send there.
Seriously guys, when was the last time America fought in a just War? WWII ?
June 30th, 2008 at 8:00 am
The majority of the fallen soldiers in war cemeteries are the youth we cannot afford to be losing. Just take a walk through the war memorials and cemeteries in France and Belgium to confirm the veracity of that statement. The best way to prevent this from happening in the future is for young people not to volunteer for the US armed services, no matter what financial inducements are offered, to sweeten the deal: college funds, lines of credit, etc.
June 30th, 2008 at 9:48 am
War is an invention of man. One man starts it through being ammoral or immoral towards a nation states representative. They both in turn use false or falty excuses to summon the masses. They in turn like sucking the metaphorical tit of governement for some dumb reason, then the world goes into stupid moron mode, as we are today..
June 30th, 2008 at 10:29 am
War Cemetaries are full of men and women that let “Other People” do their thinking for them. Its probably good that they’re genetics of stupidity won’t be passed on. Anyone who goes to war is retard. Anyone that goes to war believing the current propaganda of the current war thats spun up by the machine that’ll be making the profits from that war is an retard of the highest order !
June 30th, 2008 at 11:31 am
How to stage a successful mutiny during Iraq War #1, get all your commanding officers fired, get 4-star general chief of staff of USAF fired while he was leading Gulf War #1, and get promoted to Pentagon to work directly for SecDef Dick Cheney:
http://piratenews.org/pentagonwhistleblower.html
June 30th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
I wouldn’t impugn their intelligence quite so strongly, Ron Minardo
Other factors are also at play, which their lack of experience and broader perspective has directed them towards a deadly choice, which precludes them from making better choices in the future. Anyway, Gen. Smedley D. Butler’s ‘War is for Assholes’ is freely available.
http://www.lexrex.com/enlighte.....racket.htm
June 30th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Now I know why my late grandfathers ( I had 2 from 2 diiferent families, 1 on Mom’s side, the other on Dad’s) never talked about WWII. Esp my grandfather on my mothers side. After he died earlier this year, I was told of a story where he saw his best friend from high school get blown up by a grenade from my aunt, who was his oldest child. If anyone seen something like that, I’m sure it would affect them greatly at 1 point or another in life.
EddietheKid…
I don’t know exactly what happened when it came to selecting those to fight in Vietnam, as I was not born yet, but back then, I could reckon that the choices as to what u could do were very few, and the end results not good, unless of course u were 1 of the power families way back when and could avoid going to war. At least ya stuck to your beliefs, give ya credit 4 that. Which should make all of us wonder, what if Pat Tillman were still alive today, and what would he have said about his experiences in Afghanistan? To turn down millions in pro football to serve his country means that his intentions of defending America were true, its just that those in charge had other ideas and once he realized it, and voiced his opinions about it, got killed for doing that. RIP Pat.
June 30th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Hey 101, I’m legit as fuck. I definitely have nothing to prove to you. You wanna know why I support the war? Because my platoon is still here in combat operations in Afghanistan, because the enemy will not stop trying to kill them regardless of their personal political beliefs, and I want my friends to come home to their wives and children. Am I aware of the agenda and deceptions of our current administration? Hell yes. Do I want our forces to stay engaged over here? Yes, because there are real people, innocents, who will suffer and die if we leave. It’s as simple as that. Don’t vent your anger at the dicks in Washington by talking shit about military personnel who are willing to risk their lives so that your kids don’t have to.
July 1st, 2008 at 10:21 pm
It is greatly interesting to me that posts rife with spelling and grammar errors contain the most hostile attacks against the intelligence of war volunteers. This board even provides a little red squiggle when you make a typo. At any rate, I recommend all read Khrishnamurti’s writings on violence. There are many forms of violence. And I find the words of many of our present-day war protesters, here included, violent as a fist thrown in anger, crude as a homemade bomb. The World is a multi-dimensional place. There always exists a multiplicity of perspectives. No one view can ever be entirely correct. Nor entirely wrong. We are all in the same boat. We are all going to pass on from this reality. While we’re here, what if we were just to witness events with balance. In a state of calm? Just recognizing the everpresent, impossibly dynamic, utterly simple Creation that is all around? Easy to type such an idea, I know. But, comrades, what if soldiers serving while you remain safe at home are not as simple and dimwitted as you assume? What if they are noble warriors, volunteering to suffer in your stead? Even while you spit on them? Even while you rage at them? And while you rain down the acidic, burning, stinging fire of your half-formed philosophies? Is War any more wrong than a lion taking down a gazelle on an African plain? Is it more wrong than a flood? Is it not just a conflict born of different levels of consciousness and understanding? We are still evolving. Someday there will be no more wars. But right now, in this moment, I know there is a violent war protester wolfing down fast food meat or chicken — with no awareness or understanding of the process of slaughter that delivers them so conveniently their meal. So yes. Please do continue degrading our people in uniform. Continue your protest. For you are correct. War is no good. And it feels right and salutary, and even good, to point at them and call them names. To point at them and call them blind tools of illegitimate government. If it makes you feel better. Continue. Know without doubt, that without volunteers — your government would conscript you into service. Against penalty of imprisonment or loss of citizenship. Know that. So no. Don’t thank us. We haven’t served for your thanks. We served because there is still a shred of honor left on the North American continent. On Native American reservations. On Army bases. College campuses. Hospitals. Churches, temples, mosques. There still live honorable men and women here. They are just very few. If you aren’t in a very small circle of influence. Then you can be sure you have absolutely no idea why these wars were started to begin with. Thank God we have people like Alex Jones with the courage to so loudly ask for the truth about 911. Last, who does more to end War? The fighters? Or the naysayers safely in the stands. Away from the killing fields. Afraid to die. Angry. Bitter. Inarticulately bitching and complaining. From a lofty altitude of empty wisdom bestowed on them by their own narcissistic angst. And always, clearly, steeped in feelings of guilt. People are dying. Americans. Iraqis. Others. What action have you taken to stop war? What action have you taken at all? Johnny sends. OUT.
July 3rd, 2008 at 1:14 am
3 times I served, reenlisted to go to Iraq with A BTRY 2/44ADA 101st Airborne 3rd platoon..supported 1/327 Infantry in the Gulf War…I did more than my part!!! The cold, the heat, the shamals, ignorant NCO’s, officers and other buLLLshit(such as spending 13hrs. in a shamal resupplying STINGER teams in zero visability not knowing the terrain and relying solely on an asimuth) so you active duty personnel and vets don’t be upset if people disagree. In 91′ I told everyone I knew that we were going back to Iraq. FUCK the so-called LIBERATION of the Iraqi’s!!! Me you and everyone else got screwed into this buLLLshit!!! Afgani’s as well. ACTIVE those Afgani’s will die whether we are there or not so, give it a rest!!! INFANTRY VET…suffering in your stead??? Really??? Did the taliban or alCIAda take away OUR RIGHTS??? No!!! The motherfuckers that got elected did!!! “Better to fight them over there than here” is the most buLLLshit statement made!!! SO REMEMBER the OATH you took as well as 26MILLION others when you comment. NONE of us deserve a pedestal.I respect those who serve and have served BUT, within the ranks there are ragbags, felons, losers, along with those of us that served with dignity!!!
July 6th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Hats off to the patriot soldiers that HAVE the BALLS to tell it like it really is! When are we ALL going to gather as one and EJECT the TREASONOUS bastards out of the White House and ALL branches of government? Better to die defending your family and friends than to die as a NEW WORLD ORDER PAWN helping to inflict the world with their TYRANNY.
July 7th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Pieces like this make me believe patriotism is just a tool governments use to get people to kill each other for governments’ benefit.
August 2nd, 2008 at 8:23 pm
I came out of an 11 year retirement to fight this war. It was 2 and a half years back into this thing that I discovered that we had been lied to. I love soldiers from every branch of service. I would never speak against our combat vets. I do however hate the CZARS in the pentagon. They are some lying devils who committ acts of treason against our own citizens in order to inaugurate war with other nations. Google Operation Northwoods and read the 15 page declassified document. If they were willing to do this in 1962, what makes you think they wouldn’t do this in 2001? They lied to the American public about the Gulf of Tonkin incident which never happened. Therefore we committed the lives of some 58,000 servicemen for a lie. They died for a lie. Thank God we have not suffered those kind of casulties in this lie. George Bush, Marvin Bush, Wirt Walker III, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Woefelwitcz, Richard Pearl, and everyone involved in the Project for the New American century should be hung to death just like Hussein who we put into power. Osama Bin Laden is truly dead since 2002. Think about it. Our government keeps telling our people he is still alive. The lie is so great that most people will never see it. Now these evil zionist bastards want our children to die in Iran. We have persecuted the people of Iran since 1954 and that is what caused the Iranian people to finally rise up in late 1978 and take us hostage. Google Operation Ajax or watch Alex Jones Terrorstorm to learn why Iran is the U.S. goverments enemy. When you see what we did in 1954, you will understand why Iran hates us. Iraq=oil and Afgahnistan= natural gas pipeline and restoration of opium trade. Let the truth be made known.
Cole Newbury U.S. Army Retired
August 2nd, 2008 at 8:24 pm
I came out of an 11 year retirement to fight this war. It was 2 and a half years back into this thing that I discovered that we had been lied to. I love soldiers from every branch of service. I would never speak against our combat vets. I do however hate the CZARS in the pentagon. They are some lying devils who committ acts of treason against our own citizens in order to inaugurate war with other nations. Google Operation Northwoods and read the 15 page declassified document. If they were willing to do this in 1962, what makes you think they wouldn’t do this in 2001? They lied to the American public about the Gulf of Tonkin incident which never happened. Therefore we committed the lives of some 58,000 servicemen for a lie. They died for a lie. Thank God we have not suffered those kind of casulties in this lie. George Bush, Marvin Bush, Wirt Walker III, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Woefelwitcz, Richard Pearl, and everyone involved in the Project for the New American century should be hung to death just like Hussein who we put into power. Osama Bin Laden is truly dead since 2002. Think about it. Our government keeps telling our people he is still alive. The lie is so great that most people will never see it. Now these evil zionist bastards want our children to die in Iran. We have persecuted the people of Iran since 1954 and that is what caused the Iranian people to finally rise up in late 1978 and take us hostage. Google Operation Ajax or watch Alex Jones Terrorstorm to learn why Iran is the U.S. goverments enemy. When you see what we did in 1954, you will understand why Iran hates us. Iraq=oil and Afgahnistan= natural gas pipeline and restoration of opium trade. Let the truth be made known.
Cole Newbury U.S. Army Retired