soldier speaks out

http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=353190

Iraq War Vet Threatened, But Gives Incredible Interview (english)

US Soldiers to America: ''Bring us home now; we�??re dying for oil and
corporate greed!''

Part 1 in a 5 part series
Interviews by Jay Shaft
Coalition For Free Thought In Media
12th October 2003
I had the unique opportunity to interview five US military servicemen
who just got back from Iraq, or in the case
of two men, corresponded with their wives so that I could ask questions
of these soldiers by mail. When the two I
corresponded with came back just last week, I was able to complete the
interviews I started several months ago
with some new details on how the war is actually going.

I was shocked and angered when I found out how many of the service men
hate being in Iraq and want nothing to
do with rebuilding and policing the devastated nation. From the
conversations I had, many soldiers never wanted
to go over to Iraq and fight, and the ones who had were now convinced of
the awful crime that had been
committed against Iraq and our own troops. I was told very few soldiers
now believe in staying in Iraq, or want to
stay in the country and serve any more days.

The following interview was with an enlisted man, but someone very high
up in the enlisted ranks, with over 20
years of military service. I have promised not to reveal his identity
for reasons that he has a family and has been
told not to speak to journalists. He told me the Army had put a gag
order on him while he was home, and told him
they would give him twenty years in prison if he spoke out in any manner
against the US or the government.

I took several weeks to finish this interview because of not being able
to safely be seen with this individual out of
his fears of being caught speaking out.

He asked me to call him USA in all the transcripts of these interviews.
I have followed his wishes and tried to
write what he said in the manner it was said so as not to lose any
impact. At times the interview was very rough
and the grammar is not perfect, but I tried to write this in his voice
so that he can tell the world how bad it is in
Iraq. I truly want you to feel what he has experienced in some way if
possible.

CFTM-- �??How are you today? Resting I hope?�??

USA-- �??Can�??t sleep for sh..t and I have horrible nightmares when I
do sleep. I might be lucky to catch an
hour at a time before the nightmares wake me up. I slept easier in the
combat then now that I�??m away from
there. Most awful place I�??ve ever been or served duty and I didn�??t
want to leave my guys. That was the
hardest part was leaving the guys I had been leading around and trying
to keep out of trouble and alive.�??

CFTM-- �??Did you see a lot of your buddies get killed? How did it
affect you?�??

USA-- �??How the hell do you think it affected me? I saw over 30 of the
men I had to keep safe die, and over 100
get wounded and not come back. I still don�??t know if some of the
wounded men made it or not. I was never
told before I came back home.�??

CFTM-- �??So it really was awful and as bad as some returning troops
have claimed?�??

USA-- �??It was like a long trip to hell that you knew you might return
from. Of course it is as bad as the soldiers
say it is. Hell it�??s even worse if the truth has to come out. It�??s a
constant fu..ing nightmare trying to figure
out where the guerillas are going to hit, how to keep the civilians
calm, and also getting enough water and food to
eat. That is one thing the media never really told the Americans about,
how bad it was when our convoys
weren�??t getting through. We had to go to some Iraqi people and trade
socks and underwear for some food and a
little water.�??

CFTM-- �??You really did get that desperate because I saw it in the
foreign media that the Iraqi civilians had
stepped in and fed a whole bunch of troops that had been days without
food.�??

USA-- -�??Yeah, that ain�??t no joke about getting help from the
civilians right after the invasion. We had a
pretty good laugh about that and how the army owed them some money for
reimbursement. We would not have
starved probably, but when we got the food from the people it made sure
we could still operate as a functioning
unit. It was a near thing that several guys almost died of dehydration
because we ran out of clean water for a few
days.�??

CFTM-- �??Just keep going, I want to hear more about the hardships the
military and Bush made you go through.
I want the American people to know what a nightmare this war has become
and what it�??s doing to our service
men over there.�??

USA-- �??Okay, well I can bitch about the problems like food being short
and water going bad, but I want to tell
people about how bad the attacks on US and coalition forces have gotten
in the last month. In the last two weeks I
was there we were attacked at least 20 times a day if you count all the
shots we heard from random sniper or
opportunity attacks. We were losing at least five men a day to injuries
and there was at least one of our unit killed
every twenty four hours.�??

CFTM-- -�??So you were getting one a day killed and at least five
injured? Did you know many of the guys
killed?�??

USA-- -�??That�??s a real dumb fu..ing question to ask me. You know what
my rank is, of course I knew them, I
was the head NCO for years in our unit. I knew most of the guys who died
and I held a lot of hands as they were
dying. You tell me that�??s not gonna to give you nightmares!�??

�??I had one guy tell me all he wanted was to see his little daughter;
she was born three days after the war started.
He died in the sand holding my hand and crying because his daughter
would never know him. Tell me that�??s
fu..ing right. Where was George Bush when this kid was gasping for air
and spitting his blood on foreign soil?�??

CFTM-- -�??I talked to you about this the other day. Do you think George
Bush is the wrong man to order troops
into battle when he ducked it himself?�??

USA-- -�??That asshole went AWOL and never showed up for duty and then
he has the nerve to take us into two
different wars that will be going on for years. I do not believe he
should be president of this country, he�??s a
complete idiot and he�??s controlled by madmen with a drive for only
profits and getting oil.�??

CFTM-- -�??I just have to get this straight for the public, you are well
educated are you not? I mean you have had
years of leadership training and schools right? You sound very well
informed and aware of the current lies and
manipulations, which I have not found in some other soldiers.�??

USA-- -�??I have a four year degree in the economics field and I am not
a soldier all the time. I am Reservist who
just keeps getting caught on long duty assignments. Believe it or not I
read authors like Noam Chomsky, Gore
Vidal, and Jim Hightower, and went through three copies of �??Stupid
White Men�?? by Michael Moore while I
was over there. I let people read parts of Mike�??s book and they were
irate that Bush had screwed us so hard. I
had parts of �??Best Democracy Money Can Buy�?? mailed to me because I
knew if I had the whole book it
would get stolen in a heartbeat.�??

CFTM-- -�??So you might be quite a bit more aware and well informed
about the real reasons for the war that
others did not know. I don�??t know of many line soldiers reading Greg
Palast or Noam Chomsky.�??

USA-- -�??I guess you�??re right and that might be why I am trying to
speak out and let the Americans know that
they are sending us to be slaughtered. If you don�??t mind I am going to
cut through all the niceties and get down
to why I am going against every oath I took and giving you this
interview. I am doing it for the guys still over
there and for the ones who are going. If I�??m not careful I�??ll end up
back there for another six months.�??

CFTM-- -�??Alright tell me what it was really like and don�??t skip the
gory details. I want people to be shocked
and offended enough to realize why you spoke out and what it is doing to
our military by sending them over there
with blind flag waving and cheers of false victory�??

USA-- -�??Well the first thing I would like to thank Bush, Cheney,
Rumsfeld, and Congress for is that nice huge
cut they made to Veterans Benefits as soon as the war started. I am in
the Reserves after years of active duty and
now I cannot get PTSD counseling or many medical benefits I used to take
for granted. I knew I would have the
benefits because I was laying my life down for my country. Now my
benefits are cut by around 2/3 and I have to
go to either group therapy or pay for a private counselor out of my own
pocket. What happens when someone like
me has been through enormous battle stress and combat fatigue and then
comes home to no counseling?�??

�??I�??ll tell you what is going to happen, he will either kill himself
or take a bunch of people with him. Some of
the guys coming back are going to have gone through the worst time of
their lives with their buddies dying and
getting hurt, and then they�??ll find out they got screwed out of any
counseling. It is the greatest disservice
America is committing against soldiers who fought for this country and
may come back wounded or horribly
scarred. Medical services, school aid to dependents, school aid for the
vets, all slashed to the bare bones; mental
health and drug and alcohol counseling are being eliminated or the
waiting lists will be years long for whatever
services manage to survive.�??

�??That is one thing the American people still have not really caught on
to is the fact that while they were
screaming out �??Support Our Troops�?? the current regime makers were
fu..ing the military and veterans out of
almost every social program and non essential service that would make
life easier.�??

�??Bush really fu..ked us while we were gone. We found out about after
being in the middle of heavy fighting for
several weeks. It was one of the first things I read in Stars and
Stripes, and I thought it was a joke because it was
just to hard to believe Congress and our leaders would screw us that bad
while we were fighting and dying.�??

CFTM-- -�??Glad you brought that up about counseling because I wasn�??t
even aware of it. Are you alright to
talk about some of the civilian casualties you witnessed and some of the
horrifying images you told me about
when we first started talking?�??

USA-- -�??I want to talk about some of the children I saw killed for no
reason, maybe it will wake someone up
who doesn�??t believe it was happening, or that it was very bad. I can
tell you I will never forget the screams of
the wounded or orphaned kids, or the wailing of the parents who lost
their kids. The Iraqis and most Muslims
have a very vocal way of mourning the dead by lamenting and wailing for
the dead. There is no mistaking a
mother or father crying out in pain for the loss of a child. They
don�??t cry like that unless there has been a death.
Sometimes after a bombing raid or an artillery attack you could here
hundreds of people wiling and weeping.�??

�??I have several grown children with grand kids about the age of most
of the dead children I saw in Iraq. I also
have several kids who are about half grown and I saw a lot of Iraqi
children that age wandering around in charge
of three or four little ones because their parents were dead.�??

�??Let me tell you about the cluster bomb raid we saw wipe out a whole
bunch of little kids. It looked like they
had already lost their parents and were trying to salvage food from a
destroyed Iraqi convoy by the side of the
road we were on. The kids were way off to the side about half a mile
away by then when we got the word that the
Iraqi column was going to be hit with cluster bombs and we had to clear
the area. We got on the radio and tried to
get the air strike stopped but we were told it was too late to get it
stopped.�??

�??We could see the body parts flying up into the air after the bombs
hit. It was terrible and we could not do a
damn thing but watch it happen and scream into the radio at the dumb
sh.t pilot that was dropping the bombs.
After the strike was over we went to see if there were any survivors and
all we found was bits and pieces of little
kids and here and there an arm or leg you could still identify.�??

CFTM-- -�??Pretty rough stuff to have to see. Did that kind of thing
happen a lot?�??

USA-- -�??More than you can imagine until you�??ve seen it over and over
again. Man I don�??t want to talk
about this sh.t anymore. It doesn�??t help to talk about it because it
just makes me think about it again. I can�??t
even get any counseling without having to pay for it.�??

�??Let all those people who support our troops in on that nice surprise
that Bush gave us. That�??s how much we
really mean to Bush, the Department of Defense and all those other
stupid assholes who keep saying how good
we�??re doing over there. Let those patriotic morons go and fight and
die for our country. Let them leave their
families behind for months and maybe come back home in a box. I�??ll be
the first one to salute them or honor
them when they die.�??

�??It�??s just like Nam was in the beginning. I was twelve when my dad
got back and I�??ll never forget the pain
and agony he lived with the rest of his life. Its kind of what I feel
now, I suppose. I never thought I would ever
serve in some stuff that�??s so much like Nam it isn�??t funny. Now I
really see what my pop went through, and
if I could I would go back in the past a few months, I would go AWOL or
turn conscientious objector on them,
but it�??s too late for that now.�??

�??I damn sure will not go back over there even if they throw me in
Leavenworth. I never could understand how a
guy could be a conscientious objector until what I just went through. I
wish more guys would stand up and tell
Bush and the Pentagon they will not fight their war for oil. We should
not have to die for these rich bastards
profits and enrichment.�??

CFTM-- -�??Thank you for taking the risk and talking to me. I know there
will be other soldiers who can�??t
speak out who will thank you for having the courage.�??

USA-- -�??It isn�??t about courage it�??s a matter of what�??s right.
This war is killing the poor or middle class
American men and women who went in the armed forces to have college or
some kind of better future. You
don�??t see the rich kids joining up or any Senator�??s kid dying in
Iraq. It�??s us little guys who are dying over
there or getting disabled for life. Where are the leaders that are
supposed to be looking out for the little man?
They are elected to look after out interests not the interests of Cheney
and Halliburton, or any of the rest of the fat
cats piling up the profits while the blood of our soldiers flows over
their hands.�??

CFTM-- -�??Anything else you want to say to America? Any final thoughts
or words?�??

USA-- -�??Yeah! Wake up America! Your sons and daughters are dying for
nothing! This war is not about
freedom or stopping terrorism. Bring us home now! We are dying for oil
and corporate greed!
-- -Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
http://www.anaphoria.com
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