Winter Soldiers
Nation must heed the horrifying words of those who have returned from the front lines
From testimony of Jason Hurd of the Army’s 278th Regimental Combat Team: One day, Iraqi police got into an exchange of gunfire with some unknown individuals … [and] some of the stray rounds … hit the shield of one of our Hummers. The gunner atop that Hummer decided to open fire with his 50-caliber machine gun into that building. We fired indiscriminately and unnecessarily at this building. We never got a body count, we never got a casualty count afterward. … Things like that happen every day in Iraq. We react out of fear, fear for our lives.
On the fifth anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq, my reflections go back much further - to the spring of 1969, when I entered basic training at Fort Sam Houston as a newly commissioned second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. I had volunteered to serve, but not really out of patriotic duty. I was young and naive, and somehow had begun to picture myself as an angel of mercy who would tend to wounded soldiers.
I knew little about why we were fighting in Vietnam. I hardly ever read the news and had little interest in politics.
For us nurses, basic training was less about nursing and more about acclimation to military life. We were taught how to wear the uniform, how to salute, how to read a map in the wilderness, how to shoot a firearm, how to put on a gas mask in a hurry.
Car bombs are a real danger in Iraq. But as time went on … individuals from my platoon would fire into the grills of [civilians’] cars and then come back … and brag about it. I remember … how appalled I was that we were bragging, that we were laughing, but that’s what you do in a combat zone. … That is how you deal with that predicament.
What I recall best about basic training is the lecture on “Chain of Command and Esprit de Corps.” We were told to visualize chain of command as authority that was linked, rank by rank, all the way from the commander in chief high above us to the last private in line below us. Orders were to descend along that chain. Moreover, concerns about carrying out orders were to be communicated back up the chain no further than the rank directly above.
The strength of the armed forces was lodged in that chain. To break it was a serious infraction.
As for esprit de corps, all these years I have not forgotten our instructors’ fervor in speaking about the spirit in a military unit. We were to visualize the fighting strength as extending outward, like limbs on one body: Should the spirit of one member fail, so too would the spirit of the entire body. Perhaps because I was a nurse, that corporeal metaphor stuck with me. I saw failing esprit de corps as a sickness moving from the extremities toward the vital organs, threatening the life of the entire armed forces.
Those two concepts - chain of command and esprit de corps - were on my mind this past week as Iraq Veterans Against the War set up their microphones and began recording and broadcasting the disturbing testimony of soldiers who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq.
They called the event Winter Soldier, after an event by the same name organized decades ago by Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). Alluding to Thomas Paine’s famous speech that described the “the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot” as withering at the time of moral crisis, VVAW considered themselves true patriots - “winter soldiers” who would speak the hard truth for the good of the country. Unfortunately, much of the American public didn’t see the VVAW that way.
[A woman we met] began to tell us a story. … Her husband had been shot and killed by a United States convoy, because he got too close … A few weeks later [Special Forces] conducted a raid on her home … detained [her son] and took him away. [Two weeks later,] the Special Forces team rolled up, dropped her son off and, without so much as an apology, drove off. It turns out they had found they had acted on bad intelligence.
Though soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq can expect to be honored and thanked in a way that those returning from Vietnam were not, this might not be true of Iraq’s winter soldiers. Who wants to hear about American soldiers firing into the vehicles of innocent families or carrying around photos of Iraqis they have killed?
Kelly Dougherty, former sergeant in the Colorado Army National Guard and present executive director of IVAW, warned that it would not be easy to listen to these testimonials. “But we believe that the only way this war is going to end is if the American people truly understand what we have done in their name.”
A certain kind of patriotism closes off a lot of otherwise good minds. It accepts the testimony of the decorated general without question but shuns the testimony of the ordinary soldier as seditious.
After my basic training in 1969, I was assigned to the burn ward at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. It was hard work, but I think I was a good nurse, maybe even a good officer. Our unit had an ironclad esprit de corps; all of us, regardless of rank, worked with one accord for the sake of those terribly wounded soldiers, alleviating their pain when we could, cheering on the remarkable survivors, trying to make the others comfortable until the end.
Meanwhile, beyond the gates of the post, veterans in beat-up uniforms were angrily protesting against the war. Their stories about atrocities and lies and failed policies were too much for me to take in. I still had no time to read the news. But with all my heart, I wanted the war to end as much as they did, so that the days of burned flesh and amputations would be over.
It was a very long time before those days were over.
[An Iraqi] man looked at me straight in the eye, and he said, “Mister, we Iraqis know that you have good intentions here. But before America invaded, we didn’t have to worry about car bombs in our neighborhoods, we didn’t have to worry about the safety of our own children as they walked to school, and we didn’t have to worry about U.S. soldiers shooting at us as we drive up and down our own streets.”
As I write this in my comfortable office, the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq are following their orders, ever in danger, looking out for each other until they are allowed to come safely home.
I picture myself - a civilian now - as joined to these soldiers in a national esprit de corps. I picture my whole family and all the neighbors up and down the street as joined to them too.
If those good troops are stricken by what they have seen during their deployments, or by what they have done, isn’t it vital that we pay attention? Their sickness with this war is a symptom we cannot ignore. We must carefully attend to them. The life spirit of the larger “corps” - of the nation itself - is at stake.
Madeleine Mysko, a Towson resident, is the author of the novel “Bringing Vincent Home.” Her e-mail is mmysko@comcast.net.
Copyright © 2008, The Baltimore Sun
The writer has good intentions. She’s a nice person, and her main point is important and entirely correct: that people should be paying attention to the powerful & moving Winter Soldier testimonies, which have been blacked out by the corporate media.
There are however 2 weak points, even in this otherwise commendable article. First of all, she writes “Though soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq can expect to be honored and thanked in a way that those returning from Vietnam were not, …”
- It’s largely a myth that Vietnam vets were treated so badly on their return. The myth does not deserve propagation. // Furthermore, it’s not the case that all vets deserve to be “honored and thanked” for their service. It’s one thing to recognize that they are not to be blamed for a war that was not their idea & not their fault. But it’s quite another to buy into the notion that “all vets deserve to be thanked.” When a war is a criminal endeavor, the first order of business is getting the populace to clearly recognize it as such. That’s a much higher principle than “thanking” veterans. If one accepts the bogus principle of always “thanking and honoring” the troops, this gets in the way of recognizing the criminality of the war.
In other words, criminal wars are criminal — let’s face it. But let’s not blame the troops for this — let’s blame the monsters who led us into the war.
The second problem with the article is the quoting of the Iraqi man who said, “Mister, we Iraqis know that you have good intentions here. But before America invaded, we didn’t have to worry about car bombs in our neighborhoods…”
- It isn’t true that America had good intentions in Iraq. It was a disgusting & monstrous crime from the get-go. Even if some Iraqis are willing to generously ascribe “good intentions” to America in this invasion & occupation, we should all know better. Our government, particularly the Bush regime, never does anything with “good intentions.”
When I hear people talking about ‘good intentions’ I’m reminded about the truism that those ‘gi’s’ pave the road to hell. Hell is being wrought by the ‘good’ intentions of bush and his chickenhawk cronies. Whether it’s because bush is a sociopathic arse with delusions of talking to God, or because he wants to prevent oil being sold in Euros is not relevant anymore. Bush has to go to jail, he should spend the rest of his life in a cage, then be buried in a prison graveyard. Anything less than that type of death sentence will leave the world no choice but to see all yanks as massmurdering thieves who have never signed a treaty that was not to be broken.
I have cried way out of bed the past couple mornings listening to the winter soldier accounts on Democracy Now - this morning it was the accounts of the soldier who was turtured by his guilt over the violent crimes he had comitted in all of our names, ultimately comitting suicide.
It is all unrelenting stories of tragedy. My wife is trying to get me to stop setting the clock radio to Democracy Now every morning.
For example, I only learned today that six organizers of the peaceful anti Utibe protests in Colombia last week have been murdered by government-connected death squads. Dozens of others recieved death threats.
I don’t know how Amy Goodman manages to do it every morning. The truth should not be so depressing.
So far I pretty well agree with the article and the commenters.
During Vietnam I was a fledgling newsman, and I NEVER saw or directly heard of any returning soldiers that were “spit on” with the possible exception of William Calley.
I DID however hear many stories about massacres in what were most likely peaceful farming communities, atrocities, and the black “humor” of terribly depressed American soldiers.
I am outraged that the mainstream media has ignored the new Winter Soldier Hearings, because I believe heartland America needs to hear those stories… if for no other reason but to understand why so many returning soldiers are going to need serious mental health care for many years to come.
As John Kerry testified before the Senate foreign Relations Commission in April of 1971, our government tends to turn it’s back on the people who give up so much for our leadership.
We are ALREADY seeing that many who need help are not getting it, which most likely means another generation of people going “postal” and shooting up their job site or public places… or spending their lives living under bridges and on park benches.
The worst scars of war are not always visible.
I have been watching the testimony on Democracy Now also. As much as I feel for these clearly tortured young men, it is the people of Iraq who earn my deepest sympathy and for whom I feel the most guilt. As much as these soldiers suffer from their experiences, the people whom they brutalized and killed will never have the opportunity to testify to what they have experienced. While the author of this article stresses what war has done to our troops, we must focus our attention on the effects of their actions on the Iraqi and Afghan people, because they are the real victims here.
When I hear this testimony, I can only imagine how proud the neocons must be of “our boys” over there who torment and destroy the lives of those whose country we occupy. The actions of US troops that these “winter soldiers” describe is precisely the kind of unrestrained sadistic brutality that defines power in the eyes of those who would seek US global dominance.
At least the Sun is talking about Winter Soldier. By Tuesday I still could find nothing on CNN or in the New York Times on this story, so I e-mailed them both. Got the usual “thanks for your interest” garbage. The truth is, the corporate media are COMPLICIT in these War Crimes and they should be thrown in jail right next to the criminals in the White house and in Congress. It is incredible how easy these pieces of crap find it to kill thousands. If there IS a hell, they must have a special wing all decked out for these bastards.
He’s five foot-two, and he’s six feet-four,
He fights with missiles and with spears.
He’s all of thirty-one, and he’s only seventeen,
Been a soldier for a thousand years.
He’a a Catholic, a Hindu, an Atheist, a Jain,
A Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew.
And he knows he shouldn’t kill,
And he knows he always will,
Kill you for me my friend and me for you.
And he’s fighting for Canada,
He’s fighting for France,
He’s fighting for the USA,
And he’s fighting for the Russians,
And he’s fighting for Japan,
And he thinks we’ll put an end to war this way.
And he’s fighting for Democracy,
He’s fighting for the Reds,
He says it’s for the peace of all.
He’s the one who must decide,
Who’s to live and who’s to die,
And he never sees the writing on the wall.
But without him,
How would Hitler have condemned him at Dachau?
Without him Caesar would have stood alone,
He’s the one who gives his body
As a weapon of the war,
And without him all this killing can’t go on.
He’s the Universal Soldier and he really is to blame,
His orders come from far away no more,
They come from here and there and you and me,
And brothers can’t you see,
This is not the way we put the end to war.
Print out the transcripts of the testimony from Democracy now…put them under car windshields of any car that has a support our troops yellow ribbons…email it to your local newspaper. Email it to your congressmen and centers. Put it on your blogs as I havehttp://theexpatwriter.blogspot.com .
Phone your papers and TV stations…let them know we know they aren’t doing their jobs. Maybe it will scare them a bit just a bit
Post it on walls, get the word out…
When the Commander-in-Chief and his cronies are shameless, power-crazy, sociopaths who flaunt their distain for peons (ie. humans) and for the rule of law….
arrogance and indifference cannot help but flow down through the pipes — right to the bottom of the chain of command.
I want to encourage all of our veterans, of any conflict, to go beyond the Winter Soldier hearings. Have panel discussions, hold meetings, formal or informal, talk to the media at every opportunity, and tell your stories, no matter how shocking or painful they are to you. Don’t spare the details. Let the world know the true cost of war. This will help you heal and it will help advance the cause of peace.
Broadcasting where? On Alternet?
kelmer,
Very good poem!
peaceman,
What Kelmer printed wasn’t his/her writing. They were the lyrics of the popular hit song “Universal Soldier” by Buffy Sainte Marie in 1963 or 64, and later sung by Donavan. Proper credit should have been given.
Stiv,
Three days of highlights of the hearings were broadcast on the program “Democracy Now”. You can listen to them on their website:
www.domocracynow.org
That should be www.democracynow.org of course.
I too think the mistreatment of Vietnam vets is a myth. I landed in California in March 1973 a cab took me to my destination, ignored the 20 dollar tab and said welcome home and drove off. Then three businessmen saw me invited me into a restaurant bought me drinks and a steak dinner.As I left after dinner I ran into believe it or not none other than Jane Fonda; she noticed my Air Force uniform and apologized for the Hanoi Anti-aircraft incident and invited me to her home and we had sex for two hours. I could not believe the star of Barberella and Barefoot in the Park, riding me like a cowgirl. This story may seem a bit hard to believe but I bet the first poster of this discussion will.