COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Service: General
Iraq War Vets' Support for Lt. Watada Growing
Sarah Olson, t r u t h o u t
August 16, 2006
Clifton
Hicks was looking for a body. Specifically, the Army tank driver was
fumbling about in the dark, looking for and failing to find the remains
of the Iraqis who, moments before, had been firing on his tank. When
Hicks's flashlight swept the ground around his feet, he realized he was
standing in the remains of a man. Literally. His boots wedged between
the rib cage and the pelvis, blood and human organs squishing out from
beneath the souls of his shoes.
It's this experience and others like it that
made Hicks question the war in Iraq. It also compelled him to support
US Army First Lieutenant Ehren Watada - the highest-ranking member of
the military to publicly refuse to deploy to Iraq.
28-year-old Lieutenant Watada disobeyed
deployment orders on June 22nd, several weeks after announcing his
opposition to the war at a press conference. He is charged with six
violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice: one count of
missing troop movement, two counts of speaking contemptuously toward
officials, and three counts of conduct unbecoming an officer and a
gentleman. An Article 32 hearing is scheduled for Thursday, August
17th, to decide whether to proceed with a general court-martial. If
tried and convicted, Lieutenant Watada could face over 7 years in
prison.
"GI Resistance Is a Growing Trend"
The Army would like to depict Lieutenant Watada
as a lone military voice of dissent: a renegade upon whom enlisted men
and officers alike look with scorn and derision. But Clifton Hicks is
joining a growing number of Iraq war combat veterans who support the
Lieutenant. And, he says, for every veteran who supports Lieutenant
Watada publicly, there are possibly hundreds more who feel they cannot
speak out.
Geoffrey Millard is a sergeant in the Army
National Guard and has no problem speaking publicly or supporting
Lieutenant Watada. He spent eight years in the military, and was in
Iraq between 2004 and 2005. He says GI resistance is a growing trend.
"American GIs are beginning to respect the Nuremberg principles. They
are resisting orders; they are going to jail, going to Canada, and
going AWOL. And they're talking about why they're doing it."
When he was ordered to deploy, Millard says he
didn't know how to resist the war. "Lieutenant Watada hadn't come
forward. I didn't know about Camilo Mejia." This, he says, is the
importance of Lieutenant Watada's public opposition to the war. It
shows military personnel who disagree with the Iraq war another path.
Millard says it's important that leaders like
Lieutenant Watada are supported; the brutality and duration of the US
occupation demand it. He remembers a day during his tour of duty when a
soldier opened fire on a car, killing an entire family. During the
evening briefing, the commanding colonel said, "If these fucking Hajjis
would learn to drive, this shit wouldn't happen." This is one of
countless examples Millard has of the dehumanization accompanying the
Iraq war. "This person wiped out an entire bloodline, and the colonel
implied it was the victims' fault, using language designed to offend
and demean them."
"We Were Conditioned to Hate Them"
Army tank driver Clifton Hicks says the
military presence in Iraq is clearly not making a difference for the
Iraqi people. "We didn't care about Iraqis, because we were conditioned
to hate them." He says he knows from experience that Lieutenant
Watada's belief that the war is illegal and immoral is the correct
position.
Hicks is haunted by his activity in Iraq. He
talks about what he calls the "wedding party incident." His unit was on
patrol when they heard shooting between US armed forces and what they
thought were Iraqi insurgents. While Hicks prepared to go house to
house in search of the enemy, what he discovered instead was a wedding.
Some of the men had been shooting rifles into the air, as is customary
during family parties and celebrations. Three people from the wedding
were shot; a six-year-old girl was killed. When the platoon sergeant
called the command center to report the incident, "all they said to us
was 'Charlie Mike,' a stupid Army acronym for continue mission."
No one spoke of the incident, and it was like
it never happened. "What struck me most was just how callous we had
become. I didn't even care myself. Sure some Iraqi kid had been killed;
big deal. It's like seeing a dead dog on the side of the road." Hicks
said he had no thoughts of shame or regret, no thoughts of the girl's
mother or friends.
"We hated them and were happy to have killed
one. For as long as I can remember I've been taught to fear and
mistrust Arabs. That's how those kids on the news were able to rape the
14-year-old girl, shoot her in the face, and kill her whole family.
They just didn't care, they still don't care, they couldn't make
themselves care if they tried. Every soldier on the frontlines is
capable of that or worse."
Hicks eventually filed for and received
conscientious objector status. He wants the US to withdraw from Iraq
immediately, and is convinced Lieutenant Watada is taking the only
honorable and patriotic action available in the face of what he calls
an unjust and illegal war. "The only way to be a patriot is to be
against the war. Thomas Jefferson would pat me and Lieutenant Watada on
the back."
"I Feel Guilt All the Time About What I Contributed"
Indiscriminate violence is only one of the
reasons Prentice Reid supports Lieutenant Watada. Reid was in the Army
Infantry for one tour in Iraq, between March of 2002 and 2003. He was
honorably discharged in May of 2005, and is now a student at Central
Texas College near Ft. Hood, Texas. To Lieutenant Watada, he writes: "I
only hope all of us can find the balls to stand up for truth when the
time comes. You risked not only your reputation, but also potentially
your freedom, for truth, and for this we all salute you, sir."
Reid says he questioned the war from the
beginning, but his doubts deepened when he arrived in Iraq. "The entire
war was a sham from the beginning," Reid says. "There were no WMDs. No
connection to Osama bin Laden. I'm over there thinking we have an
enemy, but this is contradicted every day by what I'm seeing as I drive
around."
Reid was a truck driver in Iraq, and one of his
responsibilities was to transport Iraqi prisoners to US-run prisons. "I
would see how they were treated; there was so much abuse. There was no
restroom for them, and they had to urinate and defecate on themselves."
Reid says most were later released without charges having been filed
against them.
"The longer we were there, the more things
deteriorated. There was tighter security, more check points. Things
were not rebuilt. I wish I had had the courage and the platform to
speak out," Reid says. "I have insomnia. I have nightmares. I feel
guilt all the time about what I contributed."
Reid says families and communities are
destroyed due to the length of time troops are required to spend in
Iraq, and their insufficient medical treatment when they return. He
says he's put his own wife and daughter through hell. He doesn't want
others to experience this type of trauma, and believes that leaders
like Lieutenant Watada are taking an important and necessary step
toward ending the war. He says that rather than feeling betrayed by
Lieutenant Watada's actions, he feels encouraged and supported.
"Lieutenant Watada Speaks for Me"
An active duty Army specialist who has asked to
use only his initials, DP, stationed at Ft. Stewart, Georgia, joined
the Army in April of 2003. He was injured during training, but expects
to join his unit in Afghanistan in February of 2007. At Ft. Stewart
he's escorted war resisters to their court-martial and is generally
sympathetic. But it's different for a Lieutenant to make this kind of
stand, he says. "To see an officer who recognizes that something is
wrong and who would take that kind of heat: I really respect that."
When he joined the Army, DP believed in what
was happening in Iraq. "When I learned there were no WMDs, I was pretty
disappointed in the military intelligence, the analysts, and everyone
who swore up and down that this was a necessary pre-emptive strike," he
says. As the US armed forces mission in Iraq disappears, DP says new
goals are put in place. The goal of finding weapons of mass destruction
turned into the military overthrow of Saddam Hussein as the objective.
After Hussein was detained, the military was to help stabilize Iraq.
"Our mission isn't clear, and keeps shifting. I feel like a puppet."
Over the phone, you can hear DP talking to his
son. He and his wife are also expecting twins. He says that while he
doesn't support the Iraq war, protesting isn't an option for him. "I
don't have the financial freedom to protest the war. Lieutenant Watada
is speaking for me." DP is the only member of his family with a paying
job, and with twins on the way, he doesn't feel he can risk going to
prison. But, DP says, the anti-war protests are important. "We in the
military don't have free speech. If you've got a problem with the
government you need to be able to tell them."
DP says he got in trouble recently for talking
about Lieutenant Watada. His commanding officers told him that as long
as he was in the military and wearing the military uniform, he needed
to keep a low profile, and not voice anti-government opinions.
Regretting Participation in the War (or Something)
"It takes real courage to resist the war," says
Cloy Richards, a former artillery cannoneer for the Marines. "I was
afraid to not go; afraid to say no. I took the easy way out and went to
the war. It takes way more bravery to say no."
Corporal Richards did two tours of duty in
Iraq, between March and October of 2003, and again between March and
October of 2004. Like so many in the military, his initial support for
the invasion began to disintegrate as the occupation lengthened and
became more brutal.
"I was in the artillery unit. I saw a lot of
civilian casualties," says Richards, who has seven nephews and one
niece. "I love kids," he says. And his views of the Iraq war began to
change as he saw Iraqi children die. He particularly remembers watching
some kids play with unexploded ammunition. When it exploded, several of
them were killed and several more were disfigured. "It was kind of like
everything else over there. I just shoved it to the back of my mind
somewhere and forgot about it." Except that Richards couldn't actually
forget.
Richards has a hard time forgetting other
experiences in Iraq as well. For example, the first time he was
ambushed, on March 25th, 2003. "My commanding officer lost his hand
that day," Richards remembers. "But he wrapped cloth around the
remaining portions of his arm and led us into battle."
By his second tour of duty, Richards says he
didn't want to fight. The reason he's speaking out now, he says, is not
because he has some kind of agenda. "It's just that I've been there.
I've seen it. I feel sorry and am trying to make amends for all the bad
things I've been a part of. I should have said no the second time, when
my heart and my mind were telling me not to go."
This guilt is part of the reason Richards says
it's so important for the people like Lieutenant Watada to take the
lead. "As an officer, he lends more credibility to anti-war sentiments
among the troops. The Lieutenant is leading by example, and this is
taken very seriously. An officer's example is what we are supposed to
follow." It's only now, Richards says, that he's found an example that
he wants to follow.
Listening to the Troops
Geoffrey Millard, the 8-year Army National
Guard veteran is quick to point out that not any single story is
conclusive. Each member of the military has something to tell that
folks back in the states can learn from. "Each of these stories means
something," he says.
The experiences and the expertise of Iraq war
veterans are missing from the media coverage of the Iraq war. "When we
turn on the evening news, we don't ever hear about a GI's experience."
This leads to a skewed and unrealistic impression of the war. Millard
says that if the Iraq war veterans' opinions and experience were
valued, the Army would be forced to uphold Lieutenant Watada as a hero,
rather than attempt to put him in prison.
For now, there are dozens of members of the
military who publicly support Lieutenant Watada. There are likely
hundreds more who are watching anxiously in silence, waiting for an
outcome in Lieutenant Watada's case. They all say they view him as a
true war hero, and believe in his efforts to end the Iraq war. They say
he is fighting for what they believe in, and for that they are
grateful. In Army parlance, they might say Charlie Mike: continue
mission.
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You can find out the latest in Lieutenant
Watada's case by going to http://www.thankyoult.org. Sarah Olson is an
independent journalist and radio producer. You can reach her at
solson75@yahoo.com.
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