Winter Soldiers Speak Out

[Paladin]

You might hear more on this subject as time passes, more media outlets are reporting on this subject. As horrible as it is, I understand how things can degrade in this way, it isn't just the soldiers fault, it's putting them in the position they are in. It happens in war because war isn't the good guys against the bad guys.

US/IRAQ: Rules of Engagement "Thrown Out the Window"

 

[17th Angel]

War is ugly... There is no good side, there is no bad side... Also no matter how much you wish to believe you have control and organisation... Chaos doesn't have laws and rules... It just is... And it's ugly. Sometimes we like to believe in such things as rules and codes and ways and laws to pretend we are better than our "enemy".... It's not about what you can't do... Only thing that counts in war is what a man can do. There are no winners.

 

[Pathless]

More coverage and commentary on this:

"Hart Viges told of having an insurgent, armed with a rocket-propelled grenade, in his sights during a firefight and not being able to pull the trigger. He was frozen by awareness that the fear and confusion he saw on the Iraqi kid's face was exactly what he imagined was on his own."

...

'Jason Hurt, a medic from East Tennessee, said, "I am a peaceful person, and I drew down on an 80 year old woman. I hate guns. They should all be melted down into jewelry." And he added, if this were happening where he lives, if some foreign occupying force came into his part of the world, "every self-respecting citizen would come out of the hills with a shotgun to defend their country."'

Winter Soldier: America Must Hear These Iraq Vets' Stories | War on Iraq: A Soldier Speaks | AlterNet


"In Iraq and Afghanistan, racism is operationalized -- it's endemic to the culture of occupation, and, worse still, it comes from the top of the chain of command and works its way down the line. It's used to devalue and dehumanize the populations of occupied lands, and to motivate soldiers to overcome their natural inhibitions against cruelty."

Iraq Vets: 'Racism Endemic; Comes from the Top of Command Chain' (VIDEO) | War on Iraq | AlterNet


'For all their courage, the male veterans who confessed what they did overseas could expect empathy from the audience and their fellow veterans at Winter Soldier. It's hard to imagine that female veterans -- many who had nothing to confess but the demeaning or violent actions of their fellow soldiers -- would have felt so comfortable. It's ironic, perhaps. But as Jen put it: "A lot of people think it's a women's issue and not a military issue."'

Veterans Decry Institutional Sexism in Military | War on Iraq: A Soldier Speaks | AlterNet





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[Paladin]

I put ten years in the Army, carried a Rucksack and Rifle over more terrain than I care to remember. What I do remember is how important it was to dehumanize people. It was part of our daily routine and embedded in our training. Slogans like "kill em all let God sort em out" and "blood makes the grass grow" were very popular in the Infantry.
There will be those who will be sacrificed to the UCMJ when things like this become well known but the problem simply isn't a few bad apples, the problem is warfare and how it changes even the best, most upright people into a monster. I saw it happening to the way I thought and acted too.

 

[Pathless]

the problem is warfare and how it changes even the best, most upright people into a monster. I saw it happening to the way I thought and acted too.

I have no doubt about the truth of this. Watching the vets speak out at Winter Soldier is both encouraging and heartbreaking. At the end of the video posted on Alternet, one of them really nails it down when he, with a cracking voice, protests with a simple statement: "The longer we live as a human race, we're supposed to be getting smarter and wiser and better."

It's beyond a damn shame that so many people have to suffer to bring a brainwashed media-shaped society back to human common sense and decency. The integrity of the individuals speaking out is obvious, as is their outrage, pain, and deep sense of betrayal by those holding positions above them, to whom they gave respect and deference. These soldiers have suffered along with the targeted populations of the "War on Terror." All of this suffering is so unnecessary and such a shame.

While I've found it difficult to understand how someone could be duped into "serving" in the War on/of Terror, it is impossible not to be moved by these testimonies. One thing is clear: dignity and human compassion are resilient and capable of impossible struggles against hatred; these soliders are courageous not for their physical military service, but for their claiming of and advocation for conscience and humanity in the face of overwhelming popular ignorance, complicity, and delusion.

 

[path_of_one]

I caught a little bit of this, then had to turn it off. It breaks my heart. I'm aware of it, but the details only make me miserable.

Last week I bought a train ticket for a homeless guy who was a veteran from Afghanistan who was trying to get to some friends north of my work. He'd been discharged after his vehicle was hit with a bomb- he died and was brought back and then his face was stitched back together with pins and plates. It's a long story why and how, but suffice it to say he lost everything and was more or less abandoned by our government, when he obviously had some issues stemming from head trauma (seizures, etc.) and PTSD. The poor guy was white-knuckled and shaking the entire time we went through tunnels. I just kept sitting with him and reminding him it was OK.

A note about why some people serve... this particular guy was in foster care until he was 17. He had 32 foster homes between the time he was abandoned by his mother at 9 and when he ran away from the state's care at 17 to live on the streets. He soon after joined the military. With no family, no money, no decent education (imagine the disruption to a kid's life to move 4 times a year), no way to go to college... what are these kids supposed to do? This is not the first time I've heard of kids joining the military because they literally feel they have no other options and are basically living on the streets. Just take a look at the foster/adoption state site for any state- the bulk of kids are over 13 and not very adoptable by that time. The military gives them a sense of family, order, service, pride, career that are otherwise unavailable to them.

And quite a few kids whose parents don't have money for college join so they have an option to pay for college and have a career.

Basically, it isn't to say that all the people in the military are disadvantaged, but I think there is a big problem of our inequality and lack of decent homes for many children yielding a large population of 18-year-olds who have few options and little family support. They join because their back is against a wall.

War breaks my heart. It makes no sense. We can't gain peace through war. The more wars we have, the shorter the interval of peace between them. War does, indeed, take compassionate ordinary people and turn them into cold killing machines... only later to chew them up and spit them out either dead or psychologically damaged- sometimes beyond repair.

 

[Pathless]

A note about why some people serve... this particular guy was in foster care until he was 17. He had 32 foster homes between the time he was abandoned by his mother at 9 and when he ran away from the state's care at 17 to live on the streets. He soon after joined the military. With no family, no money, no decent education (imagine the disruption to a kid's life to move 4 times a year), no way to go to college... what are these kids supposed to do? This is not the first time I've heard of kids joining the military because they literally feel they have no other options and are basically living on the streets. Just take a look at the foster/adoption state site for any state- the bulk of kids are over 13 and not very adoptable by that time. The military gives them a sense of family, order, service, pride, career that are otherwise unavailable to them.

And quite a few kids whose parents don't have money for college join so they have an option to pay for college and have a career.

Basically, it isn't to say that all the people in the military are disadvantaged, but I think there is a big problem of our inequality and lack of decent homes for many children yielding a large population of 18-year-olds who have few options and little family support. They join because their back is against a wall.

Yes, that's very true. Although I don't feel I've lived an exactly charmed life, in some ways I have: I certainly have been fortunate enough to have been raised in a fairly stable family setting and had more than an average education provided to me. Maybe I've taken that for granted. I've been lucky there. Certainly if I had found myself in the military, I would have been fodder and churned out the back end as one traumatized soldier, or much worse. Of that I also have no doubts.

 

[cyberpi]

So then which is better or worse: to place faith in government that sends you to war allegedly for a public, or to place faith in government that sends your neighbor to war allegedly for you. How convenient to look down on people in a military, when it is the apathetic public making a more selfish and in my view, worse mistake. I say that neither to condone war, nor military, nor government. Shame on the public... shame on the civilian who places their faith in the same government.

 

[Tao_Equus]

I remember seeing a TV report into US army recruitment techniques about 4 years ago. From that it was clear that they had a policy of recruiting from depressed areas and giving petty criminals the option of fight or jail. You wont find infantry recruiters on the lawns of Harvard or Yale. Another technique the military used was to recruit kids as "reservists" telling them they would be able to continue college, get money and probably never have to fight. But of course as soon as basic training was completed they were called up and shipped out.

It is much the same story here. Certain deprived areas have a sort of tradition of feeding the army. Sometimes I wonder if there is a connection, a reason, that these areas remain depressed and deprived decade after decade.

Tao

 

[17th Angel]

I put ten years in the Army, carried a Rucksack and Rifle over more terrain than I care to remember. What I do remember is how important it was to dehumanize people. It was part of our daily routine and embedded in our training. Slogans like "kill em all let God sort em out" and "blood makes the grass grow" were very popular in the Infantry.

I am sure you have missed out some details... (for the best...) With the missed out details It seems like your training and way of life was much like mine...... I remember having to step time for three hours while saying nothing but "kill." (There I was... Mothers little brave angel....) I'd rather sit around on my couch smoking for three hours, saying nothing but Peace....