Sam Hill
2008-03-17 12:57:07 UTC
Winter Soldier: America Must Hear These Iraq Vets' Stories
By Penny Coleman, AlterNet. Posted March 15, 2008.
If America listens to what they say, the war would be over tomorrow.
I missed the Winter Soldier Investigation in 1971. At the time I was married
to a vet who desperately wanted to put his war behind him -- and he wanted
me to help him do it. We were supposed to pretend it had never happened. It
didn't work.
Daniel refused to talk about Vietnam. "Talk to your old lady? No fucking
way," his friend Bobby Lanz shot back when I said I thought that maybe
Daniel wouldn't have killed himself if I had been able to get him to talk
about whatever it was that was causing him such pain. "With other vets, you
can say, 'shit man, I did all this horrible stuff. You're not going to
believe the stuff I did', and someone who has been there will say, 'Yeah, so
did I, so did we all.' But with your woman? You start to talk about having
fucked some folks up bad, doing awful things, killing people, maybe, and she
starts to cry and you don't go there again. You think, Fuck me, man, I don't
need to hurt her. This is psychological abuse, so I am going to shut up."
Maybe I wouldn't have understood. Completely. But not knowing was far worse.
For decades, I took responsibility for his death. I thought it was my fault.
And even if I hadn't been able to understand exactly what he was talking
about, I would have understood that he was in a kind of lethal pain. Whether
it was that he thought he deserved to die or that he deserved to be put out
of his misery, either way, execution or euthanasia, I would have understood
that he had been injured in the war. And I would have known where to focus
my grief and my rage.
What I kept thinking today, listening to all those who testified at this new
Winter Soldier investigation sponsored by Iraq Veterans Against the War at
the National Labor College in Washington, DC, is that so much grief and pain
for the past 30 years has been mis-directed, so much energy wasted, blaming
ourselves and the soldiers we loved for the injuries that we couldn't see.
Joyce Lucey, the mother of a soldier who took his own life after returning
from Iraq, said that when he left he gave her a coin and told her to hold it
like an amulet to keep him safe. She did, but she now understands that even
though her son had been returned to her, his soul had been destroyed. "I
should have been holding that coin after he came home."
But, she continued, "His voice is silenced. Ours is not." And she quoted
Edmund Burke: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil in America is
for good men to do nothing."
Everything I heard today spoke to that challenge, to the challenge of
channeling our combined grief and rage into a focused fight that will
really, finally make a difference. Clifton Hicks began his testimony by
saying that all of the men he served with in Iraq were there for love: love
of country, of ideals, of comrades, and "for that they are beyond judgment.
I am here," he added, "to judge the war itself."
One after another, veterans told conflicted stories, some with tears, some
with rigid control, some with visible shakes, but all with hard-won moral
courage and deep sorrow. John Michael Turner began his testimony by telling
the audience that as far as he was concerned, "Once a Marine, Always a
Marine" was history. For him it is now "Eat the apple and fuck the corps."
Then he tossed his dog tags into the audience saying, "Fuck you, I don't
work for you no more." Turner's first confirmed kill was on April 18, 2006.
He shot an Iraqi boy in front of his father. It took a second shot to kill
him. He had a photograph of the boy's open skull. Turner was personally
congratulated by his commanding officer, who proceeded to offer a four day
pass to anyone who got a kill by stabbing one of the enemy. Turner ended
with, "I am sorry for the hate and destruction that I have inflicted on
innocent people. I am sorry for the things I did. I am no longer the monster
that I once was."
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.
More of this here:
http://www.alternet.org/asoldierspeaks/79789/
By Penny Coleman, AlterNet. Posted March 15, 2008.
If America listens to what they say, the war would be over tomorrow.
I missed the Winter Soldier Investigation in 1971. At the time I was married
to a vet who desperately wanted to put his war behind him -- and he wanted
me to help him do it. We were supposed to pretend it had never happened. It
didn't work.
Daniel refused to talk about Vietnam. "Talk to your old lady? No fucking
way," his friend Bobby Lanz shot back when I said I thought that maybe
Daniel wouldn't have killed himself if I had been able to get him to talk
about whatever it was that was causing him such pain. "With other vets, you
can say, 'shit man, I did all this horrible stuff. You're not going to
believe the stuff I did', and someone who has been there will say, 'Yeah, so
did I, so did we all.' But with your woman? You start to talk about having
fucked some folks up bad, doing awful things, killing people, maybe, and she
starts to cry and you don't go there again. You think, Fuck me, man, I don't
need to hurt her. This is psychological abuse, so I am going to shut up."
Maybe I wouldn't have understood. Completely. But not knowing was far worse.
For decades, I took responsibility for his death. I thought it was my fault.
And even if I hadn't been able to understand exactly what he was talking
about, I would have understood that he was in a kind of lethal pain. Whether
it was that he thought he deserved to die or that he deserved to be put out
of his misery, either way, execution or euthanasia, I would have understood
that he had been injured in the war. And I would have known where to focus
my grief and my rage.
What I kept thinking today, listening to all those who testified at this new
Winter Soldier investigation sponsored by Iraq Veterans Against the War at
the National Labor College in Washington, DC, is that so much grief and pain
for the past 30 years has been mis-directed, so much energy wasted, blaming
ourselves and the soldiers we loved for the injuries that we couldn't see.
Joyce Lucey, the mother of a soldier who took his own life after returning
from Iraq, said that when he left he gave her a coin and told her to hold it
like an amulet to keep him safe. She did, but she now understands that even
though her son had been returned to her, his soul had been destroyed. "I
should have been holding that coin after he came home."
But, she continued, "His voice is silenced. Ours is not." And she quoted
Edmund Burke: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil in America is
for good men to do nothing."
Everything I heard today spoke to that challenge, to the challenge of
channeling our combined grief and rage into a focused fight that will
really, finally make a difference. Clifton Hicks began his testimony by
saying that all of the men he served with in Iraq were there for love: love
of country, of ideals, of comrades, and "for that they are beyond judgment.
I am here," he added, "to judge the war itself."
One after another, veterans told conflicted stories, some with tears, some
with rigid control, some with visible shakes, but all with hard-won moral
courage and deep sorrow. John Michael Turner began his testimony by telling
the audience that as far as he was concerned, "Once a Marine, Always a
Marine" was history. For him it is now "Eat the apple and fuck the corps."
Then he tossed his dog tags into the audience saying, "Fuck you, I don't
work for you no more." Turner's first confirmed kill was on April 18, 2006.
He shot an Iraqi boy in front of his father. It took a second shot to kill
him. He had a photograph of the boy's open skull. Turner was personally
congratulated by his commanding officer, who proceeded to offer a four day
pass to anyone who got a kill by stabbing one of the enemy. Turner ended
with, "I am sorry for the hate and destruction that I have inflicted on
innocent people. I am sorry for the things I did. I am no longer the monster
that I once was."
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.
More of this here:
http://www.alternet.org/asoldierspeaks/79789/