Gulf War Vets: Resisting and Telling the Truth\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/p>
by Michael Slate<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Just about every guy I knew when I was a teenager ended up in Vietnam. The\r\ndraft board buses used to load up outside the steel mill, and they were packed\r\nfull--week after week, year after year. Everybody just staring out the window,\r\nno smiles, no laughs, sometimes a few wet eyes.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
A whole lot of the guys never came back. Some came back with no legs or\r\nmissing arms. And many came back to our streets consumed by day-long\r\nnightmares.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
And still many others came back to oppose the Vietnam War and to speak out\r\nso that everyone could know the truth about the war.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
America always claims its wars are just and noble, all about freedom. Some\r\nfolks still buy the okie- doke on this, but a whole lot don't. Because of their\r\nexperience as soldiers in an imperialist military fighting an unjust war, vets\r\nhave a special ability and responsibility to speak the truth to the rest of us.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Lots of youth join the military today because they're looking for a job,\r\ncollege money, a way to see the world while they figure out what they're gonna\r\ndo with their lives. They didn't think they're going to war. And a lot of\r\npeople figure that even if they do end up in war, the TV news showed how clean\r\nand neat the 1990-1991 Gulf War was--a video game war with smart bombs and\r\nprecision missiles. But many of the vets who fought the war--not to mention the\r\nIraqi people who were the victims of the war--know all too well that this is a\r\nhorrendous lie.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Almost 700,000 U.S. troops served in the Gulf War between August 2, 1990, and July 31, 1991. As many as 100,000 of these troops suffer from what's\r\nknown as the Gulf War Syndrome. They were exposed to repeated low levels of\r\nchemical warfare agents, including sarin, cyclosarin, and mustard gases. Eight\r\nthousand troops received botulinum toxoid (Bot Tox) vaccine and 150,000 got the\r\nanthrax vaccine as part of some human experimentation routine. At least 436,000\r\nsoldiers entered into or lived for months in areas contaminated by more than\r\n315 tons of toxic waste from radioactive depleted uranium from U.S. ammunition.\r\nAlmost all of these troops had no awareness about the dangers, no training or\r\nprotective equipment, and no medical evaluations.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
On the Iraqi side, somewhere around 100,000 Iraqi soldiers were killed by\r\nOperation Desert Storm. More than a million Iraqi civilians have died since the\r\nGulf War--from the effects of the bombings and the economic sanctions imposed\r\nby the U.S. and its allies. Many more could die in a new U.S. war on Iraq.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
U.S. military veterans who fought in the Gulf War know the real story behind\r\nthe official American story. They live with what they saw and what they did. As\r\nU.S. imperialism rushes toward another war on Iraq, many of these vets feel\r\ncompelled to tell what they experienced, first-hand, about U.S. crimes in Iraq.\r\nAnd some of the vets tell the story of how they resisted during the Gulf War.\r\nThey feel a responsibility to help build the anti-war movement today--and to\r\nhelp the soldiers facing a new Gulf War do the right thing.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Andrew McGuffin is quiet and calm these days. He says it took him a long\r\ntime to get there. He started out dirt poor in <\/i>Beckley<\/i>, <\/i>West\r\n Virginia<\/i>. He's a lawyer now, a far cry from the penniless youth who\r\nstood alone in <\/i>San Diego<\/i> more than 12 years ago--no high school\r\ndegree, no job, no nothing. He was a kid when he joined the Marine Corps, and\r\nhe hoped it would turn his life around. Today he talks about how he was drafted\r\nby poverty.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"I went to Marine combat training and then to School of Infantry. While\r\nI was in School of Infantry, about 12 days before I graduated, the Iraqi forces\r\ninvaded Kuwait. Four days after I graduated, I was on my way there.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"We really didn't know that it was going to be Iraqis until August, and\r\nby that time there were only a couple of weeks of training left. But it was\r\nimmediately impressed upon me that [the Iraqis] were sub-humans, through\r\nvarious epithets about their head attire or whatever. There were all kinds of\r\npejorative terms that were used to describe anybody of Muslim or Arab descent.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"There was this one song that we used to sing as we ran. It was, `Gonna\r\nrape, kill, pillage, and burn. Gonna rape, kill, pillage, and burn.' And that's\r\nsomething that we sang quite a bit. And we talked about `Blood makes the grass\r\ngrow, we make the blood flow.'<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"The Marine Corps went from Saudi Arabia into Kuwait. We infiltrated in\r\nthe night through various minefields, concertina wire, and obstacle belts. When\r\nI got there I saw the fires from the oil wells, smoke filling the sky, fires\r\n50, 75, 100 feet in the air, and people dying. People dying from mines, from\r\nautomatic weapons fire, from our planes killing them, from us killing them with\r\nmachine guns and mortar fire and artillery fire.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"It was horrific. It was non-stop horror. It just wasn't covered in the\r\nU.S. media because the government didn't want the American people to be fully\r\ninformed about what we were doing there or what was happening to the troops.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"I had the knowledge of an infantryman that depleted uranium tank\r\nshells could easily penetrate the armor of Iraqi tanks. I didn't have the\r\nknowledge that depleted uranium would cause lifelong illness to the people who\r\nwere exposed to the particles that are airborne from firing depleted uranium\r\nshells. I didn't know that the bombs that were being dropped by our aircraft or\r\nby our artillery were coated in depleted uranium. I didn't know that countless\r\nthousands of Iraqi children would be dying from depleted uranium illnesses.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"Another one of the things that really disturbed me while I was there\r\nwas just seeing the massive destruction of the landscape, the harm to the\r\nenvironment. But most of all it was burning people around the highways, around Kuwait\r\n City, the infamous `highway of death'--those people who were just annihilated.\r\nThere can be no doubt in anybody's mind who sees the pictures from what\r\nhappened there that that was a crime against humanity, a war crime.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"It still affects me to this day. The smell of burning people is very\r\nmuch like the smell of burning hair. But of course, most people who smell\r\nburning hair only smell it in small doses. And when it's people, it's much more\r\nprominent and disturbing. It's a smell that I don't think anybody can ever\r\nforget once they've smelled it. I had to go in for oral surgery at some point,\r\nand something was cut out of my mouth with a cauterizing gun. I smelled that,\r\nand it immediately took me back to Kuwait and what I experienced there. It's\r\njust the most horrible smell. And almost immediately you know what it is.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"Not only are there the smells, but also the visions of the wrecked and\r\nbombed vehicles being mashed into the road, mashed into craters, or just\r\nincinerated with people incinerated around them. Or seeing the dead who have died\r\nfrom gunshot wounds who are just really, really messed up. The firepower of an\r\nautomatic weapon or a heavy machine gun will really, really destroy a human\r\nbody, and it's not a pretty sight.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"It not only changes your mind, but it makes you carry a burden of\r\nshame and guilt about participating in those things for the rest of your life.\r\nI think it's a sadness that I'll bear with me for the rest of my life.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"The things that I was participating in was our units' killing people\r\nin trench lines across the minefields and taking a lot of prisoners--or not\r\ntaking them. There was an incident where we took an Iraqi officer prisoner and\r\nturned him over to our intelligence officer. From my understanding, [the Iraqi\r\nofficer] wanted to have his troops be able to surrender to our forces. But\r\nbecause of the emphasis on moving forward and getting to Kuwait City and being\r\non the attack, the intelligence officer apparently just called artillery on\r\nthese people and blew them up.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"A lot of the people that we encountered who were prisoners of war, our\r\nprisoners, were people who were starving, who had been bombed for a month, who\r\nwere barely holding onto their sanity, and were very much like me. They were\r\npoor people. They were uneducated by and large. They were not really wanting to\r\nbe there for any personal reasons but having been told by their government that\r\nthey were there for the right reasons. They perhaps felt compelled to be\r\nthere--either conscripted or whatever their situation might be.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"I think that the concept of `supporting the troops' is such a lie. I\r\nthink that when I got back and there were all these parades and people treating\r\nme like I was some war god, it really confused me more than anything--because I\r\nfelt like what I had done wasn't necessarily right.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Glen Motil describes himself as a <\/i>Marine<\/i> <\/i>Corps<\/i>\r\n <\/i>Gulf<\/i> War Veteran for Peace and Social Justice. He grew up in a\r\nsmall <\/i>Pennsylvania<\/i> town, and he was 17 when he joined the Marines\r\nwith a self-described great desire to serve his country and to defend\r\ndemocracy. The military has been a long tradition in his family, and there was\r\nnever any question whether he would do his four years. Glen joined in 1987 and\r\ngot out in late 1991. In those four years Glen began to change his views. He\r\nended up in the Persian Gulf War, but by the time he got there his views had\r\nbegun to change.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"I immediately began to question my decision when I arrived in boot\r\ncamp. Boot camp itself was a culture shock to begin with. In the Marine Corps\r\nboot camp, you're trained to be a killer, basically. There's no nice way to put\r\nit. Ingrained in that is a lot of racism and a lot of things that were against\r\nvalues that I was also <\/i>taught growing up. So I was taught to respect the\r\nmilitary, but I was also taught various religious and moral values. I believe that\r\nwhat I was experiencing in boot camp was counter to those values. So it was an\r\nimmediate contradiction. I felt that contradiction throughout my time in the\r\nservice.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"After boot camp I began reading American history, seeing films about\r\nthe Vietnam War era, and learning about the anti-war movement of that time,\r\nstudying history that we didn't learn in high school. It seemed that American\r\nhistory always ended with World War 2 and there was never enough time at the\r\nend of the year to cover what happened after <\/i>World War 2. Even that\r\nhistory was uncritical and just handed down to us from the point of view of America\r\nwas always `the shining city on the hill' kind of perspective.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"So by the time the Gulf War came around, by the beginning of 1990\r\neven, I was settling into somewhat of an anti-war position, even at that time.\r\nI was studying Vietnam and thinking that this kind of thing would never occur\r\nagain or could never occur again now that our country has been through that.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"In August, with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and then the military\r\nbuildup, I was dismayed and I was in disbelief that this was happening again. I\r\nalways felt that somehow it would stop. At the time I wasn't anti-war as I\r\nwould say I'm anti-war today. I was not taking a pacifist position. I believed\r\nthat there were still things worth fighting and dying for, such as democracy,\r\nhuman rights, and so forth, protection of my family and my way of life. I call\r\nit an evolution of my political thinking over the past 15 years.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"In the military itself, there's people with all different opinions. I\r\nfound myself drawn to people with similar opinions that came from either lower\r\nsocio-economic backgrounds or minority groups. They seemed to have a more\r\ncritical point of view from the start, so I was drawn to people like that.\r\nThere were several of my fellow Marines who had some college experience, and I\r\nenjoyed hanging out with them because I could express these kinds of thoughts.\r\nAnd I did express this even to my direct supervisors and so forth. I had a fairly\r\nliberal unit--so I was fortunate for that--where that kind of thing was not\r\nlooked down upon.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"I was a field radio operator and I worked at a communication unit, 9th\r\nCom Battalion out of Camp Pendleton. When we went over there we were stationed\r\nat Camp 5 in Saudi Arabia. They already had barracks set up. Saudi Arabians\r\nhave migrants come in to do a lot of the menial tasks from places like the Philippines.\r\nSo they already had these camps set up, but we turned it into a military\r\nencampment. I provided radio watch for the troops that were in the front.\r\nPerhaps you've seen it in films when a radioman is with a platoon, say, and\r\nhe's calling in for aerial bombardment or something and he calls the central\r\ncommand. I would be the person he was speaking to if I was on radio watch that\r\nevening.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"I didn't have a chance personally, and I thank God for this, to see\r\nthe devastation. I know people from my unit who were actually on the Marine\r\nExpeditionary Force. Many of my friends, they just saw many, many dead bodies\r\nand charred bodies, the result of these bombs that fell. Any Iraqis they did\r\nmeet were surrendering at the time. I don't know what my friends witnessed, but\r\nI've read reports of unarmed Iraqis being shot in half as they were trying to\r\nsurrender. I just remember the looks on their faces after the ground war was\r\nover and they came back to Camp 5 before the transition home. These were guys\r\nthat were happy-go-lucky guys, and I used to party with them and everything.\r\nAnd their faces were as if they had just seen a ghost. In many ways they had, I\r\nfound out later--but they didn't want to talk about what they had just seen.\r\nThey were visibly changed. I could tell just by looking at them.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"I can't speak for them, but what has gone through my mind since that\r\ntime is questioning of, `How could this in any way be right?' How could my\r\ncountry that I love, that I agreed to serve, have participated in such\r\ndevastation?\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Charles Sheehan-Miles also comes from a family with a long history of\r\nmilitary service. They all just assumed that he would continue the tradition.\r\nHe joined the Army in April 1990, about a year after high school. He finished\r\nboot camp about a week after <\/i>Iraq<\/i> invaded <\/i>Kuwait<\/i>.\r\nCharles went straight from basic training to <\/i>Saudi Arabia<\/i>. His\r\ntime in the <\/i>Persian Gulf<\/i> changed his life, and ever since he has\r\ntirelessly spoken out against war and especially the coming war against <\/i>Iraq<\/i>.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"I was an Abrams tank crewman and during the war my unit, the 24th\r\ninfantry division, we invaded Iraq from Saudi Arabia. We went up north as far\r\nas the Euphrates River Valley. I fought in a ground unit against the Iraqi\r\ntroops. We were involved in a number of direct combat engagements against Iraqi\r\nforces.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"I felt like I was on Mars when I got back to the States and saw the TV\r\ncoverage because it was all so pretty, clean, and precise. It was none of those\r\nthings.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"Our first engagement was chaotic. It was crazy. We came out of a\r\nsandstorm right into a dug- in infantry brigade of Iraqis. It was relatively\r\nclose quarters, close enough that we could see the Iraqi soldiers from 50\r\nmeters away as we shot at them and they shot at us. My unit took some\r\ncasualties in that battle, a number of people were wounded. The Iraqis, I\r\ncouldn't even guess how many were killed but it was many of them. They fought\r\nvery hard, but they didn't have the kind of equipment we had. They didn't have\r\nthe range. They didn't have the ability to fight back. It was by no means a\r\nbalanced or even fight. I don't think military planners intended it to be. We\r\nwent in there with overwhelming force and rolled over these people.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"The next morning, very early in the morning of February 26th, my unit\r\nwas just over on the far side of the highway, approaching the river. There was\r\na large logistics base or something for the Iraqis. I didn't really have a good\r\nfeel for it; it was night, we were in our tanks and all I had was a picture of\r\nmaybe 100 meters to our front. We were there waiting for fuel trucks and\r\nammunition to catch up with us so that we could refuel and move on. I woke\r\nup--we took turns sleeping because we had been up two or three days at that\r\npoint--I woke up hearing cries on the radio that there were trucks coming to\r\nour position. My platoon sergeant and I climbed up on top of our tank and we\r\nsaw these two trucks. One of the tanks fired and hit one of the trucks and it\r\nwas a fuel truck. It splashed burning diesel fuel all over the other truck. The\r\nother truck was a troop truck. Men ran out on fire; I don't know how many of\r\nthem. We did what we were trained to do. We shot them all and killed them.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"The human thing to do when you see someone on fire isn't to shoot\r\nthem. It's to help them out, to take a blanket and put out the fire. For me\r\nthat was a real watershed moment because it changed the nature of the way you\r\nlook at war in a very, very personal way. It took me years to be able to\r\ndiscuss that or to talk about what happened--or to really learn to live with\r\nmyself.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"But the war went on. Before the sun came up we moved out and rolled on\r\ntowards Basra. Not long after that we got into further engagements. Then there\r\nwas a huge engagement two days after the ceasefire, which was mind-boggling to\r\nme. My division, the 24th Infantry Division, attacked and destroyed a\r\nretreating Iraqi division that was coming up north out of Kuwait. This was in\r\nthe oilfields. The goal at that point, our orders were to destroy all the\r\nequipment--to destroy all the tanks and trucks. If we saw people we were to\r\nshoot them if they were armed or otherwise let them go. The devastation and\r\nchaos was literally indescribable. We were on this little two-lane causeway\r\nthrough this swamp and it was just packed with hundreds and hundreds of burning\r\nvehicles. It was crazy. The whole thing was indescribably chaotic. And you know,\r\nwe killed a lot of people. There's no way around that.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"The reason I talk about that is because what got broadcast back in the\r\nStates at the time was `Oh, look at this pretty smart bomb going down the shaft\r\nof this empty building in the middle of the night.' That's not what it was\r\nabout.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Jeff Paterson grew up in the <\/i>Central Valley<\/i> of <\/i>California<\/i>.\r\nIt's a place that plays a big part in feeding the rest of the country but can\r\nbe like a prison for an 18-year-old looking for a future.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n
Jeff joined the Marines at 18 because, in his words, he wanted to be a\r\n\"bad-ass fighting machine.\" Over the next four years as an artillery\r\ncontroller and traveling the world with the Marines, Jeff began to see the\r\npeople of the world in a different light. By the time he was ordered to the\r\nGulf War, Jeff was a changed man. He became the first active duty soldier to\r\nrefuse orders to go to war in the <\/i>Persian Gulf<\/i>.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"I served my four years, and I was a few weeks short of my end of\r\nactive duty service, looking forward to going back to school, when the Iraq war\r\nkicked off. And based on what I'd learned, how we were interacting with those\r\npeoples where I was at, and the things I'd heard from my buddies coming back\r\nfrom Central America--talking about helping out Contras <\/i>down there--and\r\nstuff going down in Beirut, I came to the conclusion, with some help of\r\nfriends, that it would be in the best interests of the people of the world for\r\nme to not <\/i>participate in the first Gulf War.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"I basically came to the conclusion that whatever the military could do\r\nto me for refusing to fight that war, it would be pretty insignificant compared\r\nto what we were going to do to the people of Iraq. I sort of knew that first\r\nhand because I was trained as a nuclear warhead technician for our artillery\r\nunit. And we were promised that we'd get to `nuke the ragheads' if anything\r\nwent wrong. My commanding officer, to make us more relaxed about going over\r\nthere and make us not worry so much, promised me particularly that if anything\r\nwent wrong, I would be able to assemble the nuclear warhead and `nuke the ragheads\r\nuntil they all glow.' That was his way of reassuring us that we'd be taken care\r\nof.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"So I held a press conference to get the word out, because I figured\r\nthe military wasn't going to look kindly on my ideas and that they'd probably\r\nwant to `disappear' me to the Middle East as quick as possible unless I got the\r\nword out. I threw together this press conference at the last minute, and\r\nbasically I just tried to articulate how I felt and that I wasn't going to be a\r\npawn in America's power plays for profit and oil in the Middle East. That's the\r\nway I looked at it, having tens of thousands and later hundreds of thousands of\r\nbasically pawns going out there, being shot up with anthrax vaccines, and given\r\ntoxic amounts of BP pills and botox pills and all these other things that are\r\nsupposed to keep you safe, that obviously have contributed to the illness of\r\n100,000 troops from the first Gulf War and 10,000 dying from Gulf War Syndrome.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"I went back and forth with the military about applying for a discharge\r\nas a conscientious objector, and that takes forever sometimes. In my case the\r\nmilitary decided that I wasn't actually `sincere' enough to be a conscientious\r\nobjector, denied my claim to be discharged, and ordered me on to the next\r\noutbound plane to Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"At that point, I actually just sat down on the runway and refused to\r\nget on the plane. Because of the publicity I had, they didn't just shackle me\r\nand throw me on the plane like they did to people later on as the war\r\nprogressed and other people refused to get on the plane much like I did.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"I went to Pearl Harbor brig. I did a couple of months there. I was in\r\nthe middle of a court martial because I was a `threat' to the national security\r\nof the United States. Probably today I'd end up in Guantánamo or something, but\r\nback then they kept me in Pearl Harbor. It was basically only because people\r\nprotested outside the base--this was before the war actually kicked off--that\r\nthe military decided that actually it wasn't in their best interest to pursue\r\nmy prosecution. Instead of getting the expected five years in Leavenworth, they\r\ngave me an other-than-honorable discharge.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"One thing people ask me is how was it that I became the first person\r\nto publicly declare that that war was wrong from within the military. It was\r\nbasically because one person challenged me to do the right thing. It wasn't\r\n`Go' or `Don't go.' It was actually, `Do the right thing.' For four years I'd\r\nspent my life not <\/i>doing the right thing, but doing what I was told.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"As far as I'm concerned, I've never regretted for a moment <\/i>what\r\nI've done. Any nightmares I have are about what if I actually just followed\r\norders, if I just did what I was told, if I had to be part of the carnage\r\nthat's led to the last 12 years of sanctions and 1.5 million Iraqi dead. That's\r\nthe nightmare I have.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"I think people saw what it meant to `support the troops' during the\r\nlast Gulf War. There is no way to put that as your primary political\r\norientation. If you are starting from `support the troops,' `bring them home,'\r\n`we want peace,' then still when the troops are over there fighting the war,\r\nyou are left with primarily supporting the troops. And that means supporting\r\nwhat they are doing.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"I am completely sympathetic and understanding of where people are\r\ncoming from, but if you are actually going to be part of a worldwide movement\r\nto stop this war and other wars, we got to call out what's really going on. We\r\nhave to support the troops who refuse to fight. That's not to say we dis the\r\nother troops or whatever, but it's more of a challenge to us to do the\r\noutreach, to let those troops know what the war is all about. They don't know,\r\nthey've been indoctrinated to not think about those sort of things.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"And once we do that, then it's our responsibility to speak out in\r\nwhatever way to help them along to do the right thing. We need to lay the\r\nfoundation for people to step out in a bold way and say `Hell no, we're not gonna\r\ngo. This war is wrong,' and call out other people to take the right stand\r\nagainst all this.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Part\r\n2<\/p>\r\n\r\n
<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Revolutionary\r\nWorker Online RW resource page on resisting the juggernaut of war and\r\nrepression<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\n","contact":"","link":"http:\/\/rwor.org\/","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/html","summary":".","numcomment":0,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2003\/03\/37880.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[]}