Post by BreakForNews on Jan 26, 2005 18:54:30 GMT
Major Says: "I'm Not Going, No Matter What"
By Jack Radey, Portside Tidbits, Jan 15, '04
Last night a friend of mine came over. Let me describe
my friend to you, his name is his own business and I
don't feel its right for me to use his name in this
situation. He is a major in the Army reserve, a veteran
of Gulf I. He was then a mortar platoon leader, now a
civic affairs officer. He was once a Young Republican,
last year he wore a Veterans for Kerry button. He is
currently still in the Reserve, despite advancing age
and physical ailments, he has been on stop-loss status
for almost two years.
He described to me letters he has been receiving from
an active duty officer he served with. He said he has
been receiving letters from her the whole last year,
from the time she volunteered to serve in Iraq and was
sent over, until last week, when her letter moved him
to tears. She will be home soon. She intensely believed
in the effort in Iraq in the beginning. She has become
so bitter and disillusioned that he is shocked by it,
although he has no more illusions about the war. She,
like he, is a civic affairs officer. Civic affairs
involves essentially what used to be called "hearts and
minds" work. Relations with the local population.
Providing aid for construction, public health,
repairing the damage of war. He said that in the past
year her unit has been able to do almost nothing at
all, only go through the motions. The reason is not the
security situation. The reason is the withholding of
nearly all the money earmarked for construction and
helping the civilian population, or its diversion into
either purely military needs or perhaps into someone's
pockets. Her unit built two schools in one year. One
was financed by a Muslim charity organization, the
other by contributions made directly by the GIs
themselves.
He told me that what he wants to see in the American
press is more pictures of what high explosive does to
human bodies. He said he saw pictures from Fallujah, a
picture of a woman and her child. The woman was pretty
chewed up, the child was mangled. By US firepower. He
said, "I'm not going. No matter what. I'm not going
there. What would that woman see if she looked at me,
even though I'm a civil affairs officer, and I wouldn't
be willing even to put a clip in my rifle? She would
see another soldier of the Army that killed her son. I
can't do that."
He told me that he has a son, 16 years old. That if
there is a draft, his son has made up his mind, he's
not going, no matter what. He says, "Dad, I respect
what you do. But I won't do it." The father is very
proud of his son.
He told me that his unit is being mobilized to be sent
over. Only captains and below, the higher officers are
not to go. They will be sent as trainers to another
unit, and that unit will go over as fillers for yet
another unit in Iraq. In his reserve unit, all the talk
was about the letter to the President, sent by the
lieutenant general, the head of the Army Reserve. Who
told the President that the Reserve is nearly a "broken
force", that too much is being asked of it. That it
will not be able to perform its function much longer.
Every officer in the unit commented favorably about the
letter. Even his colonel, his unit commander, who he
describes as very right wing.
He told his colonel, that if they want 48 men from his
unit to go, they had better cut orders for 58 of them.
"Why?" he was asked. He said its not that anyone is
likely to refuse orders. But soldiers whose child care
depended on a relative being willing to look after the
kids while they were on active duty would find that
arrangement no longer available. That soldiers with
nagging medical problems that they had been toughing
out would be taking a turn for the worse. That soldiers
with 20, 22 years in grade would be deciding that this
was a really good time to take retirement. Of course
many loopholes are closing. Before, if you "pissed hot"
you would not be deployed. Now, you get busted a rank
or two, and get deployed anyway. Overweight? No dice,
extra physical exercise, and off you go. I'm not sure
how they are treating pregnancy these days, during the
work up for Gulf I a lot of women soldiers made a point
of getting pregnant. That would keep them out of
combat, I'm not sure if that will still work.
Like many soldiers I have talked to recently, he is
just angry about Iraq. He thinks there is no excuse for
it, no reason, and our effort there produces nothing
but evil, for the Iraqis and for us. But like many
soldiers I have talked to, he is uncomfortable with the
concept of just standing up and saying no, I won't do
this. But when I started talking about how the UCMJ
requires officers and men to refuse to carry out
illegal orders, and that the provisions in the Geneva
Conventions, outlawing aggressive war, in fact making
it the chief among international crimes, his expression
changed. I could see he was doing some serious
thinking. He had no difficulty calling it an aggressive
war, or being furious at the Bush administration for
doing this, to his fellow soldiers, to the Iraqis, and
to our country. He is not alone, and from four star
generals down, there are a lot of Americans in uniform
doing a lot of talking and thinking about these things.
They know that Sergeant Graner took the rap for
something he did, and General Miller, the man who
supervised Gestapo methods at Guantanamo and brought
them to Abu Grahib, got a promotion. That Secretary
Rumsfeld was retained, and Antonio Gonzales got a
promotion, or will probably get one. General Boykin,
the man in charge of military intelligence who thinks
his god is bigger than everyone else's (are bigger gods
better ones?), got retained as well. He knows Iraq was
never a threat to our country, and he knows what high
explosives do to human beings. He should. He was a
mortar platoon commander, and he has seen his
handiwork. I have seen a tape of an interview with my
friend, done just after Gulf I. He was asked about
seeing what it meant to him, seeing the soldiers he had
killed. "It didn't bother me a bit, it really didn't,"
he replied earnestly. Back then. Now, well, now he
doesn't sleep much at night. Many nights, not at all.
He is not the only one.
If you know a soldier, or have a chance to sit down and
talk to one, remember, he or she is an American like
you. A person with a strong feeling that they have
chosen their profession to do good in the world, to
protect you and me and those things they and we cherish
about our country. And many of them also have within
them a growing fear that the profession they have
chosen has been turned into something they never in
their worst nightmares intended. Talk to him or her.
And more important, listen.
Jack Radey
By Jack Radey, Portside Tidbits, Jan 15, '04
Last night a friend of mine came over. Let me describe
my friend to you, his name is his own business and I
don't feel its right for me to use his name in this
situation. He is a major in the Army reserve, a veteran
of Gulf I. He was then a mortar platoon leader, now a
civic affairs officer. He was once a Young Republican,
last year he wore a Veterans for Kerry button. He is
currently still in the Reserve, despite advancing age
and physical ailments, he has been on stop-loss status
for almost two years.
He described to me letters he has been receiving from
an active duty officer he served with. He said he has
been receiving letters from her the whole last year,
from the time she volunteered to serve in Iraq and was
sent over, until last week, when her letter moved him
to tears. She will be home soon. She intensely believed
in the effort in Iraq in the beginning. She has become
so bitter and disillusioned that he is shocked by it,
although he has no more illusions about the war. She,
like he, is a civic affairs officer. Civic affairs
involves essentially what used to be called "hearts and
minds" work. Relations with the local population.
Providing aid for construction, public health,
repairing the damage of war. He said that in the past
year her unit has been able to do almost nothing at
all, only go through the motions. The reason is not the
security situation. The reason is the withholding of
nearly all the money earmarked for construction and
helping the civilian population, or its diversion into
either purely military needs or perhaps into someone's
pockets. Her unit built two schools in one year. One
was financed by a Muslim charity organization, the
other by contributions made directly by the GIs
themselves.
He told me that what he wants to see in the American
press is more pictures of what high explosive does to
human bodies. He said he saw pictures from Fallujah, a
picture of a woman and her child. The woman was pretty
chewed up, the child was mangled. By US firepower. He
said, "I'm not going. No matter what. I'm not going
there. What would that woman see if she looked at me,
even though I'm a civil affairs officer, and I wouldn't
be willing even to put a clip in my rifle? She would
see another soldier of the Army that killed her son. I
can't do that."
He told me that he has a son, 16 years old. That if
there is a draft, his son has made up his mind, he's
not going, no matter what. He says, "Dad, I respect
what you do. But I won't do it." The father is very
proud of his son.
He told me that his unit is being mobilized to be sent
over. Only captains and below, the higher officers are
not to go. They will be sent as trainers to another
unit, and that unit will go over as fillers for yet
another unit in Iraq. In his reserve unit, all the talk
was about the letter to the President, sent by the
lieutenant general, the head of the Army Reserve. Who
told the President that the Reserve is nearly a "broken
force", that too much is being asked of it. That it
will not be able to perform its function much longer.
Every officer in the unit commented favorably about the
letter. Even his colonel, his unit commander, who he
describes as very right wing.
He told his colonel, that if they want 48 men from his
unit to go, they had better cut orders for 58 of them.
"Why?" he was asked. He said its not that anyone is
likely to refuse orders. But soldiers whose child care
depended on a relative being willing to look after the
kids while they were on active duty would find that
arrangement no longer available. That soldiers with
nagging medical problems that they had been toughing
out would be taking a turn for the worse. That soldiers
with 20, 22 years in grade would be deciding that this
was a really good time to take retirement. Of course
many loopholes are closing. Before, if you "pissed hot"
you would not be deployed. Now, you get busted a rank
or two, and get deployed anyway. Overweight? No dice,
extra physical exercise, and off you go. I'm not sure
how they are treating pregnancy these days, during the
work up for Gulf I a lot of women soldiers made a point
of getting pregnant. That would keep them out of
combat, I'm not sure if that will still work.
Like many soldiers I have talked to recently, he is
just angry about Iraq. He thinks there is no excuse for
it, no reason, and our effort there produces nothing
but evil, for the Iraqis and for us. But like many
soldiers I have talked to, he is uncomfortable with the
concept of just standing up and saying no, I won't do
this. But when I started talking about how the UCMJ
requires officers and men to refuse to carry out
illegal orders, and that the provisions in the Geneva
Conventions, outlawing aggressive war, in fact making
it the chief among international crimes, his expression
changed. I could see he was doing some serious
thinking. He had no difficulty calling it an aggressive
war, or being furious at the Bush administration for
doing this, to his fellow soldiers, to the Iraqis, and
to our country. He is not alone, and from four star
generals down, there are a lot of Americans in uniform
doing a lot of talking and thinking about these things.
They know that Sergeant Graner took the rap for
something he did, and General Miller, the man who
supervised Gestapo methods at Guantanamo and brought
them to Abu Grahib, got a promotion. That Secretary
Rumsfeld was retained, and Antonio Gonzales got a
promotion, or will probably get one. General Boykin,
the man in charge of military intelligence who thinks
his god is bigger than everyone else's (are bigger gods
better ones?), got retained as well. He knows Iraq was
never a threat to our country, and he knows what high
explosives do to human beings. He should. He was a
mortar platoon commander, and he has seen his
handiwork. I have seen a tape of an interview with my
friend, done just after Gulf I. He was asked about
seeing what it meant to him, seeing the soldiers he had
killed. "It didn't bother me a bit, it really didn't,"
he replied earnestly. Back then. Now, well, now he
doesn't sleep much at night. Many nights, not at all.
He is not the only one.
If you know a soldier, or have a chance to sit down and
talk to one, remember, he or she is an American like
you. A person with a strong feeling that they have
chosen their profession to do good in the world, to
protect you and me and those things they and we cherish
about our country. And many of them also have within
them a growing fear that the profession they have
chosen has been turned into something they never in
their worst nightmares intended. Talk to him or her.
And more important, listen.
Jack Radey