supporting the troops

With Lt. Watada's Case, GI Resistance Grows

By Sarah Olson

TruthOut.org, Posted on August 17, 2006

http://www.alternet.org/story/40431/

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 22,
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 17, to decide whether to proceed with a general
court-martial. If tried and convicted, Lieutenant Watada could face over
seven 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."

Conditioned to hate

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 6-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."

Feeeling guilt all the time

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.

Lt. 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

"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.

For updated information about Lt. Watada's Case visit:

http://www.thankyoult.org/

Sarah Olson is an independent journalist and radio producer.

She can be reached at:

solson75@yahoo.com <solson75@yahoo.com>
Posted by Sylvie K.