Winter Soldier (32 page)

So let’s compare Iraq and Vietnam. The military is very different now. When we look at GI resistance, we also need to look at what our military’s doing. There’s no draft today, so college students are not facing activation. A majority of this war’s veterans are still in the military, so the number of veterans isn’t as large as it was during Vietnam. These men and women are still stuck in the military through stop-loss orders and the Individual Ready Reserve.

There’s a different type of soldier today. They’re career soldiers. They’re professional soldiers. The men and women that I served with—for many of them that was their career, that was their job, and they took honor in that. They didn’t want to give that up. They might not have wanted to go to Iraq or Afghanistan over and over again, but they did take pride in the fact that they were soldiers and they didn’t want to lose that. Many of them have wives or husbands and kids that they’re trying to support. They thought that the military would be a good way to do that. They didn’t ask to be sent to Iraq, to an illegal occupation of another country, and to oppress people who don’t want them there. They believed they would be used in a just way, after all peaceful solutions had been exhausted. That’s when they thought they’d be sent into harm’s way.

Rotations are also different now. Soldiers don’t deploy to Iraq one at a time. We’re moving entire divisions in and entire divisions out. The men that I served with are the same men I served with when I was in Kosovo. They are the same men I trained with in Germany. We are loyal to one another. Many of these men and women feel that the military is their family, and they don’t understand civilian life. They’re comfortable in the military and they don’t want to abandon their friends and family, but that doesn’t mean that they want to serve, repeatedly, in Iraq.

There are many benefits available to these men and women. They’re offered GI bills for college. They’re given health insurance. They’re given a nice safe base to live on where their spouses can shop at the PX or the commissary. Their kids are going to school in a safe, healthy environment, and that’s hard to give up as well.

So when you ask why don’t soldiers resist, these are all these reasons why they don’t. Many of them are scared as hell to be in the outside world when all they’ve ever been is a machine gunner.

The three reasons soldiers continue are the benefits, the options, and the loyalty to and pride of service. But there are solutions to each. We can start funds to help war resisters replace military benefits. We could hire veterans. We could give them jobs and someplace to land once they decide to turn their back on this war.

They can also join this movement. There’s a lot of pride and loyalty in joining our army and our Corps and in fighting for a cause we believe in, fighting for a cause that will change America and stop these occupations.

So we’re asking. We’re not going to come out and recruit soldiers or veterans. We’re not going try to trick you into joining us and to joining our cause. But we will ask you to. Because there is a fight coming, and it’s a fight to improve America and to improve this military and we’re asking you to join us.

So if you’re out there and you’re dedicated to what we’re talking about here at Winter Soldier and you want to improve your military and your country, this is a good way to do it. Go to http://www.ivaw.org and there’s membership applications online.

We’ll give you information on how you can resist if you want to stay in the military and you don’t want to break army regulations. If you don’t want to get in trouble, there are still ways you can use your First Amendment rights. You can put your application in and join us to end this occupation.

For the record, nothing I say should be construed to be the opinion of the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the United States government.

I left the military shortly after 9/11. It was the end of my four-year contract. I felt like I left the country when it needed me most, and so when I watched America build a case for the Iraq war, I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. I was in school when the war broke out, and I tried desperately to finish my semester, but in late March 2003 I was in that recruiter’s office again saying, “You gotta make me a part of this, you have to get me over there.” And it was just timing, but the quickest they could get me out was August 2003. In May 2003, mission was “accomplished,” and I was like, “Great.” There was my story for my grandkids: I missed my chance for some honor.

But soldiers were still dying. And so when I got to my duty station in Germany in September 2003, I found out I would deploy to Kuwait in February 2004. But in December 2003, Saddam Hussein was caught, so for the second time I thought, “Great, now the war is really over.” But we still went, and by that time I was extremely skeptical. Over the course of that year, I felt the same frustration that everybody did. I didn’t realize that the war was over and that the occupation had begun.

And so the only thing we were fighting for was living one more day. The frustration is that no matter what you do, you’re not going to get home any sooner. Then I felt the frustration of coming home and having to constantly remind myself that America’s a country at war because you wouldn’t know when you look around.

In between tours I had time to think about the things that I had done. How we went to Iraq under false pretenses. How I went there to help the Iraqi people and that’s not what we were doing. It wasn’t malice; we were just trying to survive. I started to blame the Iraqi people for our presence, and I did want to see Iraq annihilated. I just wanted to go home. It was what all of us wanted back then, and it was every bit as true in 2007.

I thought I would tell a story of how the First Amendment really came to bat for me. I joined IVAW right before my second deployment. I started writing posts that got published on the site, and it started getting attention because here was this active-duty soldier getting ready to go on his second deployment. I was contacted by a reporter while I was in Baghdad. He said he was with Democracy Now! I had never heard of it before, but I agreed to an interview on so-and-so date. It just so happened that on that date I was going to be investigated for something entirely different.

I had a website, www.soldiersvoices.net, that I didn’t register with Central Command. It’s policy to register all blogs and websites and I had failed to register this one—and they had found it.

I didn’t know I was going to be investigated until that day, and I remember I was in my commander’s office answering questions when my phone started ringing. I was like, “Oh, man.” She wanted to know who that was, and I said, “It’s a reporter.”

She gave me a direct order not to talk to the media. Now, this reporter was calling me one hour before the show was supposed to broadcast live. The phone rang constantly. I didn’t answer it and then it stopped. And I was like, “Great, they just got the hint.” And after I was done, my phone rang again and I answered it, and he’s like, “Do you still want to do this? We go on in ten minutes.” And I said, “I don’t think I should. I’ve just been given a direct order not to speak to the media.” And he’s like, “How ’bout if I just give you thirty seconds to say what you have to say to the American people.” And I said, “I can work with that.” So I had five minutes to come up with thirty seconds to say, and he called and he’s like, “I’m gonna put you on right now.” I can hear somebody talking and she wasn’t talking to me. I thought to myself, “Oh, God, is this live?”

So she’s like, “Ronn are you there? Would you….” She started asking me questions and I blew her off. I just blew through my thirty-second blurb in about five seconds.

After a few questions, I hung up the phone. I’m like, “Oh, that’s done.” And ten minutes later somebody found me and said, “The commander wants to see you in her office right now.” I was sad because I was I thought I was going to jail and I was upset because, having gone to school in America, I thought, “That’s not what this country was supposed to be about. All I did was say things I felt had to be said.” I knew IVAW existed and I had just joined, but I hadn’t met anybody yet, and I was wary of anything labeled antiwar at the time because I’ve got so many years of military experience.

So I said, “I’m not going take this laying down.” I went in there fully prepared for a confrontation. I shed a tear or two, and I went in there and she said, “I’m rescinding my order for you not to talk to the media. It is, in fact, your right.”

It was sink or swim time. At best I treaded water and I came out ahead. It is our right, and I want the servicemembers and my active-duty brothers and sisters to know that is our right. We do have the right to dissent within the ranks and also serve honorably. My career has not suffered a bit because of anything that I’ve done in the year and a half that I’ve been a vocal member of IVAW. And I just want to say that I know that you guys are out there. There’s IVAW in every unit, on every post in the military. Even if you’re not IVAW members, I know that you’re Iraq veterans and you are against this war.

To everybody else, I want to say please don’t let us be the first generation of veterans to be forgotten while our war is going on. When you have to look hard for news on Iraq , it really sends a powerful message to us still on active duty.

Finally, I just want to give myself a little shout-out. Today is my thirtieth birthday. The reason I wanted to say that is I’m doing this for the soldiers over there right now so they could one day see thirty as well.

Chair of the Board, Iraq Veterans Against the War

Camilo Mejia served in Iraq from April through October 2003. He was the first soldier to be incarcerated for publicly refusing to return to Iraq. He currently serves as the chair of the board at IVAW and is the author of Road from ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia: An Iraq War Memior.

George Orwell once wrote, “In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes an act of rebellion.” We live today in times of universal deceit, but here at Winter Soldier, we have witnessed firsthand accounts that challenge that universal deceit.

Iraq Veterans Against the War has become a source of stress to the military brass and to the government. We have members who have been interrogated by the FBI, who have been incarcerated for being conscientious objectors and for saying no to command rape and sexual discrimination. We have members in Iraq Veterans Against the War who have been prosecuted for criticizing our government’s failed war policies.

We have become a dangerous group of people not because of our military training, but because we have dared to challenge the official story. We are dangerous because we have dared to share our experiences, to think for ourselves, to analyze and be critical, to follow our conscience, and because we have dared to go beyond patriotism to embrace humanity.

The servicemembers and veterans who have shared our experiences with you and with the entire world are committing an act of resistance by being here. We resist the notion of free speech and democracy when the voices of those who have been the most affected by the occupations of Iraq and Afghan­istan are being silenced by the government and by the corporate media.

We refuse the notion of nation building in Iraq when at home our levees are breaking and our people are drowning, and when our own bridges are falling down. We resist and reject the official government rhetoric of “Support Our Troops” when we have a whole new military generation returning home to no care for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, to homelessness, to disturbingly high levels of suicide, homicide, and domestic violence. We have heard heartbreaking testimony. We who have been there have seen the horror in the eyes of children whose doors we kicked down at 3:00 in the morning.

We cannot win the hearts and minds of any country until we win the hearts and minds of our own people, until we eradicate homophobia within our ranks and we treat our own people as equals regardless of their gender or the color of their skin.