Pentagon Retaliates Against 
GIs Who Spoke Out on TV 

ROBERT COLLIER / SF Chronicle 18jul03

[Knight Ridder & Punk Planet articles below]

Fallujah, Iraq— Morale is dipping pretty low among U.S. soldiers as they stew in Iraq's broiling heat, get shot at by an increasingly hostile population and get repeated orders to extend their tours of duty.

Ask any grunt standing guard on a 115-degree day what he or she thinks of the open-ended Iraq occupation, and you'll get an earful of colorful complaints.

But going public isn't always easy, as soldiers of the Army's Second Brigade, Third Infantry Division found out after "Good Morning America" aired their complaints.

The brigade's soldiers received word this week from the Pentagon that it was extending their stay, with a vague promise to send them home by September if the security situation allows. They've been away from home since September, and this week's announcement was the third time their mission has been extended.

It was bad news for the division's 12,000 homesick soldiers, who were at the forefront of the force that overthrew Saddam Hussein's government and moved into Baghdad in early April.

On Wednesday morning, when the ABC news show reported from Fallujah, where the division is based, the troops gave the reporters an earful. One soldier said he felt like he'd been "kicked in the guts, slapped in the face." Another demanded that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld quit.

The retaliation from Washington was swift.

CAREERS OVER FOR SOME

"It was the end of the world," said one officer Thursday. "It went all the way up to President Bush and back down again on top of us. At least six of us here will lose our careers."

First lesson for the troops, it seemed: Don't ever talk to the media "on the record" -- that is, with your name attached -- unless you're giving the sort of chin-forward, everything's-great message the Pentagon loves to hear.

Only two days before the ABC show, similarly bitter sentiments -- with no names attached -- were voiced in an anonymous e-mail circulating around the Internet, allegedly from "the soldiers of the Second Brigade, Third ID."

"Our morale is not high or even low," the letter said. "Our morale is nonexistent. We have been told twice that we were going home, and twice we have received a 'stop' movement to stay in Iraq."

The message, whose authenticity could not be confirmed, concluded: "Our men and women deserve to be treated like the heroes they are, not like farm animals. Our men and women deserve to see their loved ones again and deserve to come home."

After this one-two punch, it was perhaps natural that on Thursday, the same troops and officers who had been garrulous and outspoken in previous visits were quiet, and most declined to speak on the record. During a visit to Fallujah, a small city about 30 miles west of Baghdad, military officials expressed intense chagrin about the bad publicity. And they slammed the ABC reporters for focusing on the soldiers' criticism of Rumsfeld, Bush and other officials and implying that they are unwilling to carry out their mission.

COMPLAINTS CALLED ROUTINE

"Soldiers have bitched since the beginning of time," said Capt. James Brownlee, the public affairs officer for the Second Brigade. "That's part of being a soldier. They bitch. But what does 'bad morale' really mean? That they're not combat-ready or loyal? Nobody here fits that definition."

The nervousness of the brass has a venerable history. It has long been a practice in American democracy that the military do not criticize the nation's civilian leaders, as Gen. Douglas MacArthur found out in 1951, when he criticized President Harry Truman's Korean War strategy -- and was promptly fired.

Yet several U.S. officers said privately that troop morale is indeed low. "The problem is not the heat," said one high-ranking officer. "Soldiers get used to that. The problem is getting orders to go home, so your wife gets all psyched about it, then getting them reversed, and then having the same process two more times."

In Baghdad, average soldiers from other Army brigades are eager to spill similar complaints.

"I'm not sure people in Washington really know what it's like here," said Corp. Todd Burchard as he stood on a street corner, sweating profusely and looking bored. "We'll keep doing our jobs as best as anyone can, but we shouldn't have to still be here in the first place."

Nearby, Pfc. Jason Ring stood next to his Humvee. "We liberated Iraq. Now the people here don't want us here, and guess what? We don't want to be here either," he said. "So why are we still here? Why don't they bring us home?"

Marooned soldiers: 'Our morale is gone' 

TOM LASSETER & DREW BROWN / Knight Ridder News Service 16jul03

As their tours of duty go into overtime, troops say the higher-ups don't understand their plight.

FALLUJAH, Iraq—Pvt. Matthew Davis looked at the ground and shook his head. "It feels like we died and this is our hell," he said.

Davis is stuck in Iraq.

The 20-year-old from Omaha, Neb., is one of more than 2,000 soldiers in the Third Infantry Division's Second Brigade who were told Saturday that they and the division's First Brigade are staying put.

The mixture of disgust, sadness and anger they expressed yesterday was profound. Pfc. Anthony Mondello said, "Our morale is gone, it really is."

L. Paul Bremer, the American official in charge of reconstruction, would not give a timetable yesterday for when U.S. forces might be able to withdraw.

Last week, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, who long argued that no more U.S. troops were needed in Iraq, told Congress that the Second Brigade "would return in August" and the First "is scheduled to return in September." This week he reversed himself and said that, in fact, additional soldiers may be coming as well.

Meanwhile, the troops stew in the desert, where temperatures rise to 120 degrees and AK-47 fire is part of the landscape.

Said one Second Brigade officer, who asked not to be identified: "It doesn't seem like anybody higher up cares to realize what these soldiers have been through, or what they're going through on a daily basis. I can guarantee you they've never stood out in a checkpoint in the heat of the day, day after day, full battle rattle, always wondering if today's the day somebody's going to shoot me. Do they even care?"

Soldiers in the Third Infantry Division's Second Brigade were shipped to Kuwait in September, fought some of the war's bloodiest battles, and now are stationed in Fallujah, a cauldron of anti-American feeling.

Attacks on troops throughout Iraq still average about a dozen a day, and Iraqi men in Fallujah frequently vow to kill U.S. soldiers if they remain in the city. American troops began pulling out of the city's police station Friday after more than 20 Iraqi police officers marched on the mayor's office, saying the U.S. presence made them a target. Afraid for their lives, the officers said they would quit unless the soldiers became less visible.

"They are very, very upset people," said Spec. Scott Vasquez, an Arabic linguist. Every time he goes into town, Vasquez said, people shout at him about the lack of water and electricity. The hostility makes it all the harder to cope with the fact that he had to cancel his planned April wedding, he said.

The Second Brigade soldiers, who were among those who took Baghdad, first were told they would head home May 1. Instead, they were shipped to Fallujah. Word came that they would be gone July 1. Didn't happen. Then July 18 was the date to circle. Then Aug. 1.

Finally, on Saturday the division's commander, Maj. Gen. Buford C. Blount III, said that while the Third Brigade and some other elements would leave soon, the First and Second would stay, to maintain current force levels "due to the uncertainty of the situation in Iraq and the recent increase in attacks on the coalition forces." A terse statement last night from the Army's Central Command said the whole Third Infantry Division would return home by September - probably.

"As always," the statement cautioned, "the security situation could affect deployments and redeployments."

Back in Fallujah, "it feels like we're forgotten," said Spec. Sean Gilchrist. "Like we fell off the planet."

An Army of None by TR 

Excerpted from Punk Planet 56

These letters are from an anonymous soldier fighting the war on terror by administering urine samples and other mind-numbing jobs

Dear You,

Over the last few months, it’s been all but impossible to avoid interviews with military personnel in Iraq on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox news. Even the most Podunk stations imaginable seem to have a reporter or two embedded with the “fightin’ 409s.” The soldiers that fill your screen all seem to say the same thing: “We are here to liberate Iraq”, “We want to go home”, “Hi mom.” You don’t learn much of the realities of war or their day-to-day lives. And you certainly never get inside their heads. Welcome inside mine.

I am a soldier in the United States Army with orders under Operation Enduring Freedom and this is my story, including all the ugliness that normal people would keep to themselves. It’s not going to be as action-packed as most war stories because, like many in the armed forces, my war has not been action-packed. I’m in the middle of America, where the beef flows like water and vegetables grow in cans. My story is a tale of boredom, frustration, and depression. The only conflict is in my head—I am utterly against the war in Iraq and any other war this administration may intend to wage, yet my daily routine is spent supporting the invasion of Iraq. I’m probably the last person you’d ever expect to be in the military, but I am. Lucky me.

—TR

To Whom It May Concern:

One would think that with all the money going to national defense that some of it would go towards building up the communities that grow around military installations. However, step outside any military post or base and you will find nothing but pawn shops, strip clubs, “cash now” loan sharks, restaurants providing food from cultures we have conquered in past wars, and used car lots preying upon poor soldiers who—probably for the first time in their lives—have more cash than they know what to do with.

My environment has a heavy influence on my emotional state, and conversely, my perception of my environment is distorted by how I feel. Oklahoma files down your senses to the quick. Your perceptions have less range from lack of stimuli, but what little you do sense, you feel deeply. Living here too long is like being an old safecracker who has sanded his fingers raw for so long that his fingerprints are a faded memory and he can feel a fly’s wings vibrating from across the room. Sometimes the landscape even makes your eyes feel like they’ve sprung hangnails—but only when you’re hungover from an all-night bender spent trying to dull that acute perception of your austere surroundings.

Oklahoma has a sad history full of dumb assholes with haywire survival instincts on quixotic quests for gold buffalo meat. The region has never gained enough altitude to go downhill—Oklahoma has been wallowing in the gutter since it was under the sea thousands of years ago. Geronimo had his ignoble end here after he was chewed up and made palatable for America. He finally succumbed to pneumonia after signing autographs at the World’s Fair and rubbing elbows with Teddy Roosevelt at his inaugural ceremony (all the while he was a federal prisoner). It was an anti-climatic finale for one of America’s first terrorists—and one of our favorites, as well. Geronimo is the patron saint of the doomed romantic. Soldiers shout his name for good luck before jumping out of airplanes.

Thinking of Geronimo makes me wonder how our present terrorists will be viewed through the distorted lens of history. I wouldn’t be surprised if in a few decades the Afghani tourist bureau sold maps of Osama Bin Laden’s burial site to American tourists with zinc oxide slathered across their bulbous noses. It’s an ugly thing to imagine, but it’s an ugly time. It doesn’t take much imagination. Our enemies are our past allies and our allies are losers.

—TR

Hey—

You may be wondering why I joined. I wasn’t tricked or fooled into joining. And I wasn’t put at ease when my recruiter put on Operation Ivy at a follow-up appointment. And I certainly didn’t join out of any sense of patriotic duty or for life experience. Instead, take a beautiful woman, throw in no future in a small town and you have a desperate 18-year-old kid. Yes, I joined the Army because I was in love with a girl and she enlisted. I followed her, believing that she might be my only chance at happiness. Needless to say, she wasn’t and I know it was a mistake now. I knew it then too, I think, but I am a gambler by nature.

Things might have been different if I did better in high school. Whenever, I got a bad grade, my dad would say, “That’s all right. If you can’t get into college then you can join the army—they accept anyone!” He was right, if a tad callous.

Every instinct told me to run as I went through the process of enlistment. I held fast because every time I’d think of my girlfriend, my stomach would turn upside-down, blood would rush to my head and I knew I’d do anything for her. I rationalized my enlistment by telling myself that I was going to work in the medical field and that all my work would be oriented toward helping people, not harming them. If I knew how that would be perverted six years later, I probably would have gone home. Or maybe not—I was blinded by young dumb love.

My MOS (that’s army-speak for job) was as a medical lab technician and had the longest training period for newly-enlisted soldiers. It was a year and half long (compared to the usual three to six months). A year of that was with drill sergeants. Within three months, I had broken up with my girlfriend.

During the first couple of weeks in training, you are under what’s termed “lock down.” You can’t go anywhere or do anything. You go to class, do PT (physical training), and polish your boots. During this time, I thought my girlfriend would visit me, but she never did. Now I understand that she was a young girl away from home for the first time, and that while the military demanded a lot of your time and took some of your freedoms away, her personal time had fewer limits than ever before. At the time, I didn’t know that and all sorts of thoughts were going through my head. I was under enough stress with rabid drill sergeants, long hours, and living with a few dozen men in one room. It didn’t help that my fellow soldiers played devil’s advocate, telling me that they saw her with other guys. They had no idea what she looked like and I knew it, but it still tortured me inside. I rationally thought of a different complaint—that after all my sacrifices and leaps of faith, she owed me at least one visit in the afternoon, when she had personal time and I was stuck under a ramada shining my shoes in the setting sun.

The only time we really had together was when we met for church (did I mention she was a Jesus freak?). No matter how much you love Jesus, it’s not easy getting up after a Saturday night spent partying. She stood me up twice, and each time I waited for her for hours and repeatedly called the pay phone at her barracks. The second time she was a no-show, I posted a crude note on her company’s bulletin board: “It’s over. I want my shit back.” Everyone saw the note before her. A friend came up to her and said she was so sorry about what happened. My girlfriend expressed confusion and she was lead to the note. It broke her heart.

If she were more experienced, she would have seen the break-up coming. If I were more experienced, I would not have written the letter. That’s growing up. It’s tough enough without a contractual agreement with the military-industrial complex.

Soon we were in the same school together and lived in the same building. I saw her every day and, each time, my stomach still did flips and blood rushed to my head. I felt sick all the time. I did childish things that I regret now: giving myself alcohol poisoning twice; stealing her car for alcohol fueled rage-drives on San Antonio’s circuitous interstates; embarrassing her in public. I saw her date other guys. I saw her meet the man she later married and had a child with. All this set me on a self-destructive course that went on for a few years. But at some point I realized that I couldn’t blame her. All this negative energy came from something I felt inside.

Fast-forward to the spring of 2001; I was in my junior year of college and most of my time was spent on school film projects. The army was just a weekend a month for me after that first year and a half, but I couldn’t even do that. I was too busy filming, drinking, drugging, and having fun to show up to any of the weekend drills. I lost count of how many I missed. When I showed up for the two-week training in the summer, I was given money for a cab and a Greyhound ticket. I was no longer in the Army, they told me. I had missed too many drills.

After a summer spent touring with friends’ bands, I came home penniless and facing a terminated lease. I ended up homeless, living in my van for nine months. In those nine months, I learned that I could survive without a job or a home on two dollars a day (with a lot of help from friends and family). But I also learned that I am not Aaron Cometbus and living scarce wasn’t for me. So when I was told that my paperwork for separation from military service wasn’t completed and that I was welcome back, I took them up on their offer.

These letters continue in Punk Planet 56. Order it from the Punk Planet Merch Table. Or why order piecemeal? Subscribe for just $24 a year (in the US).

source: http://www.punkplanet.com/archives/00000003.html 18jul03