Winter Soldier: America Must Hear These Vets' Stories
By Penny Coleman
AlterNet

Saturday 15 March 2008

If America listens to what they say, the war would be over tomorrow.
I missed the Winter Soldier Investigation in 1971. At the time I was married to a vet who desperately wanted to put his war behind him - and he wanted me to help him do it. We were supposed to pretend it had never happened. It didn't work.

Daniel refused to talk about Vietnam. "Talk to your old lady? No ****ing way," his friend Bobby Lanz shot back when I said I thought that maybe Daniel wouldn't have killed himself if I had been able to get him to talk about whatever it was that was causing him such pain. "With other vets, you can say, '**** man, I did all this horrible stuff. You're not going to believe the stuff I did', and someone who has been there will say, 'Yeah, so did I, so did we all.' But with your woman? You start to talk about having ****ed some folks up bad, doing awful things, killing people, maybe, and she starts to cry and you don't go there again. You think, **** me, man, I don't need to hurt her. This is psychological abuse, so I am going to shut up."

Maybe I wouldn't have understood. Completely. But not knowing was far worse. For decades, I took responsibility for his death. I thought it was my fault. And even if I hadn't been able to understand exactly what he was talking about, I would have understood that he was in a kind of lethal pain. Whether it was that he thought he deserved to die or that he deserved to be put out of his misery, either way, execution or euthanasia, I would have understood that he had been injured in the war. And I would have known where to focus my grief and my rage.

What I kept thinking today, listening to all those who testified at this new Winter Soldier investigation sponsored by Iraq Veterans Against the War at the National Labor College in Washington, DC, is that so much grief and pain for the past 30 years has been mis-directed, so much energy wasted, blaming ourselves and the soldiers we loved for the injuries that we couldn't see. Joyce Lucey, the mother of a soldier who took his own life after returning from Iraq, said that when he left he gave her a coin and told her to hold it like an amulet to keep him safe. She did, but she now understands that even though her son had been returned to her, his soul had been destroyed. "I should have been holding that coin after he came home."

But, she continued, "His voice is silenced. Ours is not." And she quoted Edmund Burke: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil in America is for good men to do nothing."

Everything I heard today spoke to that challenge, to the challenge of channeling our combined grief and rage into a focused fight that will really, finally make a difference. Clifton Hicks began his testimony by saying that all of the men he served with in Iraq were there for love: love of country, of ideals, of comrades, and "for that they are beyond judgment. I am here," he added, "to judge the war itself."

One after another, veterans told conflicted stories, some with tears, some with rigid control, some with visible shakes, but all with hard-won moral courage and deep sorrow. John Michael Turner began his testimony by telling the audience that as far as he was concerned, "Once a Marine, Always a Marine" was history. For him it is now "Eat the apple and **** the corps." Then he tossed his dog tags into the audience saying, "**** you, I don't work for you no more." Turner's first confirmed kill was on April 18, 2006. He shot an Iraqi boy in front of his father. It took a second shot to kill him. He had a photograph of the boy's open skull. Turner was personally congratulated by his commanding officer, who proceeded to offer a four day pass to anyone who got a kill by stabbing one of the enemy. Turner ended with, "I am sorry for the hate and destruction that I have inflicted on innocent people. I am sorry for the things I did. I am no longer the monster that I once was."

Hart Viges told of having an insurgent, armed with a rocket-propelled grenade, in his sights during a firefight and not being able to pull the trigger. He was frozen by awareness that the fear and confusion he saw on the Iraqi kid's face was exactly what he imagined was on his own.

Adam Kokesh enlisted in the Marines not because he agreed with the war, but because he "wanted to help clean up the mess." Instead of the schools and water facilities his President had promised he would be helping to build, he found himself policing a wanton project of human and social destruction. He manned "snap" check points where Marines in camouflage at dusk shot unsuspecting drivers who had failed to see them. He described feeling "funny" when he had to decide whether or not to pose with the trophy remains. "I wasn't the one who killed this guy." Kokesh was ordered to shoot at Iraqi police and firemen who were out after curfew putting out a fire that had been started by American rounds. That one he managed to stop with his "little bit of Arabic," but Kokesh wasn't optimistic about our prospects in Iraq. "We care so the American people don't have to. As soon as you choose looking good over doing right, you lose."

Clifton Hicks talked about free fire orders in city neighborhoods and the indiscriminate, often vengeful, targeting of cars and civilians, and about riding through the gates of their compound one night, aware that the humvee in front of his had run over a civilian. No one said anything because it had been a long hard day. They had all been in country long enough to feel that the bigger deal was "being separated from your cot" for the hours it would have taken to fill out the paperwork.

Jason Hurt, a medic from East Tennessee, said, "I am a peaceful person, and I drew down on an 80 year old woman. I hate guns. They should all be melted down into jewelry." And he added, if this were happening where he lives, if some foreign occupying force came into his part of the world, "every self-respecting citizen would come out of the hills with a shotgun to defend their country."

Vincent Emanuelli was appalled by the way American soldiers treated Iraqi dead. "Standard operating procedure was to run over them or take pictures."

Sergio Corrigan said that all an Iraqi needed was a heavy bag and a shovel to become a target. And looking back, with a "clear mind and not so much anger," he wanted to "apologize to the people of Iraq."

James Gilligan struggled to tell about the night he saw a flash on a mountainside and tried to call in for fire. But he took his compass reading too close to a machine gun and the heavy metal threw he reading off. An Afghani village was decimated and he will never be the same.

As Adam Kokesh put it, they were all struggling all the time because their morals were at odds with their survival instincts.

These new Winter Soldiers look so young to me. They are my son's age. My daughter's age as well. The last time young soldiers like these tried to get Americans to listen they were ignored. And that can't be allowed to happen again. The message of Iraq Veterans Against the War came through clearly in every tortured testimony. This is an illegal war. It has cost us our peace of mind. The longer we are there, the more of us will be injured. Bring our troops home now.

It is tempting to despair, but as Logan Laituri reminded the audience, Logan who had testified that his unit unknowingly used white phosphorous for training rounds and that it had "a significant impact on the surrounding communities, what Dr. King said in 1967 is equally true for us now. He said that he opposed the War, then in Vietnam, "because I love America. I speak out against this war not in anger but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart and above all with a passionate desire to see our beloved country stand as the moral example of the world."

The Winter Soldier Hearings can be viewed on satellite TV, streamed live over the internet or can be heard on select Pacifica Radio stations. For more information, visit Iraq Veterans Against the War.



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Penny Coleman is the widow of a Vietnam Veteran who took his own life after coming home. Her latest book, Flashback: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Suicide and the Lessons of War, was released on Memorial Day, 2006. Her website is Flashback.
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Lady, that's all you do is cut and paste garbage that you dig up on the internet.

Why do you think it is that you are so fortunate to do such?

Because they havnt taken that right away from us YET

Once again the Vets from Viet Nam are portrayed as wacked out nut suicidal, drug addict nut cases suffering from PTSD. What about the millions who served there and went on about their business after they came home. They got jobs, lived normal lives and put the mess behind them. Once again the Liberal Socialists try to use the exception to justify the rule.

What the hell do you know about war anyway. If you want to write about it don't cut and paste pick up a rifle get your butt out into the bush and walk the point for a while then you will have some first hand experience to draw upon instead of all the bull you hunt up on the web.

Dead on, gardenforge! It's easy to copy and paste anti-American garbage from the safety of a warm computer. Support our Troops and ignore this "jane fondle" of the blog.

I dont see dragonness hiding behind the flag like you 2

this is a joke right?

I notice that you have no friends shaddup

How much time did you serve mirror????????

mirror

I like to hear all sides of the story and these guys have earned the right to speak of their experiences and others have the right to read it.

Soldiers come home from war messed up and it is an issue. If you want to disregard their stories, you can, I will not.

I dont care how much time you served. That dont give you anymore right than anybody else "patriot boy". By the way, patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel Weve seen enough of your kind It dont work no more does it ???

Dont try to wrapp yourself in the flag and spout a bunch of recycled garbage. A real American dont have to do that A real American stands on his own 2 feet without using the flag to prop himself up More and more people are seeing thru that crap everyday

They didnt "earn" anything They were always entitled to their opinions

Im sorry Dragoness. They went over the deep end when they started implying that you were unpatriotic and unamerican for posting this thread. i dont tolerate that stuff no matter who's side there on. Doing that is B.S. I love standing up to people who are dumb enough to do that

Patriotism.... Hummm..... You wouldn't be here posting your thoughts at your will if it weren't for patriotism clown.

One day you'll be crying for your country, our country to do something. Asking who will defend our nation. The answer... The true patriots will. Will it be you???? Nope, no way. You'll just complain about the aftermath, call them cowards, for doing what people like you wanted done. And guess what? We'll let you and given the opprotunity, the true patriots will do it again. For it's an Honor of which you know nothing about!

I never said any of that stuff LOL I dont need a flag to hide behind like you do. Your cowardly for calling anyone who disagrees with you unpatriotic. Thats what Im saying. Its dont work so good anymore does it? Only the weak minded buy that crap.

Is the best you can do is twist my words?

The Flag represents our Country and yes, you do need it.
Your the one twisting peoples words around and started the name calling.
I'm saying, that if it was for Soldiers picking that Flag up and carrying it forward, we wouldn't have the Nation we have today. We wouldn't even have a Nation.

You know what, she voiced her opinion out loud with a cut and paste and I actually wrote my opinion.

You try to jump to her defense, when she knew what the results were going to be. She does this often.

You jumped all over people and called them cowards for doing something you did yourself!

I never implyed that you were unpatriotic or unamerican. You are very American. Whats unamerican and unpatriotic is calling other people that for voicing an opinion that you dont agree with.

I'm not calling her Unpatriotic, Her and I just share a different love for our troops. I look one way and she looks the other. Two people can look at the same thing and see something totally different.