[NYTr] Intvws with Iraq Vets: What's the Mood of the Grunts?

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Workers World - Sep 13, 2007 issue
http://www.workers.org/2007/us/military-0913

Interviews with Iraq veterans

What's the mood in the U.S. military?

By John Catalinotto

After four-plus years of a failed occupation of Iraq and a U.S. regime
that refuses to leave, two questions have become vital: What is the
strength of the Iraqi resistance? What is the mood of the U.S.
rank-and-file troops? This article discusses the latter question.

The Army’s records show that among a half-million troops, there were
3,196 desertions in 2006, a considerable increase over the 2,543 in
2005.

On Aug. 19, the New York Times published a statement in which seven
enlisted soldiers with the 82nd Airborne stationed in Iraq dared to
challenge the whole chain of command by suggesting the best thing the
U.S. could do is pull out.

Recruiting is way down among African Americans and contested throughout
Puerto Rico. The military is drawing from an ever narrower
base—small-town USA and immigrants desperate for a quicker road to
legal status. Army, Marine and National Guard troops are sent for
multiple and longer tours to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, organizers of the GI anti-war movement gathered in St. Louis
from Aug. 15 to 19 for conventions of Veterans for Peace and Iraq
Veterans Against the War (IVAW). During the IVAW convention, IVAW
elected a new board, and this board in turn selected by consensus one
of the first war resisters, former Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia, as its new
chair-elect.

To explore these developments, between Aug. 25 and Sept. 1 Workers
World held individual phone interviews with four IVAW board members and
other organizers. The following summarizes those conversations:

Workers World: What did the convention accomplish for the IVAW?

Mejia: Every time the IVAW has a conference or convention the
organization comes out stronger. We meet and interact for a goal. In
this case we held elections. We also talked about strategy. We will
concentrate on a struggle campaign—one we call “truth in
recruiting”—that will focus on young people considering joining the
military. We also want to do something like the Winter Soldier hearing
done during the Vietnam War [where veterans testified about their
experiences—WW], but among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

Margaret Stevens of Newark, N.J., veteran of National Guard 1997-2004,
new IVAW treasurer: It has political significance that Mejia is popular
in the organization and respected as a war resister. It says a lot
about what people think is the right way to challenge the problem.
Camilo said three years ago: “I won’t participate. It is a bad military
and I won’t help participate.” It is a very courageous stand. He earned
his stripes.

Mejia: There are now 575 IVAW members, double the number at the last
convention. At least 10 new members are joining each month.

WW: Some of the media reports said the IVAW changed its position and
now backs those who refuse to serve in Iraq. Is that so?

Mejia: The IVAW will support resistance in the military. This doesn’t
mean we are encouraging resistance, but if soldiers say they object to
participating on grounds of conscience, we will support them.

Former Marine Liam Madden, IVAW organizer in Boston, co-founder of the
“Appeal for Redress”: We always supported war resisters and have
educated soldiers and service members what their rights are. The IVAW
wants soldiers and service members to make an informed decision. We
were already on the track of stepping up active-duty organizing.

The IVAW’s role is to shed light on the political implications of the
war and what it means for those fighting it. We explain why the U.S. is
there in Iraq. In effect, we are giving the active-duty troops the
tools they need to resist, but in the end it is the soldier’s decision.

WW: What is the mood now among active-duty troops?

Paul Foley, civilian organizer with the Different Drummer cafe in
Watertown, N.Y., near Fort Drum, home base for the 10th Mountain
Division, which has sent its brigades multiple times to Iraq and
Afghanistan:

There is a chapter of IVAW at Ft. Drum now. We had a meeting at the
Different Drummer Aug. 23. Both speakers, Eli Israel [who refused duty
while in Iraq recently—WW] and Camilo Mejia, are well spoken and they
had a powerful message.

Phil Aliff, IVAW board, at Fort Drum: In the Army three years ago,
while many of the rank and file were skeptical about the war in Iraq,
they followed through with the mission. Now, after the “surge” and the
growing deterioration of the situation in Iraq, more are resisting,
especially at Ft. Drum.

Madden: Over a year ago a poll said 70 percent wanted the U.S. to start
getting out within a year. Now that year is up. This is compounded by
the longer length of tours, the lack of a real break between tours, the
accelerated operational tempo. The troops are involved in a conflict
where they see little progress is made. And they see a stark
contradiction between why U.S. troops are told they are there and what
the reaction of the Iraqis is.

Foley: Many of the IVAW members are in the First Brigade, which is
shipping out to Iraq for a second time. The Third Brigade just got back
this summer from Afghanistan. The Second Brigade is due back at Ft.
Drum in November after an extended tour in Iraq doing house-to-house
searches. Now there are more hassles in town of soldiers who get into
trouble because they are really upset. They’ve been through a lot.

Aliff: The number of AWOL troops and deserters is increasing. There is
more drug use, people are escaping. They want to get out of the
military and are finding many ways to do it. The majority don’t want to
go back to Iraq. It’s taking a toll on the chain of command—the brass
are finding they have to deploy people who normally would be
discharged. On the other side there is growing resentment toward the
brass.

I feel we are on the verge of a mass exodus. People are leaving their
stations or leaving the Army because they don’t want to go back to Iraq
and be part of the occupation. We’re on the verge of something
significant because after four-and-a-half years the war is going so
badly.

WW: Will the IVAW also confront recruiters?

Stevens: The IVAW will have a three-pronged approach: truth in
recruiting; mobilization of active duty soldiers; defending war
resisters.

Madden: The IVAW “truth in recruiting” campaign is designed to give a
strong link to the communities that are vulnerable to the recruiting of
the military. We do it not to tell people what to do—teenagers have
enough people telling them what to do already—but we will help them
make an informed decision.

Mejia: We will provide information about what life is really like in
the military. We won’t tell people not to join. But we know there are
recruiters telling people about benefits and salaries. This might be
true or false, but it only represents a small part of the picture.

We’re going to tell about war, about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,
about stop loss orders that can extend your contract. We’ll tell what
it’s like to be in combat. This is unpleasant information, but these
are important parts of the military experience. We say if you join the
military, you should be making an informed decision.

Madden: On Sept. 17 Adam Kokesh [who is co-chair of the board—WW] is
organizing a National Truth-in-Recruiting Day.

WW: Did the convention change the IVAW’s political orientation?

Madden: What the convention did is show that the IVAW members were all
more or less on the same page.

Stevens: The political statement Mejia made at the convention was that
we need to look at the root of the problem—not just the war but the
capitalist system. People responded positively to this.

My own position is that the movement is limited if it says only, “Get
the troops out of Iraq.” The GI movement should also be an anti-racist
movement. It should oppose not only U.S. intervention in Iraq but U.S.
intervention in Sudan.

What Hutto is doing is important. He’s in the military now, on active
duty. He’s saying, “I’m going to build the movement from within.”

The real measure of the organization will be not in the leaders but in
what the chapters do. I’m organizing a New Jersey chapter of IVAW at
Essex Community College.

WW: Jon, you spoke at the convention. What was your message?

Able Seaman Jonathan Hutto, co-founder of the anti-war “Appeal for
Redress”:

Even though 2,000-plus GIs signed the “Appeal for Redress” and IVAW
convoys toured military bases and people have demonstrated and voted
against the war, the government has been relentless in its decision to
continue this war and occupation. I told the IVAW convention that when
the government closes off those routes for redress and frustrates
political will, then the people will seek other routes. They will move
beyond an appeal to a demand. This is the history of the Declaration of
Independence.

Thomas Jefferson—and he was a slaveholder—wrote that when a government
becomes destructive then the people have an obligation to replace or
overthrow that government.

The frustration can make you cynical. I learned though from Kwame Ture
[Stokely Carmichael] at Howard University 10 years ago how to combat
this. He said you don’t join the struggle to mobilize around an
immediate issue, and then once you have resolved the issue, you move on
with the rest of your life. “The struggle is eternal. ...You have to
take a long-term view, to be able to stay in the struggle.”

We have to look at what a GI/vet movement has to be. It should not be
just to end the war but it should fight all forms of oppression. It
should be interconnected with the fight against racism, sexism and the
struggle of oppressed people all over the world. The whole call to send
the troops home is limited unless it also includes reparations to Iraqi
people. The GIs must understand that the average GI has more in common
with people of Iraq than with the U.S. government.

Contacts: IVAW at www.ivaw.org, Hutto at appealforredress.org, Madden
at BOSTON at IVAW.org, Foley at gicoffeehouseddc at yahoo.com.

Catalinotto was an organizer during 1967-1971 for the American
Servicemen’s Union, which opposed the war against Vietnam.

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