“If The American Public Knew Half Of What’s Going On In Iraq And Afghanistan, We’d Be Out Of There Already”

From the editors: Nick Mottern, Director of Consumers for Peace.org and a contributor to Truthout, visited the Fort Drum area in November. This excerpts from a report he wrote what some of the soldiers and military family members had to say.

Mottern was stationed in Vietnam in the early 1960s.

He handed out an article he had written opposing the war in Afghanistan and “a small fold-out card on GI rights that contains the number for GI Rights Hotline (877-447-4487). The hotline provides counselors for military people who have questions about conscientious objection, harassment and discharge from military service, among other things.”

December 12, 2009
by Nick Mottern, Truthout Op-Ed [Excerpts]

A black woman in her 40’s told me that her husband was about to leave for his fourth deployment, to Afghanistan.

She indicated that he believes this war is a total waste of time.

I gave her a copy of the article and said that if corporations want to run gas and oil pipelines through Afghanistan they should hire their own army. As I said “hire their own army,” she picked up on the phrase like a musician picking up on a riff and finished the sentence with me, saying: “Hire their own army.” I told her that Army Times did not want to run the article in an ad, and she said: “Oh,” as in “Oh, really.” I asked her if she would like to take copies to hand out, and she said she definitely would. She also took a GI rights card.

A 25-year-old woman with her 17-month-old son said that she and her husband were married when they were 18. He immediately went into the Army, and they came to Fort Drum.

She has a five-year-old daughter born nine months after they were married and while her husband was in Afghanistan. He did two tours in Afghanistan, and on his last tour he broke his back when he jumped out of a helicopter wearing a backpack that was too heavy.

He returned to Fort Drum in 2007 and is still being treated for the back injury, and he has PTSD. Her husband is due to be released from the Army shortly; she said the Army kept him in to give him treatment for his back.

She has no use for the Army and can’t wait to go back home to the West Coast. The soldiers are “just numbers” to the Army, she said.

She took copies of the article and the cards to hand out.

A 20-year-old woman, with a pretty, open face, said that her 41-year-old father had been in the Army since he was 18 and that he had been at home for only one of her birthdays.

She said that she has a “friend” in Afghanistan now, and as the conversation developed it was clear that she was intending to marry this 21-year-old. She said that he and his friends do not want to be there, are completely fed up.

She wants him home and, she said, she does not want her life with him to be like what she experienced growing up.

I made the comment to her about the corporations needing to hire their own army if they wanted access to Afghanistan, and she looked directly at me and said: “Thank you!” She took the several copies of the article and the card.

An Army sergeant in his mid-forties, honorably discharged, had been in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has PTSD and is getting private counseling. The message he got from command on his PTSD was: “You’re faking it.”

I asked him how he got his news and whether he read Army Times. He said he read it from time to time. Of news organizations generally, he said: “They don’t give the total information ... If the American public knew half of what’s going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, we’d be out of there already.”

He was clearly agitated as we talked, and at one point a woman with him tried to reach for his elbow to usher him away, but he stayed to finish the conversation.

A 35-year-old Army veteran, recently discharged, said he had been in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said he has PTSD, is taking medication for it and is getting counseling. Then he said, in a very direct, surprising way: “I had a horrible dream last night.”

He said he is fed up with the Army’s “bullshit.” I asked him if he had always felt that way, and he said: “I was gung-ho when I joined up ... kill ‘em all.” Now he wants no part of the Army. He said that the Iraqis and Afghanis should look after their own defense. The Afghanis have the idea that the Americans should do all the fighting, he said.

His tour in Iraq was much worse than the one in Afghanistan; in Iraq, he said, he saw friends blown apart.

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