MEDIA ROOTS – In the glory days of Rome, Julius Caesar came to understand that the masses could be pacified so long as they had plenty of food to eat and games to entertain them. It is said that while barbarians crashed at the city gates, Romans sat mesmerized by the displays of gratuitous violence in the Coliseum. Rome, like all empires eventually do, collapsed.

Welcome to the beginning of the end of the American empire. There are more than 44 million citizens on food stamps. Our televisions offer 700 channels to titillate and stimulate at all hours of the day while we flock to the latest Apple products, computers, mobile phones, electronic bells, whistles, and distractions. Meanwhile, Uncle Sam sent troops to more than 150 countries around the world and we are now entangled in military conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Libya, borrowing billions of dollars from China each day to keep the military machine going.

Stupefying. Where are the riots in the streets? Where are the nationwide protests? Somebody else will step up and fight for us, right? 

Maybe we should take a little time to know the people who are fighting in the name of our country. Peter (pseudonym), a former Army Captain, 4th Infantry Division out of Fort Hood, recently contacted Media Roots to express how he had come to be disillusioned by the war on terror and the justifications for a U.S. presence in the Middle East:

“I just started to ask questions like: Why am I here wasting over a year of my early twenties? What is the real purpose behind this war? Why were there no WMDs? Why are soldiers outnumbered by civilian contractors almost 3 to 1?”

He also touched on alarming suicide rates, saying “…the brigade I was in on led the army in suicide rates during 2006 and 2007” and also described Fort Hood as plagued by “high crime, gangs within units, drug dealing in the barracks, bad stuff going on.”

During Peter’s tenure, the divorce rate among married soldiers “topped out at over 80%” and the Army’s maddening stop-loss policy wasn’t helping matters. With stop-loss, soldiers are forced into service past their contractual obligations.

We wanted to get to know Peter, and he was kind enough to talk more in depth in an exclusive Media Roots interview. 

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MR: Why did you join the military? 

P: I went on active duty after graduating college when I was 22 to pay back my Army ROTC scholarship commitment. I joined mainly because I wanted to do something exciting and challenging instead of just being a typical college student majoring in business or something boring like that. I also needed a way to pay my tuition. The army agreed to pay all my tuition and fees and in return after graduating I would commission as a 2nd Lieutenant and serve at least 4 years active duty.

MR: What have you done in the service thus far and where has it taken you?

P: I served as a security platoon leader (convoy escort/VIP escort type of thing), company executive officer (2nd in command of over 200 soldiers), and a battalion assistant operations officer (higher level staff mission planning). I served one tour with the 4th Infantry Division for 13 months out of FOB [Forward Operating Base] Falcon in southern Baghdad.

MR: At what point did you start asking the kinds of questions that facilitated your political awakening?

P: When I joined up and for my first year-and-a-half of service I thought Bush and Cheney were doing the right things and keeping us safe. I felt I needed to do my part to fight Islamic extremism. My brigade was one of the last “surge” brigades to go into Baghdad. I first started to ask questions probably my first time outside the wire, maybe my third day on the ground there. The outgoing unit was showing us our OE [Operating Environment] and the main routes they used. I saw how we had basically reduced Baghdad into a cesspool of trash, sewage, rubble, and mud holes as well as displaced thousands of people from their homes. I then noticed around the FOB that civilian contractors from KBR, Raytheon, General Dynamics, etc. outnumbered actual soldiers about 3:1. I thought all this was odd as many of the civilians freely explained how much money they were making by being there, mostly in the six figures + range.

When I was moved to the position of company executive officer, I was in charge of acquiring the new MRAP [Mine Resistant Ambush Protected] vehicles up at Victory Base Complex [VBC, the huge base surrounding Saddam’s palaces and Baghdad airport]. We already had more than enough vehicles and the soldiers in my company said they preferred to use the humvee as opposed to the new MRAP. Nonetheless, we had to follow orders and I ended up leading at least five or six missions to VBC where we would pick up these brand new vehicles for the Battalion to use. While at VBC, I had the pleasure of dealing with attitude-ridden, overpaid civilian contractors who issued us the new vehicles. I also noticed the sheer abundance of the new MRAPs around the complex. I’m talking thousands and thousands of brand new vehicles just sitting in a lot, not being used. I couldn’t help but imagine the cost of making all these huge armored trucks, let alone the cost of shipping all of them thousands of miles overseas to Iraq.

In the end, my company signed for and was responsible for over 35 of these new vehicles and all of their associated equipment. They added to our existing fleet of over 60 vehicles already on the FOB of the older humvees and LMTVs for a grand total of over 95 combat vehicles. So a company-sized element now had a Battalion’s worth of vehicles and equipment. Needless to say we only used about 15% of our vehicles on missions and the rest sat there collecting dust, an absolute waste of resources.

The other thing is that my company commander had to sign for all that sensitive equipment and I was responsible for managing it for him. That means it was his ass and my ass when something went missing. So, if a private leaves a $5,000 handheld radio in a porta-potty on accident and no one can find it then ultimately it is the company commander’s fault. So there would be a big investigation as to why the radio was lost and who was at fault, ending in someone, probably the company commander, having to pay out of his pocket for that missing radio since Uncle Sam always gets his. Meanwhile, Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon can have $3 trillion in unaccounted for spending and nothing is done about it. But the junior level army commander has the keep track of all of his property, down to the smallest weapon mount or rifle scope, and will pay for whatever is lost. All of this stuff was the spark that made me start asking questions and looking into things more. Once we got some Internet hooked up in my room on the FOB, I started looking into Ron Paul and Alex Jones type of stuff.

MR: Do you think that the threat of terrorism is exaggerated? Do you feel that the US is engaging in countries abroad to genuinely combat terrorism?

P: I did not want to believe it for the longest time but I am now sure that the terrorism threat is grossly exaggerated and it has all been staged from the beginning, most likely from our own CIA. These wars are not for combating terrorism, but for control of resources and power. It is all used as a tool for profit for international banking interests as well as all the large defense contractors. We were lied to about WMDs to get us into the war in Iraq just as we were lied to about the Gulf of Tonkin incident to get us into Vietnam.

MR: What do you think of the Army as an institution overall?

P: The Army is a good institution overall. It is a great thing for people who are trying to better themselves, get money for college, and challenge themselves. The people I served with, aside from high-level leadership like Gen. Casey and Adm. Mullen, are honorable, caring people who are just trying to do the right thing or are just trying to make a living.

In my experience, most people in the Army aren’t that concerned about the politics behind everything. They are there to do a job, better themselves and make a paycheck or they just like being a soldier and doing cool stuff like shooting machine guns and driving tanks. A lot of soldiers know the wars are a bunch of BS but with the economy so bad they have no choice but to stay in since the pay is so good now.

MR: Is the importance of strict adherence to the Constitution emphasized in the Army?

P: No, it is only mentioned in the oath of enlistment. Most enlisted soldiers have no idea what it truly means.

MR: Do you think a free press and free speech are especially important during times of war?

P: Yes, always.

MR: How would you compare World War 2 and the Vietnam War to the War on Terror?

P: WW2 at least had a known enemy and soldiers knew they were there to liberate Europe, close concentration camps and then go home when the job was done. The whole country was involved as well because of the draft and the women working in the tank and aircraft factories. It was a war with clearer objectives and politics, a good vs. evil. I don’t think it is similar at all to the wars we are in now.

Vietnam is similar in that it began as a result of a false-flag attack (Gulf of Tonkin) and was all a political, elite banker, defense contractor agenda. Kissinger, Lyndon Johnson, CIA, MacNamara—all wanted to go to war and they wanted it to last for a long time so they made the American people fear the spread of communism. That is why there was no clear objective set, strict rules of engagement established, etc. This was a war for international bankers and defense contractors to profit off of while strategically accomplishing nothing and allowing the size of government to expand.

The Wars on Terror were started because of the false flag 9/11 attack and instilled a sense of fear and vengeance among all Americans. I believe these wars had been planned for a long time by globalist neo-cons Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Bush Jr. and Sr. The other thing about this war is that it is fought by an all-volunteer force of only 0.1% of Americans. The other 99.9% is not directly affected by the war and that is why there is not as much outrage and opposition to it. When I watched TV in our dining facility in Iraq it seemed like America was oblivious to us being over there fighting insurgents. All that was on the news was Anna Nicole Smith, Britney Spears, American Idol, etc. It makes you think, why am I here wasting my time if no one cares?

MR: You said only .1% of Americans serve in the military. Do you think that the stop-loss policy and tour extensions are due to the administration’s attempts at preventing a draft in any way possible, despite the escalation of engagement?

P: Yes, they are a result of not having a draft. I think if there had been a draft a lot more Americans would be affected by the wars and there would be a greater push to end them, as more people would have to sacrifice.

MR: You mentioned that the rate of contractors to soldiers on the ground was 3:1. How are they helping?

P: They don’t do much except take up space. They do jobs that the Army can’t do because we are so strapped for personnel. Normally the Army has its own cooks, laundry people, construction workers, etc. as all enlisted soldiers. Since we are so short on manpower, those support-role soldiers are all used on missions outside the wire and the contractors come in and fill those support jobs and are paid a lot more money to do them. So if you signed up for the Army thinking you were going to be a cook and not see any combat, you better think again because all the cooks in my battalion went on missions outside the wire.

MR: What is a “non-combat” troop? Is the idea that we are scaling down a front?

P: It is just a political term. We don’t have “non-combat” troops. Everyone goes to combat. Everyone carries a weapon. The term is meant to dupe the American people into thinking we are drawing down. I know they have closed the smaller FOBs like Falcon (where I was stationed) but I am sure we will remain at Victory Base Complex for at least fifty years. Iraq will be just like South Korea and Germany. We will be there forever.

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To touch on a few of Peter’s points, Defense Secretary Gates announced the start of a phased ending of the hugely unpopular stop-loss policy back in March 2009, and the Army’s goal was to completely eliminate the need for stop-loss by March 2011. It is now April 2011, and we are still waiting. Secondly, the Army announced earlier this year that 343 soldiers and personnel took their own lives in 2010. That’s nearly one a day. Thirdly, an FBI report released last year entitled Gang Activity in the U.S. Armed Forces Increasing revealed that members of every major street gang, from Crips to Bloods to Gangster Disciples have members enlisted in the military at installations at home and abroad. Army recruiters have been found to look the other way when it comes to dealing with known gang members in order to meet recruitment quotas.

Bear in mind that Peter does not speak for all men and women in uniform, but he makes no such claim. If nothing else, we can view his testimony as a snapshot in time when a soldier saw the barbarians at the city gates and ran to warn his countrymen.

If you are currently serving in the armed forces or know somebody who is and would like to send us your thoughts, please send a message to [email protected]. We honor all requests for anonymity. Thank you.

Interview conducted by Abby Martin, article written by Jeff Wilson

Photo by flickr user US Army Photostream

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Citizens enroll for military service for a variety of reasons.  Some do so for money towards obtaining an online degrees. Others may enroll out of the promise of a early retirement.  While some might do so just out of the pride they feel for our country and truly wish to serve and protect all that our nation stands for.  Whatever the reasoning might be, one thing is for certain, the path that they travel will rarely be the path that they imagined.

[The following is a response to the editor of Media Roots, re: the Wikileaks video showing journalists killed in Iraq]

MEDIA ROOTS- What do you get for all the effort and risk involved to become an Army aviator? In the Apache video footage of the journalist massacre, US ground forces had already been engaged sporadically in that area earlier that day.

Being a war photographer is not safe, and the people in this video were operating away from any American forces. They were carrying big cylindrical objects (cameras), and running around trying to get photos of American forces in combat. 

As for the Iraqi civilian paparazzi, they often act like this. Being in a mob of civilians doesn’t quite follow the common sense principle in an area where any country’s young troops are being engaged. 

One of our biggest concerns is rules of engagement. We brief this to no end. We constantly talk about techniques to prevent fratricide. We have a lot of civilian “observers” mixed in with IA (Iraqi Army), IP (Iraqi police), and another policing group called “Sons of Iraq.” 

Now flash back to a couple thousand feet up in the air to the Apache pilots looking at all these people on the ground – none of them have radios, uniforms, or training.

Our ground forces hardly ever know where they are. The “insurgents” switch sides all the time. You can’t quite get the big picture, until you’ve seen American forces get hurt that are depending on you to protect them. Then it doesn’t matter why anyone is there. You can’t always think perfectly straight either when you have been flying 6 to10 hours a day for 15 months straight.

This film is a “video/sound-bite”. That’s a nice name for propaganda. Remember, if you really want to figure it out, assume you are already brainwashed. I just feel badly for that crew. It isn’t fair to put soldiers in such positions. It isn’t fair to have wars like this one. As I said, short of defense, war is not justified. It serves other purposes. 

     “This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence-economic, political, and even spiritual-is felt in every city, every state house, and every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

     In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

     We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.” 

    Transcription courtesy of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum.

There is much going on that we do not know about, and not just in the Middle East.  This is why we need a First Amendment and a free, unbiased press.  When the press is truly unhindered and free, they serve as your eyes and ears, and will take you places to make you aware of events you never could have otherwise in order for you to make your own judgements.  Do you really know what the First Amendment is and why it’s the first item in the Bill of Rights?  Why is it there? Who would ever attempt to remove it and how?  “Politically correct” censorship, for example?  We will explore this next in greater detail…

Yossarian.

This is the first in a series of articles from a soldier’s perspective that I am writing for Media Roots.  These articles will provide an inside look at the military, war, the players involved, and my own personal take on it all.  While I’ll try not to overly indulge myself in biographical reverie, I feel it will be important for the reader to know a little about me.

As a young boy I remember visiting the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum and indoctrinating myself with aviation. I was in love with it. There is no clear place in my evolution where I can remember thinking that I really wanted to fly military aircraft, it was just always  there. Smithsonian imagery no doubt played a part. 

I wonder, in every person I meet doing what I do, what that thing was for them when they were young. But here we are now, young military pilots, the best of the best flying army gunships in the night.

My perspective of this experience, and the path leading up to it, has opened myself to questions I might not otherwise have entertained, and forced me to examine core beliefs and basic assumptions within myself. That has been a good thing, a very good thing – hastening thought processes within myself.

This and subsequent articles are my attempt to give the reader a different perspective, my take on what might actually be going on in the world. I don’t mean at any point to be presumptuous, condescending, or inconsiderate. In fact, I truly believe that your right to your personal beliefs and the freedom to express those beliefs is why I’m here. But do you really know what your beliefs are? Are they really your beliefs? What is in YOUR mind?

The war I want is a war of the minds – a mental jousting match followed by respect and a better understanding and openness to original ideas. My father taught me to begin with the assumption that you are, in fact brainwashed.  In other words, take everything you think you know and question it mightily, peeling the layers back.  Therefore, my opening question shall be: Who will wake up and step up to participate?  Will you truly exercise this innate human faculty? 

I am a warrior.  I swore to ‘defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic.’  My job is to kill, lose fellow soldiers, and to continue functioning exceptionally well physically and mentally, in spite of all that.  However, in doing this, I have come to believe there is no just war, only just defense.  That means that if I am defending my life, or the life of my nation, I am innocent.  Have you asked yourself if your country is conducting a war of defense?  Do you have the information required to decide if you support what your young country men and women are tasked to do? 

As an officer, and proud member of my unit in the United States Army, I fly gunship helicopters. Yes, the kind so many of you have seen shooting people to pieces – literally.  I am not here to openly question my chain of command.  That remains within the chain, just as your family’s business remains internal, or should at least. 

My purpose in writing is to invigorate the cause of freedom as the Constitution of the United States of America intended, a document and concept to which I am sworn and bound to defend and uphold.  I implore you to drop what you think you know about it and read it. Develop a fresh understanding of its purpose. Why was it written the way it was?  Then simply compare that doctrine to the actions of your current representation and system of laws. I want you to understand that freedom of expression is the first and most important one to consider, especially during  times of war.

I spent thirteen months flying over enemy in Iraq. I was a creature of the night – a young man who stares at people through a powerful infrared camera for six to ten hours a night, followed by head-bobbing a helicopter back to base as the sun was rising. Redbull was my friend. I helped give ground commanders the leverage they needed, tools that ensured the preservation of lives, not only of young American soldiers, but of innocent civilians as well. 

Before I became a military aviator, I was a totally different person. I experienced a typical middle class upbringing. Before twelve, family was everything, Christmas was magic, and my neighborhood was candy land.  JV and Varsity years pulled my attention to girls, grades, sports, and working random jobs to fill my gas tank, drink alcohol, and pay even more attention to girls. I was the typical middle class male, basically trying to have a good time and not kill myself while preparing for higher education.

My folks had limited financial means to support me in college.  Fortunately, I was able to deal with this burden without their help.  Clearly, the middle class is under financial attack when it comes to tuition. If you’re wealthy, obviously paying for school isn’t an issue in the first place but universities don’t pay their bills off the affluent few.  If you’re poor, you’ll get the financial assistance you need.  If you’re middle class, you’ll likely be crushed with six-figure debt per child.  In any event, I decided to finance my college education with running my own professional business.  It worked and it also set me apart from all the other students.

I figured out early on that college was a sham. The classes were kind of bullshit. I could do a lot at home, without any aid. Many students didn’t give a shit. Many professors didn’t either. No one knew why they were there.  If you spoke about any social issue in a way that was inconsistent with the crowd (and faculty), you were in trouble. Better to be outwardly politically correct no matter what you actually think. I mistakenly thought it was an environment that welcomed debate, flexing the grey matter, but in practice that wasn’t really true.  As I made money, connections, and experienced firsthand how the business world actually worked, I began looking at my schooling in a different and more cautious light.

I became by degree an engineer.  The co-op portion of my program put me into real-world industrial environments where often my stark “book-based” learning process came up short of the practical world’s real problems of an applied technology, business concerns and how one engineer might fit in and provide value.  School had not prepared me for the thought processes required for dealing with the reality of industry. One of the most valued engineers at the mill I worked at had no degree. He kept trying to retire but management needed his skills so badly they just kept offering him more money until he’d say okay to another few years. He was truly a legacy. While the co-op aspect of the program intended to give an appreciation of all of this, I was nonetheless amazed at  the level of indifference real business and industry had towards academia.

Ultimately, people are hired based on their true ability and skill.  All around me I see people putting their faith in a diluted form of education to which we now must subscribe to in order to be considered for any well-paying job. Kids pay a hundred thousand dollars and up only to end up slowly paying off outrageous debt working at Home Depot, Best Buy, TGI Fridays, or in their field using relatively little of what they studied with no creativity.  I began to see the whole system as an over-priced shake down of the middle class.  Why do I bring this up?

Our culture really believes in that diploma. So do the soldiers. Many young soldiers joined the military for college money. We are so entrenched with the idea that we need to shell out large sums of money in order to learn skill sets to survive and prosper in the economy that we will actually risk getting blown up to get that money!?  Ridiculous!

Despite my growing awareness of a system that seemed to punish the middle class, regulate speech through PC pressure, and propogate a cultural myth in which an expensive 4-year college experience was more important than anything else, I was still wistfully dreamed about being a military aviator.

9/11 did nothing to increase or decrease my desire to fly.  The desire just was.  I remember saying I wanted to do something for my country in response to the tragedy but was only a small part of me. I wanted the glory.  I wanted to do this thing I thought was heroic.  I sold my business, and when I was finally within weeks of leaving for flight school, my father told me that I was entering into something  dangerous, and that this decision could mean that in just a matter of a few years, I could very easily be dead.  He was right in the case of two friends.  And equally important, he said  I would likely take the lives of others.  He asked me if I really understood what that meant and if I thought the cause was just.

I was angry at him.  He was ex-Army, and his father had fought in WW2 and survived – with lasting physical and mental effects. But we took pride in his service. His older brother flew two tours in Nam and was highly decorated.  His uncle flew Air Force One under President Ford.  How could my father expound upon our family’s participation in the US military and then question my motives?  How could he allow me to watch every war movie ever made, and then not understand why I wanted to join?

I simply remarked back that I could die on the highway tomorrow, and that I wanted to do something for my country.  If 18 year olds were going to be risking their lives and dying, than I should help.  He basically backed me down until I admitted that I was joining more for the glory of being a military pilot, than for any of the altruistic reasons I was touting.  He was right and I was pissed, but I joined anyways. 

Not to spite him, but because I was so excited… to become an Army aviator!

Yossarian.

Photo by flickr user US Army