Winter Soldier (27 page)

The Pentagon is so stretched that more than forty-three thousand troops listed as medically unfit for combat have been sent anyway.3 Many of these troops are being redeployed despite surviving a traumatic brain injury, physical brain damage, which is often caused by roadside bombs. Others are being sent to the front despite being diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or other severe mental health conditions are being “layered” with PTSD as the horrors of one deployment get caked onto another.

In November 2006 the Pentagon released guidelines that allow commanders to redeploy soldiers with “a psychiatric disorder in remission, or whose residual symptoms do not impair duty performance.” The guidelines list PTSD as a “treatable” problem and set out a long list of conditions when a soldier can and cannot be returned for an additional tour in Iraq. Those on lithium, for example, would not be allowed to deploy, while those on another class of medications similar to Prozac may be sent to the front.4 As of October 2007, the army reports about 12 percent of combat troops in Iraq and 17 percent of those in Afghanistan were taking prescription antidepressants or sleeping pills to help them cope.5

This is not only troubling given the stress on the individual servicemember, it’s also dangerous for the civilians and other soldiers around him or her. “As a layman and a former soldier, I think that’s ridiculous,” said Steve Robinson, a Gulf War veteran who works for the organization Veterans for America. “If I’ve got a soldier who’s on Ambien to go to sleep and Seroquel and Klonopin and all kinds of other psychotropic meds, I don’t want them to have a weapon in their hand and to be part of my team because they’re a risk to themselves and to others.”

The army admits the policy is unconventional but maintains it is necessary given the difficultly it’s having mustering enough soldiers to continue the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. “Historically, we have not wanted to send soldiers or anybody with post-traumatic stress disorder back into what traumatized them,’’ Colonel Elizabeth Ritchie told the Hartford Courant. “The challenge for us…is that the Army has a mission to fight.’’6

The length of this war has also caused the Pentagon to continue a policy called “stop-loss,” whereupon soldiers are redeployed to Iraq or Afghanistan even after their contract with the military is over. Since September 11, 2001, more than fifty-eight thousand troops have been “stop-lossed,” which critics label a back-door draft.7

Making matters worse is the fact that many of the soldiers sent to occupy Iraq never imagined they would be sent abroad. Over 250,000 National Guardsmen have been forced to fight overseas in the War on Terror.8 These men and women who signed up provide emergency help during a flood, earthquake, or civil disturbance are now no longer eligible to do that job, leaving the domestic security of our country at risk.

Military equipment is also breaking down. In March 2007, then-head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace told a House of Representatives Committee that 40 percent of army and Marine Corps equipment is deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan or being repaired in depots. “It will take end of war plus two years to work off the backlog,” Pace told the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee. “Without being able to give you a [date for the] definite end of war, I can’t tell you exactly how long.”9

All this adds up to a military that is burned out. In the testimony that follows you’ll see how that plays out for the soldiers on the ground. American soldiers patrol the streets of Iraq in unarmored Humvees and broken-down Bradley fighting vehicles. When they return, they can’t find a military doctor to treat their head injury and then are ordered to deploy for a second, third, or fourth tour. Some see suicide as the only way out.

My troop was awarded the Draper Award for best troop in the 1st Infantry Division. I had the privilege of serving under some very honorable, disciplined, and adept leadership in my immediate noncommissioned officer corps and in my platoon. They’re some of the most squared-away and honorable people I think I’ll ever meet in my life, and I’ll never forget the camaraderie that was shared and the tough times we all went through together. I remember before we left for Iraq standing in formation and my commander at the time came forward and said, “I want everyone to take a moment and I want you to look to your left and to your right and I’m not going to be able to say that everyone that you see to your left and your right will come back, but we’re not going to leave anyone behind.” At the time it wasn’t very real to me. I looked around the platoon and I said, “If there’s a group of guys that could make it back without taking casualties this would be the one.” I was wrong.

When we got there all our vehicles were pretty much in working order. We had spent some time maintaining them and we started doing what’s called presence patrols through Fallujah. We’d roll up and down the street waiting for someone to shoot at us and looking for bad guys dressed the same as all the civilians. At first there wasn’t too much going on. People were still wondering what we were doing there and how the occupation was going to manifest.

Around April the violence started picking up. We started getting mortared. We started taking fire from RPGs, IEDs. It’s stressful. You’re rolling down the road and at any time the ground beneath you can totally disintegrate and you could find yourself dead or—worse—wounded.

I started noticing that there were shortages in some of our equipment, especially track. Track is the equivalent of what tires would be on a car. It’s metal track that’s linked together with rubber padding designed to cut down on the wear and tear on paved surfaces. Eventually one of the tracks broke and the vehicle flipped on its side and luckily no one was hurt. That’s thirty-two tons rolling over; it can do a lot of damage. It came as a surprise to me to see shortages in key equipment when contractors were showing up in the morning hung over, getting paid four times the amount as us. I don’t think there’s much doubt where the money’s going because it’s not going to the military.

Around July 2004, I got my leave to go on R&R. When I got back, and I’ll never forget this, I was in the reception area and one of my friends pulled me aside and said, “While you were on R&R your platoon leader was hit in the face with shrapnel from an IED.” I knew the person; I had done multiple missions with him.

The first thing everyone says is, “Stop lying to me, I don’t want to hear that.” It was hard for me to accept the fact that he was critically wounded. He had taken some pretty serious damage and the other members of my section had attended to his wounds and initially saved his life. You come back and there’s this feeling of guilt that while you were living it up back in the States, one of your comrades got hit, and that was our platoon leader. He was a good platoon leader and he served his men well. He had a lot of respect from us and it was a hard hit to our platoon.

Two or three weeks after that, I was woken up in the middle of the night and informed that another member of my section had been killed by an IED. Again I said, “Quit lying to me, that’s not true.” It was hard to accept that we had just lost two people from my section in less than a month. He had hit an IED and the Bradley burned to the ground. I mean it’s so, it’s so.…[breaks down]

Casualties started picking up in my area. The pace of operations started picking up. We started putting a lot more wear and tear on the vehicles. Vehicles started going down. I think at some point there were only two or three vehicles from my platoon that were on line. We were trying to get them in and out of maintenance as soon as possible. But when you’re doing six hours on and eight hours off, you have to pull hours of maintenance on your vehicle, clean your weapon, and sleep in that eight-hour time period. You do your best to try to maintain vehicles but eventually they break.

When we were in Kuwait we were told not to set patterns because the enemy would know where we’d be the next day so that they could plan how to attack us. I remember a particular operation called Operation al-Duliyah Sunrise, where we were ordered to do these static checkpoints at the same spot in town over and over again. We didn’t receive any contact for two or three weeks. Then in one day we received indirect fire and several people in my troop were wounded, including my medic who was hit in the leg.

The intelligence that we were getting oftentimes seemed to be based on the accounts of just one Iraqi. It would turn out to be a dispute and someone would come to the American forces and tell us, “Oh so-and-so, he makes bombs, he does this, he does that.” And out comes the cavalry, literally, and knocks this guy’s door in.

For example, one time we got the order to raid a “bomb-making factory.” We pulled up with vehicles and helicopters. We get in the house and it’s one guy and the entire building is totally and absolutely empty, and the guy is a painter who’s been working on the building, which obviously smells like fresh paint. So we rarely would get someone with weapons or with any kind of proof of guilt. Looking back on it, there’s no doubt in my mind that contributed to the violence in my area and increased the number of casualties.

On December 21, 2004, my second platoon leader was shot. After that we didn’t get another replacement. We were sent on a patrol with limited personnel. If I remember correctly, people had been taken to do “kitchen patrol” or washing pots and pans. Mind you, there were contractors on my base and we’re going on missions shorthanded. In this instance, it was myself, a captain, a medic, and one other NCO on a dismounted patrol and we ran into an ambush. We should have had more people that day. I told myself that after I got through this I would be cool and everything would be okay. Just get through this time, I would say, just make sure everyone comes home.

After I got back from Iraq I was diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I’ll never forget the things that happened over there. I think about them every day and I hope the American people can understand the impact this occupation is having on the United States military. I hope that people educate themselves about the true nature of combat in Iraq and the effect it has on our military because it’s tearing us apart. In closing, I would just like to say to those who would judge me for coming up here and sharing my experiences with the American people, do so, because over many sleepless nights I’ve made my peace with what I have to do for this country.

Like so many others, I enlisted right after September 11, 2001. I joined out of a sense of duty and patriotism, and wanted to somehow help and protect the country. I began hearing grumblings about Iraq during my second year in the military and I immediately had questions like I know a lot of you did, but I was hesitant to completely dismiss what my president was saying and what my commanders were saying.