A friend, Sarah Buttenweiser, who contributes frequently to a variety of on-line news sources and blogs, alerted me to a first person piece in today’s DAILY HAMPSHIRE GAZETTE by a veteran of the War in Iraq. It is titled, “BROTHERS IN ARMS” and subtitled, “A Soldier Comes Home, Still in the Grasp of Iraq.” It is an eloquent account by William Quinn of his homecoming and the very strange an unsettling experience he has of witnessing an America essentially disengaged from the war. He then proceeds to share some of his war experience and the effects it has had upon his psyche. I was reminded from the outset of the piece, when he describes arriving in the Detroit Airport, of many of the stories I was told by Vietnam veterans, about how out of place and surreal they felt when they got back to the States after a tour of duty in ‘Nam. The disorientation, the sense that America was completely unaware of what was going on in Southeast Asia and the disconnect between what was expected here vs. there was comprehensively disconcerting and it is going on for thousands of men and women again now. Here is one man’s take and it certainly deserves our attention and, upon reading, reflection.
As I was about to copy the piece into the blog I saw that it had received one comment on www.gazettenet.com I believe the writer of the comment somehow missed the great stress this former soldier is experiencing since he wrote: “You wanna be a hero? Stop participating in the war machine that’s killing thousands of innocent people. THAT’S a hero.” I certainly can appreciate the sentiment behind this comment, but if only it were so simple to unburden one’s self of what the war does to one’s psyche and become an anti-war proponent. Here’s the Quinn story:
The only feeling I’ve ever had that was more surreal than arriving in a war zone was returning from one. I came home on R&R in 2005 after eight months in Iraq. Heading for baggage claim in Detroit, I watched travelers walking and talking on their cellphones, chatting with friends and acting just the way people had before I’d left for Baghdad. The war didn’t just seem to be taking place in another country; it seemed to be taking place in another universe.
There I was, in desert camouflage, wondering how all the intensity, the violence, the tears and the killing of Iraq could really be happening at the same time all these people were hurrying to catch their flights to Las Vegas or Los Angeles or wherever.
Riding home that day with my parents, I felt nervous, too exposed in their Ford Taurus. There was no armor on the car, and it felt light. At every red light and stop sign I saw potential dangers everywhere, even though I-94 heading into the city was nothing like Baghdad’s Airport Road. There were no torched trucks or craters left by bomb blasts. The neatness of it all made me uncomfortable. Staying alive shouldn’t be so easy.
Two years after Iraq I have a different life, as a college student. But some of those feelings are still with me. After a year in a conflict of such enormous complexity, I find college a bit mundane, and it’s inexplicable to me that people here seem entirely untouched by the war.
On Sept. 11, 2001, everyone said that day would change the lives of all Americans. I was then a trainee in the interrogation course at the Army Intelligence Center at Fort Huachuca, Ariz. At 18, I had dropped out of college and joined the Army because I felt that my life lacked discipline and direction. Six years later, 9/11 seems to have had little effect on most people’s lives. But it has had an enormous effect on mine.
I arrived in Iraq in March 2005. My unit hurried onto a Chinook helicopter at Baghdad International Airport in the middle of the night. I was weighted down with more than 100 pounds of gear, and I never managed to strap myself in. Helicopters are violent machines, and we shook as we lifted into the air. The rear door was open, a machine gunner suspended over the ramp, and the lights on the ground receded as we flew off, like the scenery behind a taxi in an old movie. Soon we were over a field of tents, lit up under spotlights as bright as day. We had arrived at Abu Ghraib.
I spent the next 11/2 months at that prison complex outside Baghdad. By then, the interrogation rules had changed substantially after the stories of abuse there came out in mid-2004. We were permitted to sit across from a detainee and talk to him – everything else was banned. This was a good rule. Torture is easy to justify. Interrogators assume everyone they question is culpable; it’s part of the job. If a detainee can’t provide information because he has none, the temptation to slip into brutality is very present. Without rules I might have been brutal, but I never so much as raised my voice to a detainee.
On April 2, 2005, Abu Ghraib was attacked by dozens of insurgents armed with vehicle-borne bombs, rockets, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and Kalashnikovs. It was terrifying – but also exhilarating. I learned that I was capable of functioning through my fear, and that I could place my life, with absolute confidence, in the hands of my fellow soldiers.
I spent a few hours that night in an inner tower with Marines who responded to the rockets and small-arms fire with 50-caliber machine guns. I watched as a man in a tractor was killed by machine-gun fire and as a group of trucks was stopped by a barrage of bullets from the tower guards. Later that night, I interrogated some of the men who had been in those trucks. A few had been wounded; all were frightened. They were fish deliverymen, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. The man in the tractor turned out to be a suicide bomber. It’s nearly impossible to tell the enemy from the innocent.
After Abu Ghraib I was transferred to Camp Cropper, near Baghdad International Airport. Over the next year, I spoke with hundreds of detainees: members of al-Qaida, Baathists, Sunni nationalist insurgents and Shiite insurgents. I listened to their life stories, and I wrote hundreds of reports about their experiences.
My interrogations lasted weeks, sometimes months. The long-term nature of our conversations forced me to see the men I interrogated as human beings. Most were Iraqi. Many were extremely intelligent, and some had had a great deal of formal education. Some were forthcoming with information; some were not. They all remain in my thoughts, and I’m sometimes surprised by my feelings. Recently, I read in the International Herald Tribune that a man I’d interrogated had been executed in Baghdad. If anyone ever deserved execution, it was he. But I still felt a pang of regret. His life, for all its horrors, mattered to me.
The Army discharged me in July 2006, and I began Georgetown University that August. What a difference. People on campus don’t think about the war very much. It rarely comes up in conversation. One student actually told me to stop thinking about Iraq. “You need to get rid of all that baggage and let yourself live,” she said. “We need to be shallow sometimes.”
After my first semester, I decided to rejoin the Army by signing up with the ROTC. I felt guilty for having done only one tour in Iraq while friends of mine have done two or three. And I didn’t want to forget the war. I may be prejudiced, but many of my college peers seem self-absorbed. I didn’t want to end up like that.
Students’ true priorities are demonstrated by their daily activities: They have friends to meet, parties to attend, internships to work at, classes to attend. They’re under pressure to build a strong resume for whatever company or graduate school they apply to after college. They’re under no pressure to be concerned about those who are less fortunate – or those who fight wars on their behalf.
I have a lot of respect for my professors and peers. But there are still days when I think about what it must be like back in Baghdad – and wonder whether that’s where I should be.
William Quinn, who is majoring in international politics and security studies at Georgetown University, served in Iraq from 2005 to 2006.
I was so knocked out by this opinion piece in the paper yesterday: the reality he faced, the surreal experience of returning to “normal” & the very concerning truth he raised about the fact that this country, even when talking about Iraq we’re not generally talking about anything with the high stakes this man writes about. For the concept that these are life & death matters, life changing matters, limb losing matters, it’s not happening to a wide swath of our country & somehow remains unreal… My heart breaks for him & others to live with this experience of not being understood. I see we are maybe trying harder than with Vietnam overall to care about/for the troops in the larger public but it’s almost beyond us still.
Hi Tom,
I agree … with you and Sarah. It is so hard to deal with this dichotomy – yet when one has lost someone the rest of the world goes on. When someone is raped or abused, the rest of the world also goes on.
But this war in Iraq is being done in our name with our money. I hate that we are not feeling the sacrifice at home! Then maybe people would think.
~ Diane Clancy
http://www.dianeclancy.com/blog
I’m a combat veteran and all of my friends and I live our life with post traumatic stress syndrome. The lives of everyone we have ever associated with, family, loved ones and even acquaintances have in some way been affected by this. This war as with our war (Vietnam) was initiated by the lies and deceit of a corrupt government. All our life we have been taught to be patriotic, that we live under the greatest system in the world, a government by and for the people, one nation under god. Were raised as good Christian children.Then were sent to some third world country, one inhabited by some godless people you know Communists, Muslims, Indians or the like. We go and fight our wars for god and country only to return to a country that has little or no use for it’s good Christian warriors any more. The government we so love and cherish now sees us as a liability and John Q public dispose of there support the troops magnets and now see us as those crazed vets. We spend the next thirty or so years fighting the VA for care for our cancers war wounds and depression. We watch our friends die of cancers caused by exposure to some chemical sold to our government for use on these godless lands, and we watch the corporations responsible shirk there responsibilities only to make the public foot the bill. We spend the years after our wars studying, trying to find the reason for our war only to realize it was a war for profit. The profit of people whose children never have to fight these wars. We finally realize that all of our wars have been for the profit of these people, the same people that are stealing the natural resources from every country we conquer, control or occupy. The same people we elect to govern this fine country, and the cause and reason we have terrorism. Finally we realize the cause of our post traumatic stress syndrome, and as long as the people that perpetrate this are allowed to continue unpunished our lives have and will continue to be a lie.
Dear Steve,
Thank you for your honesty and your incredibly insightful words about how our country operates. It takes both determination and courage to acknowledge both the effects of war on EVERYONE involved and the degree to which the warmongers and the rest of us are complicit in creating the conditions that lead to war and the seeming inevitability of constant war. I appreciated as well your explanation for why there is terrorism given how we “steal the natural resources from every country we conquer, control or occupy”. The only place I take any issue with you is your conclusion that not punishing the ones who perpetrate these acts will cause your life to be a lie. It is the truth you are speaking that refutes that statement and thankfully, over time, more people speaking the truth to the awful power that has been running the show for far too long gives hope that things can actually change. I am not sure you saw the post I wrote where I reference Tyler Boudreau’s book, PACKING INFERNO, but I highly recommend it since he is compelled by what he has participated in and witnessed as a Marine serving in Iraq, to tell the truth about war. He is currently leading an effort to begin to redress the horrific mistreatment of the civilian population of the country in which he helped carry out an invasion and occupation. He is traveling to Jordan to meet with refugees and find out what he can to help them. Yes, the lies continue to be fed to an all too willing populace in this country, but there are many who are fed up and finding ways to let it be known. I believe, from your comment, you are one of those people and appreciate your efforts.
Peace,
Tom
I graduated from high school in June, 1964 and headed for college with my II-2 deferrment. I was raised in a family where we were taught that service to God and country was the highest honor one could achieve. I desparately wanted to fly jets and make a career of the Air Force and so I attempted to get an Congressional appointment to the U.S.A.F.A.
I graduated from high school in June, 1964 and headed for college with my II-2 deferrment. I was raised in a family where we were taught that service to God and country was the highest honor one could achieve. I desparately wanted to fly jets and make a career of the Air Force and so I attempted to get a Congressional appointment to the U.S.A.F.A. Our Congressman used a federal civil service test for determining his appointments and my score was not quite high enough. I was appointed as an alternate to the U.S.A.F.A. and was offered an appointment to the Merchant Marine Academy (which I declined). I went to Penn State for a year and, during that year, I again went through the process to get an appointment. This time I succeeded. All I had to do was pass the physical fitness test and the physical examination. I spent two days at Olmstead A.F.B. in Middletown, PA. I passed the fitness exam without a problem. And, I passed all of the physical exam except for one thing. The rejection notice stated words to the effect Failed. Eight millimeter diastema between upper two front teeth. In short, I had a space, a gap, between my upper, two front teeth. That space called me to fail the physical which, in turn, kept me out of the Air Force Academy.
All of a sudden, my respect for the military evaporated. I was frustrated, angry and, generally, had an anti-military attitude. My Dad wrote a letter to Secretary of Defense McNamara. It went without a response. Eventually, I completed my four years of college but had not gotten my degree. Of course, my deferrment ended and given the on-going Tet Offensive in Vietnam, I received my draft notice around Halloween. I left for Ft. Dix, N.J. on December 10, 1968.
I had such a bad attitude that it is impossible for me to describe it. However, fate had something else in store for me. Although it wasn’t really a surprise to me, when I completed basic, I was assigned to an A.I.T. unit also at Ft. Dix. I was going to learn to fight as an infantryman for a war in a jungle with a tropical climate by training in the winter in northern, New Jersey. I wondered how often it had snowed in Vietnam? We were advised that our A.I.T. program was a new ARVN training program that last 9 weeks (instead of the usual 8 weeks). I still thought it was a joke: training people to fight a jungle war in the woods of New Jersey in the middle of the winter.
As anticipated, about 3 weeks before AIT graduation, I got alert orders for Vietnam. After graduation, I got 30 days leave then I report to Travis A.F.B. in northern California to be send to Vietnam. About 10 days before graduation, we had just returned from a 4-day FTX and had been released to clean and stow our gear, get a hot shower and grab some sack time. I was putting my gear away when the CQ runner came into the barracks and told me and another trainee to report to the orderly room. When we reported, the first sergeant had a bad attitude toward us. (My impression of the first sergeant was that his IQ was slightly higher than a sackful of doorknobs). He said something to the effect of: “Who the hell do you think you are. You’re asses are going to Vietnam so don’t think this is gonna change any of that!” Then he threw a few papers at each one of us and said, “Dismissed.”
We had no idea what the papers were except they appeared to be some type of orders. Other than that, we had no clue what they said. We were able to find our platoon sergeant and we asked him if he could help us understand these papers. He said he would. It turned out that our prior orders were canceled including our 30 day leave. In the middle of the night after graduation, we were being shipped to Ft. Bliss, TX to something called the Redeye missle school for weeks. We then had 2 weeks leave and were assigned to the 24th Infantry Division at Ft. Riley, KS. As it turned out, my attitude improved, I never left Ft. Riley, and I was a buck sergeant (E-5) one year after I entered the service. Talk about being at the right place at the right time. And, while I never forgave the DOD for depriving me of the career I wanted, I was a good soldier and good things happened for me.
Kent B. Seitzinger
First, let me say thank-you for sharing your story on this blog. I deeply appreciate your taking the time and putting forth the requisite energy to get this down. I am wondering what it was like for you to revisit the story. It certainly has some very odd moments including your rejection by the program you so wanted to be part of because of a gap in your front teeth and then the totally mysterious and for a time completely incomprehensible orders. The first sergeant certainly led you to believe that no matter what the papers he threw at you contained, you and your fellow trainee were still going to Vietnam, which turned out to be completely untrue. From all of the unsatisfying and even disturbing things that happened to you I am guessing that the relief you must have felt in being spared service in Vietnam enabled you to be a “good soldier” to whom “good things happened”, because up until your arrival at Ft. Riley you certainly sounded embittered and determined not to be the good soldier after the way you had been treated, including the lack of any response from McNamara about whom I wrote a post a few days ago that you might find worthwhile.
In any event, having someone share their saga always affirms my having created this blog, so tell anyone else you know that it’s here if they want to visit and thanks again for what you contributed…