[News] Soldier In WikiLeaks Massacre Video: I Relive This Every Day
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Thu Apr 29 19:14:04 EDT 2010
US Soldier In WikiLeaks Massacre Video: I Relive This Every Day
By Bill Van Auken
29 April, 2010
http://wsws.org/articles/2010/apr2010/emcc-a28.shtml
Iraq war veteran Ethan McCord, who is seen
running with an Iraqi child in his arms in the
video posted by WikiLeaks of a July 2007 massacre
of civilians in Baghdad, talked to the World
Socialist Web Site about the impact of this and similar experiences in Iraq.
The video, which records the shocking deaths of
at least 12 individuals, including two Iraqi
journalists employed by Reuters, has been viewed
more than 6 million times on the Internet.
McCord, together with another former member of
the company, Josh Stieber, have addressed an open
Letter of Reconciliation to the Iraqi people
taking responsibility for their role in this
incident and other acts of violence. Both
soldiers deployed to Iraq in 2007 and left the Army last year.
In the letter, McCord and Stieber said,
we
acknowledge our part in the deaths and injuries
of your loved ones. They insisted that the acts
depicted in this video are everyday occurrences
of this war: this is the nature of how US-led
wars are carried out in this region.
The night before speaking to the WSWS, Ethan
McCord had learned that the widow of one of the
dozen men killedthe father of the two children
he tried to rescuehad forgiven him and Stieber for their role in the incident.
Ahlam Abdelhussein Tuman, 33, told the Times of
London: I can accept their apology, because they
saved my children and if it were not for them,
maybe my two little children would be dead.
Her husband, Saleh Mutashar Tuman, had arrived on
the scene of the carnage caused by a US Apache
helicopter firing into a crowd and attempted to
aid the wounded. The helicopter opened fire
again, killing him and at least one wounded man
and wounding his two children, who were sitting in his van.
The widow urged the two former soldiers to
continue to speak out. I would like the American
people and the whole world to understand what
happened here in Iraq. We lost our country and our lives were destroyed.
Can you explain why you and Josh Stieber wrote
the Letter of Reconciliation to the Iraqi people?
We originally wanted it to go to the family
members of those involved that day in the
WikiLeaks video. Then in turn we wanted it to be
more along the lines of to all Iraqi people as
well. We wanted the Iraqi people to know that not
everybody sees them as being dehumanized and that
there are plenty of Americans and other people
who care for them as human beings and wish for
them to live long and happy lives and dont agree
with the war and the policies behind it.
I just found out last night that the letter was
shown to the family, the children and the mother
as well. She has forgiven myself and Josh and is
very happy to see the work that Josh and I are
doing. There was a London Times reporter who went
there to see what they felt about the letter. And
there is one comment from the mother that she
could forgive me because if it wasnt for me her children might be dead.
That must make you feel pretty good.
Definitely, but it doesnt stop there for me or
for Josh. We are definitely going to continue
speaking out on this and do everything we can to
have our voices heard about the policies, the
rules of engagement and the war. As well, we are
hoping to set up a trust fund for the children,
as we know that they've had a pretty rough life
afterward due to the injuries and whatnot.
Hopefully, it will get them some medical care.
Could you describe the events of that day and what your platoon was doing?
It was much like many of the days in Iraq. The
neighborhood we were in was pretty volatile; at
least it was on the rise, with IED emplacements
and with our platoons being shot at with RPGs and
sniper fire. We didnt know who was attacking us.
It was never actually really clear, at least in
my eyes, who the supposed enemy was.
We were conducting what were called
knock-and-searches, where we would knock on the
doors of the homes and search for documents
pertaining to militias or any weapons they
weren't supposed to have or any bomb-making
materials. We didnt really find anything at all.
We were getting ready to wrap up at about one
oclock in the afternoon. We started to funnel
into an alleyway and started to take small arms
fire from rooftops from AK-47s. We didnt know
what was happening with the Apache helicopters.
They were attached to us from another unit to
watch over us for this mission, which was called Ranger Dominance.
We could hear them open fire, but those of us who
were on the ground, outside of the vehicles, had
no idea what was taking place. We couldnt hear
the radio chatter and we were pretty caught up in our own situation.
When that situation was neutralized, we were told
to walk up onto the scene. I was one of about six
soldiers who were dismounted to first arrive on the scene.
What did you see when you got there?
It was pretty much absolute carnage. I had never
seen anybody shot by a 30-millimeter round
before, and frankly dont ever want to see that
again. It almost seemed unreal, like something
out of a bad B-horror movie. When these rounds
hit you they kind of explodepeople with their
heads half-off, their insides hanging out of
their bodies, limbs missing. I did see two RPGs
on the scene as well as a few AK-47s.
But then I heard the cries of a child. They
weren't necessarily cries of agony, but more like
the cries of a small child who was scared out of
her mind. So I ran up to the van where the cries
were coming from. You can actually see in the
scenes from the video where another soldier and I
come up to the driver and the passenger sides of the van.
The soldier I was with, as soon as he saw the
children, turned around, started vomiting and
ran. He didnt want any part of that scene with the children anymore.
What I saw when I looked inside the van was a
small girl, about three or four years old. She
had a belly wound and glass in her hair and eyes.
Next to her was a boy about seven or eight years
old who had a wound to the right side of the
head. He was laying half on the floorboard and
half on the bench. I presumed he was dead; he wasnt moving.
Next to him was who I presumed was the father. He
was hunched over sideways, almost in a protective
way, trying to protect his children. And you
could tell that he had taken a 30-millimeter
round to the chest. I pretty much knew that he was deceased.
I grabbed the little girl and yelled for a medic.
Me and the medic ran into the houses behind where
the van crashed to check whether there were any
other wounds. I was trying to take as much glass
out of her eyes as I could. We dressed the wound
and then the medic ran the girl to the Bradley.
You can hear in the video where he says, theres
nothing else I can do here; we need to evacuate the child.
I then went back outside and went to the van. I
dont know why. I thought both of them were dead,
but something told me to go back. Thats when I
saw the boy move with what appeared to be a
labored breath. So I stated screaming, The boys
alive. I grabbed him and cradled him in my arms
and kept telling him, Dont die, dont die. He
opened his eyes, looked up at me. I told him,
Its OK, I have you. His eyes rolled back into
his head, and I kept telling him, Its OK, Ive
got you. I ran up to the Bradley and placed him inside.
My platoon leader was standing there at the time,
and he yelled at me for doing what I did. He told
me to stop worrying about these motherfucking
kids and start worrying about pulling security.
So after that I went up and pulled security on a rooftop.
Did you face further repercussions for what you did that day?
After coming back to the FOB [forward operating
base], nobody really talked about what had
happened that day. Everybody went to their rooms;
they were tired. Some of them went to make phone
calls. And I was in my room because I had to
clean the blood off of my IBA [body armor] and my
uniformthe blood from these children. And I was
having a flood of emotions and having a real hard
time dealing with having seen children this way,
as Im sure most caring human beings would.
So I went to see a staff sergeant who was in my
chain of command and told him I needed to see
mental health about what was going on in my head.
He told me to quit being a pussy and to suck
it up and be a soldier. He told me that if I
wanted to go to mental health, there would be
repercussions, one of them being labeled a
malingerer, which is actually a crime in the US Army.
For fear of that happening to me, I in turn went
back to my room and tried to bottle up as much
emotion as I could and pretty much just suck it up and drive on.
You had another nine months or more still to go in your tour then?
Thats right. It was a pretty long time with
having to deal with the emotions, not only of
that, but of many other days. What happened then
was not an isolated incident. Stuff like that happens on a daily basis in Iraq.
Are there other incidents that took place in the
following months of your tour that bear this out?
Yes. Our rules of engagement were changing on an
almost daily basis. But we had a pretty gung-ho
commander, who decided that because we were
getting hit by IEDs a lot, there would be a new
battalion SOP [standard operating procedure].
He goes, If someone in your line gets hit with
an IED, 360 rotational fire. You kill every
motherfucker on the street. Myself and Josh and
a lot of other soldiers were just sitting there
looking at each other like, Are you kidding me?
You want us to kill women and children on the street?
And you couldnt just disobey orders to shoot,
because they could just make your life hell in
Iraq. So like with myself, I would shoot up into
the roof of a building instead of down on the
ground toward civilians. But Ive seen it many
times, where people are just walking down the
street and an IED goes off and the troops open fire and kill them.
During this period were you conscious that you
were suffering from post-traumatic stress?
Yes I knew, because I would be angry at everyone
and everything and at myself even more. I would
watch movies and listen to music as much as
possible just to escape reality. I didnt really talk to many people.
The other problem I had is that before the
incident shown in the WikiLeaks video, I was the
gung-ho soldier. I thought I was going over there
to do the greater good. I thought my job over
there was to protect the Iraqi people and that
this was a job with honor and courage and duty.
I was hit by an IED within two weeks of my being
in Iraq. And I didnt understand why people were
throwing rocks at us, why I was being shot at and
why were being blown up, when I have it in my
head that I was here to help these people.
But the first real serious doubt, where I could
no longer justify to myself being in Iraq or
serving in the Army, was on that day in July 2007.
How did you come to join the military?
I had always wanted to be in the military, even
as a child. My grandfather and my uncles were
military. Then September 11 happened, and I
decided it was my duty as an American to join the
military, so thats what I did in 2002. I joined
the Navy. In 2005, when the Army had what they
called Operation Blue to Green, pulling sailors
and airmen into the Army with bigger bonuses, I made a lateral transfer.
I had pretty much had it in my head that I was
going to make a career out of the military. But
going to Iraq and dealing with the Army completely changed my outlook.
What was your reaction when you saw the WikiLeaks video?
Shock. I had dropped my children off at school
one morning, came home and turned on MSNBC, and
there I am running across the screen carrying a child.
I knew immediately it was me. I know the scene.
It is burned into my head. I relive it almost
every day. It was just a shock that it was up
there, and it angered me. I was angry because it was in my face again.
I had actually started to get a little bit better
before the tape was released. I wasnt thinking
about it as often; it was getting a little bit
easier to go to sleep. But then everything that I
had buried and pushed away came bubbling back to
the surface. And the nightmares began again, the
anger, the feeling of being used. It all came
back. It wasnt a good feeling; it was like a huge slap in the face.
Do you think that the way you were told to forget
about the kids and suck it up is indicative of
the general culture in the military?
Yes, there is such a stigma placed on soldiers
seeking mental health. Its like youre showing a
huge sign of weakness for needing to speak about
things or for seeking help even for getting to
sleep. Theres fear of being chastised or being
made fun of. So you end up self-medicating on
alcohol. And as you probably know, alcohol is a
depressant and just makes it worse.
I was self-medicating when I came home, and I was
hospitalized in a mental institute by the Army
because of my problems with PTSD and self-medication.
There were many times when I felt that I could no
longer take what was going on in my head and the
best thing for me to do would be to put a bullet
in my head. But each time I thought about that, I
would look at the pictures of my children and
think back on that day and how the father of
those children was taken away and how horrible it
must be for them. And if I were to do that, I
would be putting my children in the same position.
Do you think that the pressure to bury these
problems is driven by a fear that if you are
allowed to question your own experiences, it can
call into question the nature of the war itself?
I was not able to talk about it, not able to get
answers to like how I was feeling about this, why
were we doing this, what are we doing here? It
was just straight up, Youre going to do this,
and youre going to shut up about it.
Soldiers arent mindless drones. They have
feelings. They have emotions. You cant just make
them go out and do something without telling
them, this is why were doing it. And the pressure just builds up.
You hear in the video the Apache helicopter crew
saying some things that are pretty
heart-wrenching and cold. Im guilty of it too.
We all are. Its kind of a coping mechanism. You
feel bad at the time for what you did and you
take those emotions and push them down. Thats
what the Army teaches you to do, just push them
down. And in a sense it works. It helps you get
through the hard times. But unfortunately,
theres no outlet for that anymore, once you get
out of the Army. When you get back home, theres
no one to joke around with, nobody you can talk to about these instances.
What happens to that soldier? Hes going to blow
up. And when he blows up, more than likely its
going to be on his family, his close friends or
on himself. So I think thats why soldiers end up killing themselves.
So a terrible price is being paid for this war in the US itself?
Yes, I feel that just as the Iraqis, the soldiers
are victims of this war as well. Like we say in
our letter to the Iraqis, the government is
ignoring them and it is also ignoring us. Instead
of people being upset at a few soldiers in a
video who were doing what they were trained to
do, I think people need to be more upset at the
system that trained these soldiers. They are
doing exactly what the Army wants them to do.
Getting angry and calling these soldiers names
and saying how callous and cold-hearted they are
isnt going to change the system.
What do you think drives this system? Why are they sent to do this?
As far as the hidden agenda behind the war, I
couldnt even begin to guess what that is. I do
know that the system is being driven by some
people with pretty low morals and values, and
they attempt to instill those values in the soldiers.
But the people who are driving the system dont
have to deal with the repercussions. Its the
American people who have to deal with them.
Theyre the ones who have to deal with all of
these soldiers who come back from war, have no outlets and blow up.
I still live with this every day. When I close my
eyes I see what happened that day and many other
days like a slide show in my head. The smells
come back to me. The cries of the children come
back to me. The people driving this big war
machine, they dont have to deal with this. They
live in their $36 million mansions and sleep well at night.
Were you hopeful that with the 2008 election
these kinds of things would be brought to a halt.
Were you disappointed that they have continued and escalated?
I am not part of any party. Was I hopeful? Yes.
Was I surprised that we are still there? No. Im
not surprised at all. Theres something else
lying underneath there. Its not Republican or
Democrat; its money. Theres something else
lying underneath it where Republicans and
Democrats together want to keep us in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I am hopeful that the video and our speaking out
will help. Theres the old adage that war is
hell, but I dont think people really understand
just what a hell war is. Until you see it
first-hand, you dont really know whats going
on. Like I said, this video shows you an
every-day occurrence in Iraq, and I can only
assume, in Afghanistan. So I hope people wake up
and see the actual hells of war.
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863-9977
www.Freedomarchives.org
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