[News] Soldier In WikiLeaks Massacre Video: “I Relive This Every Day”

[Anti-Imperialist News]

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 don’t 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 wasn’t for me her children might be dead.

That must make you feel pretty good.

Definitely, but it doesn’t 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 didn’t 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 didn’t really find anything at all.

We were getting ready to wrap up at about one 
o’clock in the afternoon. We started to funnel 
into an alleyway and started to take small arms 
fire from rooftops from AK-47s. We didn’t 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 couldn’t 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 don’t 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 didn’t 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 wasn’t 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, “there’s 
nothing else I can do here; we need to evacuate the child.”

I then went back outside and went to the van. I 
don’t know why. I thought both of them were dead, 
but something told me to go back. That’s when I 
saw the boy move with what appeared to be a 
labored breath. So I stated screaming, “The boy’s 
alive.” I grabbed him and cradled him in my arms 
and kept telling him, “Don’t die, don’t die.” He 
opened his eyes, looked up at me. I told him, 
“It’s OK, I have you.” His eyes rolled back into 
his head, and I kept telling him, “It’s OK, I’ve 
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 I’m 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?

That’s 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 couldn’t 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 I’ve 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 didn’t 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 didn’t understand why people were 
throwing rocks at us, why I was being shot at and 
why we’re 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 that’s 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 wasn’t 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 wasn’t 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. It’s like you’re showing a 
huge sign of weakness for needing to speak about 
things or for seeking help even for getting to 
sleep. There’s 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, “You’re going to do this, 
and you’re going to shut up about it.”

Soldiers aren’t mindless drones. They have 
feelings. They have emotions. You can’t just make 
them go out and do something without telling 
them, this is why we’re 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. I’m guilty of it too. 
We all are. It’s kind of a coping mechanism. You 
feel bad at the time for what you did and you 
take those emotions and push them down. That’s 
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, 
there’s no outlet for that anymore, once you get 
out of the Army. When you get back home, there’s 
no one to joke around with, nobody you can talk to about these instances.

What happens to that soldier? He’s going to blow 
up. And when he blows up, more than likely it’s 
going to be on his family, his close friends or 
on himself. So I think that’s 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 
isn’t 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 
couldn’t 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 don’t 
have to deal with the repercussions. It’s the 
American people who have to deal with them. 
They’re 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 don’t 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. I’m 
not surprised at all. There’s something else 
lying underneath there. It’s not Republican or 
Democrat; it’s money. There’s 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. There’s the old adage that war is 
hell, but I don’t think people really understand 
just what a hell war is. Until you see it 
first-hand, you don’t really know what’s 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.




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