Staff Sgt. Ed Rosado, one of members of the Keene, N.H.-based 220th Transportation Company, holds his nephew, Felix Gutierrez, 3, of Holyoke, Mass., during a reunion ceremony Aug. 29, 2006, in Boxborough, Mass., after soldiers arrived from Indiana Tuesday morning. (AP Photo/Chitose Suzuki)

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

Soldier Killed In Al Anbar

29 August 2006 Multi-National Corps Iraq Press Release No. 20060828-05

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq: One Soldier assigned to Regimental Combat Team 7 died from wounds sustained due to enemy action while operating in Al Anbar Province August 27.

MND Baghdad Soldier Killed By IED

29 August 2006 Multi-National Corps Iraq Press Release No. 20060829-05

MULTINATIONAL FORCE: WEST PAO

BAGHDAD: A Multi-National Division Baghdad Soldier died at approximately 4:20 p.m. today when the vehicle he was riding in was struck by an improvised-explosive device southwest of Baghdad.

Marine Killed In Al Anbar

29 August 2006 Multi-National Corps Iraq Press Release No. 20060829-02

MULTINATIONAL FORCE: WEST PAO
CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq

One Marine assigned to Regimental Combat Team 5 died August 28 from wounds sustained due to enemy action while operating in Al Anbar Province August 27.

Soldier Dies From Non-Hostile Causes

29 August 2006 Multi-National Corps Iraq Press Release No. 20060829-02

MULTINATIONAL FORCE: WEST PAO
CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq:

One Soldier assigned to 1st Brigade 1st Armored Division died from non-hostile causes August 28.

Utah Soldier Killed

August 29th, 2006 ROY, Utah (AP)

A 19-year-old Army soldier from northern Utah died after a roadside bombing in Iraq, his father said Tuesday.

An insurgent bomb tipped over Dolan’s military vehicle. Dolan was reportedly shot in the head while trying to get the truck upright.

Dolan, a 2005 graduate of Roy High School, was a “fun-loving kid, proud to serve his country,” Tim Dolan said.

Tim Dolan, who works at Hill Air Force Base, said he got the news Monday from an Army chaplain.

“We were fully supportive and so proud” that Dolan enlisted a year ago, the father said.

The Department of Defense lists Dolan’s name on its Iraq casualty Web site but said Tuesday it could not confirm the death until 24 hours after the family has been notified. A person who answered the telephone at the Dolan home said no one was available for comment.

The body of another Utah soldier, Marine Cpl. Adam Galvez, was returned to Salt Lake City on Monday.

Galvez, 21, died Aug. 20 when a roadside bomb exploded under his vehicle. His funeral is scheduled for Wednesday.

Paratrooper From Md. Killed

Aug 26, 2006 Courtney Mabeus, The Examiner

Gaithersburg: Spc. Thomas “T.J.” Barbieri loved to tinker with the vintage Ford Mustang he restored with his father.

“He lived in that thing,” a friend, Patrick Guilday, recalled Friday. “He was the only one to drive that car.”

Guilday remembered Barbieri, 24, an 82nd Airborne Division paratrooper from Gaithersburg, as a reserved guy who liked his service with the Army and enjoyed volunteering with the local fire department.

Barbieri, of the 14000 block of Botany Way, died in a gunfight south of Baghdad on Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Defense announced. He was a gunner assigned to Company D, 1st Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment located at Fort Bragg, N.C.

A memorial service was held in Iraq for him Thursday, the defense department said.

“He was well-liked and respected by all who knew him,” Barbieri’s former 1st Lt. Phillip Smith said in a statement. “His sense of humor and loyalty will always be remembered by his fellow paratroopers and family.”

Barbieri is survived by his parents, Thomas and Carolann, and three brothers.

Barbieri was the second of four sons, Guilday said, and graduated from T.S. Wootton High School. Barbieri joined the Army in October 2004 and was sent to Afghanistan to help out during that country’s elections in July 2005.

“I know that his family was more worried about him going to Iraq than Afghanistan,” Guilday said.

Volunteer Firefighter From Pa. Killed

Aug. 29, 2006 The Philadelphia Inquirer

A volunteer firefighter inspired to join the military following 9/11 was killed by an improvised explosive device in Iraq on Sunday, his family said.

Army Spc. Tristan Smith, 23, of Bryn Athyn, was on patrol northwest of Baghdad when he was killed, his father said Monday.

Smith joined the volunteer Bryn Athyn Fire Company at the age of 16. He quickly rose to lieutenant after becoming trained in firefighting and emergency medical services.

Smith’s father, Grant Smith, said his son had considered joining the military while he was in high school, but the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and the deaths of firefighters in the World Trade Center, drove him to enlist. He joined the Army in July 2004 after two years at Bryn Athyn College.

Kenneth Schauder, emergency medical services chief for the Bryn Athyn Fire Company, said, “After Sept. 11, he knew what he needed to do.”

Smith said his son’s experience in the military had made him into a confident young man.

“He grew up. He really seemed sure of who he was and what he wanted to do, looking forward to getting out and moving ahead with his life,” Smith said.

Smith said his son was fun-loving and enjoyed any kind of outdoor activity.

After the family was notified of Tristan Smith’s death, Schauder lowered the flag to half-staff and hung black bunting at the firehouse.

“He lived to be a firefighter,” Schauder said.

In addition to his father, Tristan Smith is survived by his mother, two sisters and a brother.

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO COMPREHENSIBLE REASON TO BE IN THIS EXTREMELY HIGH RISK LOCATION AT THIS TIME, EXCEPT THAT A CROOKED POLITICIAN WHO LIVES IN THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU THERE, SO HE WILL LOOK GOOD.
That is not a good enough reason.

U.S. soldiers secure the scene of a car bomb attack in Baghdad, August 24, 2006. (Namir Noor-Eldeen/Reuters)

Army Contractor Killed In Bomb Blast

08/29/06 AP

The U.S. Army says one of its contractors were killed in Iraq yesterday …39-year-old Carey Robinson from Orlando, Florida, died when the vehicle he was riding in hit a roadside bomb. Robinson worked for Tampa, Florida-based Cochise Consultancy

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

N. Virginia Soldier, 21, Dies After Roadside Explosion

August 23, 2006 By Martin Weil, Washington Post

In its July 3 issue, an Army publication called Freedom Watch published the photograph of a soldier, telling how Independence Day is celebrated in the United States.

The soldier, who told of the barbecue and fireworks that mark the holiday, was Robert E. Drawl Jr., who grew up in Northern Virginia. At age 21, he was half a world away, in Afghanistan.

On Saturday, Spec. Drawl, whose home town was listed as Alexandria, was killed in Kunar, Afghanistan.

Drawl was one of three members of the 10th Mountain Division who were killed when a roadside bomb detonated near their vehicle in a convoy, the Pentagon said yesterday.

“He was a soldier, and he died being a soldier,” said his uncle Michael Drawl, who lives in the Alexandria section of Fairfax County.

He called his nephew a quiet and soft-spoken young man. “He was pretty easygoing,” the uncle said.

Joseph Drawl, an uncle who lives in Northern Virginia, said his nephew was “a normal kid” who “liked playing video games” and other youthful activities.

Michael Drawl said he understood that his nephew had completed basic training in January after apparently joining the Army last year.

The Pentagon said Drawl was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team in the mountain division, which is based at Fort Drum in Upstate New York.

In May, the 1st Battalion of the 3rd Marine Regiment transferred its area of operations in Afghanistan to Drawl’s battalion. Soldiers from Drawl’s battalion had been in Afghanistan at least since March, according to a military publication.

Michael Drawl said his nephew would be buried in the same place as his grandfather, at Quantico National Cemetery.

He said that in addition to his father, a Northern Virginia resident, Robert E. Drawl Jr. is survived by his mother and a sister, Jacqui.

Michael Drawl said he appreciated his nephew’s achievement and determination in going overseas to serve the United States. “I’m proud of him,” he said.

Foreign Occupation Soldier Killed;
Nationality Not Announced

Aug 29, 2006 KABUL (Reuters)

NATO said in a statement on Tuesday one of its soldiers had been killed in a gun battle with suspected insurgents in Helmand on Sunday morning. It did not give the victim’s nationality.

Two NZ Soldiers Injured

August 29, 2006 APN Holdings

Two New Zealand soldiers hospitalised after a car accident in Afghanistan yesterday are said to be in a stable condition.

Defence spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Mike Shatford said there had been no change in the condition of the men, who were airlifted to a military hospital in Bagram.

Early indications were that the road they were on gave way, causing their vehicle to roll down a 20-metre slope about 4.30pm yesterday (local time).

One soldier was concussed and had cuts to his forehead, the other had bruising to the vertebrae.

Part of New Zealand’s Provincial Reconstruction Team based in Bamyan, the two soldiers were in a convoy of light 4WD Toyota vehicles on routine patrol in the Waras District.

Assorted Resistance Action

Aug. 29 (Xinhua)

At least two policemen were killed in Helmand province.

“A mine planted by insurgents struck a police vehicle in Greshk district of Helmand province today at 9:00 a.m., leading two policemen dead,” spokesman of the provincial government Hajji Mohiudin Khan told Xinhua.

The vehicle was also destroyed in the explosion, he added.

Militants also ambushed a vehicle in Shahjoi district of the neighboring Zabul province Tuesday morning, wounding four persons.

All the four injured men, according to Zabul’s provincial police chief Noor Mohammad Paktin, were the guests of provincial governor.

An attack also claimed the lives of two persons including the attacker and wounded an Afghan soldier Tuesday morning near Kandahar airport.

TROOP NEWS

A General [Ret’d] Firmly Grips Part Of The Truth:
“Withdrawal Is Likely To Raise Morale Among U.S. Forces”

May/June 2006 By Lt. Gen. William E. Odom, Foreignpolicy.com [Excerpts]

The problem in Iraq is not military competency; it is political consolidation. Iraq has a large officer corps with plenty of combat experience from the Iran-Iraq war.

Moktada al-Sadr’s militia fights well today without U.S. advisors, as do Kurdish peshmerga units. The problem is loyalty.

[How interesting he mentions only those two forces. Mentioning that the armed resistance is launching hundreds of attacks a week against the occupation was evidently more than he could bear to mention. But everybody knows it. Put not thy faith in Generals, who are more worried about what other exalted persons will think of them than they are about telling the truth. The fact that the resistance needs no U.S. training, while the collaborator troops run away, is another fact he, and many others, also can’t bear to mention. T]

To whom can officers and troops afford to give their loyalty? The political camps in Iraq are still shifting. So every Iraqi soldier and officer today risks choosing the wrong side.

As a result, most choose to retain as much latitude as possible to switch allegiances.

All the U.S. military trainers in the world cannot remove that reality. But political consolidation will. It should by now be clear that political power can only be established via Iraqi guns and civil war, not through elections or U.S. colonialism by ventriloquism.

Hiding behind the argument of troop morale shows no willingness to accept the responsibilities of command.

The truth is, most wars would stop early if soldiers had the choice of whether or not to continue. [They do. He forgets Vietnam so easily, where the rebellion of the U.S. armed forces made that war impossible to fight.]

This is certainly true in Iraq, where a withdrawal is likely to raise morale among U.S. forces.

A recent Zogby poll suggests that most U.S. troops would welcome an early withdrawal deadline.

Only 24% Of Army Guard, Reserve Deserters Caught

August 29, 2006 By Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press

The Government Accountability Office auditors identified 75 soldiers in the Army Guard and Reserve that were designated as deserters because they did not report for duty when their units were activated after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and during the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Of those 75, arrest warrants were issued for 51, and as of May 11, 18 had been caught and two had surrendered. [18 = 24% of 75.]

“Congress And The Pentagon Need To Raise Military Wages”
Troops “Trying To Live On Near-Poverty Paychecks”

August 29, 2006 Errol Louis, New York Daily News [Excerpt]

It is long past time for Congress to pass a strong law prohibiting the financial exploitation of America’s defenders. The House and Senate are considering a bill that would cap interest rates on so-called “payday loans” (short-term advances against paychecks) to service members at “only” 36 percent.

This is a good start, but Congress and the Pentagon also need to raise military wages.

Trying to live on near-poverty paychecks is how between 7 and 20 percent of all soldiers, an estimated 100,000 at a minimum-fall into the debt trap.

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

Assorted Resistance Action

A destroyed police vehicle after a roadside bomb attack in Kirkuk August 29, 2006. A policeman was killed when a roadside bomb went off near their patrol. REUTERS/Slahaldeen Rasheed (IRAQ)

48.29.06 by Jay Deshmukh (AFP) & Reuters

In the oil hub of Kirkuk, one policeman was killed when his patrol car hit a roadside bomb, a police colonel said. Three policemen and two bystanders were wounded.

Four mortar rounds landed in two districts in northern Baghdad wounding five people, including two Iraqi soldiers, a source in the Interior Ministry said.

An Iraqi soldier was killed and four civilians were wounded when a roadside bomb went off near his patrol in the main road between Mahmudiya and Latifiya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE
END THE OCCUPATION

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

“Turns Out The Folks Who Really Stopped The War Were The Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen And Marines America Sent To Fight It”

Jun 7th Reviewed by Steven Wells, Philadelphia Weekly

Intercutting archives with interviews, Sir! No Sir! lets the heroes who stopped the war in Southeast Asia tell their stories.

So who were these antiwar radicals? The far-out, far-left, drugged-up hippie scum of right-wing myth, spitting on returning GIs and wiping their hairy asses on the flag? Nah.

Turns out the folks who really stopped the war were the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines America sent to fight it.

By the early 1970s the U.S. Armed Forces had disintegrated as an effective fighting force-at least in part because thousands of GIs said, “Fuck it.” (More than half a million military personnel went AWOL during the course of the war.)

Sickened by the civilian massacres and spurred on by the example set by the civil rights movement, America’s massive conscript Army seethed with discontent. They set up more than 300 antiwar zines and ran anti-Army cafes. A female Navy nurse, inspired by footage of B-52s dropping U.S. propaganda leaflets in Vietnam, loaded up a private plane and dropped antiwar propaganda on military bases in San Francisco.

Meanwhile the likes of Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland organized “Fuck the Army” anti-USO shows to packed and cheering audiences outside U.S. bases worldwide.

The military responded with predictable, clumsy savagery. And the movement grew and grew-spreading all over the U.S. militarized world.

At first the viewer of Sir! No Sir! is stunned by the sheer balls of these boys, barely adults, but it’s their sense of outraged morality that really impresses.

They had truth, justice and righteousness on their side, but also a ferocious courage. They needed it.

They were imprisoned, viciously beaten, smeared and in at least one case driven into mental illness. Many of the survivors are in shock by the end of their interviews; did we really, actually do that?

As news of more civilian massacres leaks from yet another futile and unnecessary war, Sir! No Sir! couldn’t be more relevant.

This film should be mandatory viewing for all American children before they’re allowed anywhere near a military recruiter.

Sir! No Sir!:
At A Theatre Near You!
To find it: www.sirnosir.com/

The Sir! No Sir! DVD is on sale now, exclusively at www.sirnosir.com.

Also available will be a Soundtrack CD (which includes the entire song from the FTA Show, “Soldier We Love You”), theatrical posters, tee shirts, and the DVD of “A Night of Ferocious Joy,” a film by me about the first hip-hop antiwar concert against the “War on Terror.”

WHEN YOUR LOVED ONE GOES OFF TO WAR, OR DIES IN WAR, WHAT REGULAR LIFE DO YOU RETURN TO?

It will be a year this September since my husband has returned from Iraq. He lost 19 comrades that he served with, 10 from NY, and 9 from Louisiana; he has to live with those memories and the pain, forever, and be forever changed by war. How can he go back to his regular life? I am still in the streets today fighting to end the war, and I am not going away. Not until every last soldier left serving returns home.

From: Debbie Anderson
To: GI Special
Sent: August 28, 2006
Subject: What regular life is there anymore?

Debbie Anderson’s husband served with the 1-69th Infantry from Manhattan while in Iraq. He was National Guard, but has since retired after 23 years of service.

*************************************************************

What Regular Life Is There Anymore?

People ask me, no they say to me, now that your husband is home, why not go about your regular life.

My regular life?

You tell me how.

Our lives have been forever changed by the war, a course redirected and not by our own means or choice.

I am so sick and tired of hearing this. I am so tired of people saying this to my friends too, who still have loved ones serving in Iraq. Forget about the war, or oh don’t worry things will be fine.

Fine?

Is this your child?

Your husband?

Your Wife?

How can you say this? Where is your heart? And how do you sleep at night?

People need to get their heads out of the frigging sand.

I also hear the ignorant people shouting you should be proud of the soldiers who are serving their country. I am proud of our soldiers, but they have been disrespected, because this is not a noble cause they are fighting for and they are dying for a lie and they want to come home now.

It’s time they come home.

That is why I fight for them, how I honor, respect and support them.

If not for us who will do so? And how will they be saved from harms way?

People, there is a war going on. Turn off your TV and pay attention. Our loved ones are in harms way, and the disease of war is spreading throughout the middle-east like wildfire, it’s out of control. It’s been out of control since this administration has been in place. The only logical remedy to this situation is to kick the heartless bums out of congress!

I had to attend two funerals in one day this past week, Marines who died together in a Sniper attack in Fallujah, Capt. John J. McKenna, IV age 30 of Brooklyn, NY and Lance Corporal Michael D. Glover, age 28 of Queens, NY.

One of them were my friends son’s very close buddy, and they grew up in their teens to adulthood together, the other was also a close friend’s son’s buddy who served with him in Fallujah and is still there today.

Now struggling with the death of his friend. I went to the funerals to support my friends, the families, to pay my respects.

I am tired of the funerals, the pain and suffering of these families. To lose a child is the greatest pain. How many more? Please not one more!

We held an Eyes Wide Open exhibit in Staten Island yesterday and I had the horrible, but somehow painfully honorable job of putting the name tags of Captain McKenna’s and Lance Corporal Glover’s on their boots.

I had to watch my close friends see the boots of their young friend for the first time and it’s a pain that I don’t want to remember, but a pain I don’t want to ever forget.

I also had to watch a mother, her daughter and relatives visit the boots of their son, who was a fellow Staten Islander, for the first time; they couldn’t stay or even walk up to the boots, the pain too great, and their faces will always be etched in my mind.

It will be a year this September since my husband has returned from Iraq. He lost 19 comrades that he served with, 10 from NY, and 9 from Louisiana; he has to live with those memories and the pain, forever, and be forever changed by war. How can he go back to his regular life?

I am still in the streets today fighting to end the war, and I am not going away. Not until every last soldier left serving returns home.

If you can tell me that every soldier who has died in this war, every civilian who has died in this war can return to us, then we can go back to living our regular lives again, until then, smarten up, or shut up!

Debra Anderson
MFSO, Staten Island, NY

ROLL CALL

“ WE CAN WIN THIS WAR IN IWRECK”
George Bush

Photo and caption from the I-R-A-Q (I Remember Another Quagmire) portfolio of Mike Hastie, US Army Medic, Vietnam 1970-71. (For more of his outstanding work, contact at: (hastiemike@earthlink.net) T)

Structured Cruelty:
Learning To Be A Lean, Mean Killing Machine;
“A Stinging Indictment Of The Pathology Of Our Class-Ridden World”

From: Martin Smith
To: GI Special
Sent: August 28, 2006

By Martin Smith, USMC, Sgt., ret.

Martin Smith is a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War

****************************************************

I will never forget standing in formation after the end of our final “hump,” marine-speak for a forced march, at the end of the Crucible in March, 1997.

The Crucible is the final challenge during Marine Corps boot camp and is a two-and-a-half day, physically exhausting exercise in which sleep deprivation, scarce food, and a series of obstacles test teamwork and toughness. The formidable nine-mile stretch ended with our ascent up the “Grim Reaper,” a small mountain in the hilly terrain of Camp Pendleton, California.

As we stood at attention, the Commanding Officer made his way though our lines, inspecting his troops and giving each of us an eagle, globe, and anchor pin, the mark of our final transition from recruit to Marine. But what I recall most was not the pain and exhaustion that filled every ounce of my trembling body, but the sounds that surrounded me as I stood at attention with eyes forward.

Mixed within the repetitive refrains of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA,” belting from a massive sound system, were the soft and gentle sobs emanating from numerous newborn Marines.

Their cries stood in stark contrast to the so-called “warrior spirit” we had earned and now came to epitomize. While some may claim that these unmanly responses resulted from a patriotic emotional fit or even out of a sense of pride in being called “Marine” for the very first time, I know that for many the moisture streaming down our cheeks represented something much more anguished and heartrending.

What I learned about Marines is that despite the stereotype of the chivalrous knight, wearing dress blues with sword drawn, or the green killing machine that is always “ready to rumble,” the young men and women I encountered instead comprised a cross-section of working-class America.

There were neither knights nor machines among us.

During my five years in active-duty service, I befriended a recovering meth addict who was still “using,” a young male who had prostituted himself to pay his rent before he signed-up, an El Salvadorian immigrant serving in order to receive a green card, a single mother who could not afford her child’s healthcare needs as a civilian, a gay teenager who entertained our platoon by singing Madonna karaoke in the barracks to the delight of us all, and many of the country’s poor and poorly educated.

I came to understand very well what those cries on top of the Grim Reaper expressed. Those teardrops represented hope in the promise of a change in our lives from a world that, for many of us as civilians, seemed utterly hopeless.

Marine Corps boot camp is a thirteen week training regimen unlike any other.

According to the USMC’s recruiting website, “Marine Recruits learn to use their intelligence . . . and to live as upstanding moral beings with real purpose.” Yet if teaching intelligence and morals are the stated purpose of its training, the Corps has peculiar way of implementing its pedagogy.

In reality, its educational method is based on a planned and structured form of cruelty.

I remember my first visit to the “chow-hall” in which three Drill Instructors (DIs), wearing their signature “smoky bear” covers, pounced upon me for having looked at them, screaming that I was a “Nasty Piece of Civilian Shit.” From then on, I learned that you could only look at a DI when instructed to by the command of “Eyeballs!”

In addition, recruits could only speak in the third person, thus ridding our vocabulary of the term “I” and divorcing ourselves from our previous civilian identities.

Our emerging group mentality was built upon and reinforced by tearing down and degrading us through a series of regimented and ritualistic exercises in the first phase of boot camp.

Despite having an African American and a Latino DI, recruits in my platoon were ridiculed with derogatory language that included racial epithets. But recruits of color were not the only victims, we were all “fags,” “pussies,” and “shitbags.” We survived through a twisted sort of leveling based on what military historian Christian G. Appy calls a “solidarity of the despised.”

We relearned how to execute every activity, including the most personal aspects of our hygiene.

While eating, we could only use our right hand while our left had to stay directly on our knee, and our eyes had to stare directly at our food trays. Our bathroom breaks were so brief that three recruits would share a urinal at a time so that the entire platoon of sixty-three recruits could relieve themselves in our minute-and-half time limit.

On several occasions, recruits soiled their uniforms during training.

Every evening, DIs inspected our boots for proper polish and our belt buckles for satisfactory shine while we stood at attention in our underwear. Then, we would “mount our racks” (bunk beds), lie at attention, and scream all three verses of the Marine Corps hymn at the top of our lungs.

While the DIs would proclaim that these inspections were to insure that our bodies had not been injured during training, I suspect that there were ulterior motives as well. These examinations were attempts to indoctrinate us with an emerging military masculinity that is based upon male sexuality linked to respect for the uniform and a fetishization of combat.

After the playing of Taps, lights went out. At which time, a DI would circle around the room and begin moralizing. “One of these days, you’re going to figure out what’s really tough in the world,” he would exclaim. “You think you’ve got it so bad. But in recruit training, you get three meals a day while we tell you when to shit and blink,” he continued.

The DI would then lower his voice, “But when you’re out on your own, you’re gonna see what’s hard. You’ll see what tough is when you knock up your old woman. You’ll realize what’s cruel when you get married and find yourself stuck with a fat bitch who just squats out ungrateful kids. You’ll learn what the real world’s about when you’re overseas and your wife back in the states robs you blind and sleeps with your best friend.”

The DI’s nightly homiletic speeches, full of an unabashed hatred of women, were part of the second phase of boot camp, the process of rebuilding recruits into Marines.

The process of reconstructing recruits and molding them into future troops is based on building a team that sees itself in opposition to those who are outside of it.

After the initial shock of the first phase of training, DIs indoctrinate recruits to dehumanize the enemy in order to train them how to overcome any fear or prejudice against killing. In fact, according to longtime counter-recruitment activist Tod Ensign, the military has deliberately researched how to best design training for how to teach recruits how to kill.

Such research was needed because humans are instinctively reluctant to kill.

Dr. Dave Grossman disclosed in his work, On Killing, that fewer than 20 percent of U.S. troops fired their weapons in World War II during combat. As a result, the military reformed training standards so that more soldiers would pull their trigger against the enemy. Grossman credits these training modifications for the transformation of the Armed Forces in the Vietnam War in which 90-95 percent of soldiers fired their weapons. These reforms in training were based on teaching recruits how to dehumanize the enemy.

The process of dehumanization is central to military training. During Vietnam, the enemy in Vietnam was simply a “gook,” “dink,” or a “slope.” Today, “rag head” and “sand nigger” are the current racist epithets lodged against Arabs and Muslims.

After every command, we would scream, “Kill!”

But our call for blood took on particular importance during our physical training, when we learned how to fight with pugil sticks, wooden sticks with padded ends, how to run an obstacle course with fixed bayonets, or how to box and engage in hand-to-hand combat.

We were told to imagine the “enemy” in all of our combat training, and it was always implied that the “enemy” was of Middle Eastern descent.

“When some rag head comes lurking up from behind, you’re gonna give ‘em ONE,” barked the training DI. We all howled in unison, “Kill!”

Likewise, when we charged toward the dummy on an obstacle course with our fixed bayonets, it was clear to all that the lifeless form was Arab.

Even in 1997, we were being brainwashed to accept the coming Iraq War.

Abruptly interrupting a class, one of numerous courses we attended on military history, first aid, and survival skills, a Series Chief DI excitedly announced that all training was coming to a halt. We were to be shipped immediately to the Gulf, because Saddam had just fired missiles into Israel.

Given that we lived with no knowledge of the outside world, with neither TV nor newspapers, and that we experienced constant high levels of stress and a discombobulating environment, the DI’s false assertion seemed all too believable.

After a half-hour panic, we were led out of the auditorium to face the rebuke and scorn of our platoon DIs.

It turned out that the interruption was a skit planned to scare us into the realization that we could face war at any moment.

The trick certainly had the planned effect on me, as I pondered what the hell I had gotten myself into.

I also now realize that we were being indoctrinated with schemes for war in the Middle East. Our hatred of the Arab “other” was crafted from the very beginning of our training through fear and hate.

Almost ten years since I stood on the yellow footprints that greet new recruits at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, I express gratitude for my luck during my enlistment. I was fortunate to have never witnessed a day of combat and was honorably discharged months after 9/11.

However, joining the military is like playing Russian Roulette. With wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the likelihood of military action against Iran, troops in the Corps today are playing with grimmer odds. In these “dirty wars,” troops cannot tell friend from foe, leading to war crimes against a civilian population.

Our government is cynically promoting a campaign of lies and deception to justify its illegal actions (with the complicity of both parties in Washington), and our troops are fighting to support regimes that lack popular support and legitimacy.

With almost 2,600 U.S. troops now dead and thousands more maimed and crippled, I look back to the other young men I heard sobbing on that sunny wintry morning on top of the Reaper.

The reasons we enlisted were as varied as our personal histories. Yet, it is the starkest irony that the hope we collectively expressed for a better life may have indeed cost us our very lives.

When one pulls the trigger called “enlistment,” he or she faces the gambling chance of experiencing war, conflicts which inevitably lead to the degradation of the human spirit.

The recent allegations of war crimes committed by U.S. troops at Al-Mahmudiyah, Haditha, and Ishaqi are, in fact, part and parcel of all imperialist wars.

The USMC’s claim that recruits learn “to live as upstanding moral beings with real purpose” is a sickening ploy aimed to disguise its true objectives.

Given the fact that Marines are molded to kill the enemy “other” from TD One (training day) combined with the bestial nature of colonial war, it should come as no surprise that rather than turning “degenerates” into paragons of virtue, the Corps is more likely capable of transforming men into monsters.

And yet as much as these war crimes reveal about the conditions of war, the circumstances facing an occupying force, and the peculiar brand of Marine training, they also reflect a bitter truth about the civilian world in which we live.

It speaks volumes that in order for young working-class men and women to gain self-confidence or self-worth, they seek to join an institution that trains them how to destroy, maim, and kill.

The desire to become a Marine, as a journey to one’s manhood or as a path to self-improvement, is a stinging indictment of the pathology of our class-ridden world.

What do you think? Comments from service men and women, and veterans, are especially welcome. Send to contact@militaryproject.org. Name, I.D., withheld on request. Replies confidential.

After 1,096 Days Of Regular Army:
“I Never Thought I’d Live To See A Commander In Chief So Corrupted By The Military-Industrial Complex That He Would Make The Reagan Era Appear As Better Days”

[Thanks to Mark Shapiro]

From: David Honish
To: GI Special
Sent: August 29, 2006

Not only was I so stupid after 1,096 days of Regular Army as to join the National Guard, but I also attended their OCS.

I did not finish the course, but that is another story that we won’t go into now.

One of the requirements when I was in the Texas National Guard Academy OCS was to become a life member of the National Guard Association of Texas. For my money the only ‘benefits’ received were a small silver lapel pin and a subscription to the NGAT magazine.

It has been a long time since I got the magazine, so I recently called them with a current address for their records. The magazine has changed quite a bit since I last saw it.

The first obvious difference was noticeable from the cover photos before the magazine is even opened. Apparently the Army weight control program is no longer in effect?

I recall in 1976 the post Viet Nam Army wanted to trim its ranks, in both total numbers and individual fitness terms. Back then personnel were required to meet weight standards before applying for service schools or re-enlistment. Such no longer appears to be the case.

The revised enlistment standards apparently go further than just accepting “mental category 4" enlistees and changing the age limit to 42.

As evidenced by the NGAT magazine photos, a propensity to dig one’s own grave with a knife and fork is also no longer a bar to service.

Back in the Reagan era the magazine content was mostly about training, or the lack of it. What passed for good news then would be an additional tank battalion converting from M-60A3 tanks to the early model M-1 with the 105mm main gun.

Another bright spot was when they could report a successful annual training period as measured by nobody getting killed when they got drunk and rolled a jeep. The 49th AD usually averaged two or three such deaths at AT.

Today the content is much different.

Instead of AT at Ft. Hood there are photos of joint training exercises in Egypt, El Salvador, and the Czech Republic. Beyond training, there are active military operations ongoing in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and of course Iraq.

One article mentioned the return 700 members of the 3/141 Infantry and the 46th Med Command from a year in Afghanistan.

Not mentioned was if the 700 returning was the same number that left for south asia a year ago?

There are recruiting differences as well. Now retired service members are offered $1,000 bounties for the referral of a qualified non-prior service enlistee.

Under the Guard’s “College First” enlistment option one is promised 2 years of “non-deployment” to Iraq or Afghanistan in order to attend college. Do they think that two years of college education will make a person more likely, or less likely to willingly deploy to Iraq?

Perhaps the biggest change is the now prominent featuring of the Texas State Guard, with multiple pages devoted to them. The TSG is an unpaid volunteer military force composed primarily of retired NG personnel. During the Reagan years the TSG was pretty much neither seen nor heard from.

Now we are informed that the TSG provided over 1,100 personnel to serve during hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Not mentioned was the need to use them because the National Guard units that would normally serve on hurricane duty were not available. They were in Iraq, Afghanistan, or the hospital.

Others were perhaps too busy with pre-deployment training at Ft. Hood to be retasked with life saving on the Gulf Coast.

Last but not least I saw the obituary of my former National Guard Academy Commandant. I see he eventually made Brigadier.

That should have made him happy. He was a High School Band teacher.

I guess he liked uniforms and marching?

I thought him a mediocre officer at best.

Mediocrity and blending into the background is the mark of a ‘successful’ military career.

My bland feelings for him would neither inspire me to salute his grave, or want to piss on it.

The NGAT magazine then and now really put things in perspective.

I never thought I’d live to see a commander in chief so corrupted by the military-industrial complex that he would make the Reagan era appear as better days. I was wrong.

Do you have a friend or relative in the service? Forward this E-MAIL along, or send us the address if you wish and we’ll send it regularly. Whether in Iraq or stuck on a base in the USA, this is extra important for your service friend, too often cut off from access to encouraging news of growing resistance to the war, at home and inside the armed services. Send requests to address up top.

OCCUPATION REPORT

Nice Try But No Prize

28 August 2006 By Sudarsan Raghavan and Ellen Knickmeyer, The Washington Post

“The violence is in decrease and our security ability is increasing,” Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said on CNN’s “Late Edition” program Sunday.

Hours after he spoke, at 10:15 a.m. Monday, a bomber detonated a car bomb at a checkpoint leading into the Ministry of Interior, where Interior Minister Jawad Bolani was scheduled to hold a meeting with police chiefs from Iraq’s 18 provinces.

Many of those injured were coming to the ministry for official business. Three police cars were destroyed in addition to five civilian cars, according to witnesses.

OCCUPATION ISN’T LIBERATION
BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOW!

OCCUPATION HAITI

International Human Rights Delegation Protests Attack On Civilians By Occupation Troops:
Eyewitness Account Of Firing Into Densely Populated Cité Soleil On August 24

August 25, 2006 Port-au-Prince, Haiti (by way of Tom Condit; tomcondit@igc.org

An international human rights delegation from North America, Africa and Europe held a press conference in Bourdon, Port-au-Prince, Haiti on Friday, August 25, at 2:00 p.m. The delegation reported on the findings of their investigation of human rights abuses in Haiti’s capital.

On the morning of August 24, six of the international observers witnessed at close range an attack by UN “peacekeepers” on the community Simond Pele, in the commune of Cité Soleil. Brazilian MINUSTAH (UN) troops in four tanks fired multiple rounds of heavy caliber ammunition in a densely populated residential area.

The only other presence seen on the streets were unarmed civilians, including small children.

As with other such military operations carried out by UN troops and Haitian police since Feb. 29, 2004 coup, UN troops fired from tanks (APCs) with little apparent concern for the safety of civilian residents. Almost no return fire was heard from inside the neighborhood.

US trade unionist David Welsh, of the delegation, stated, “The indiscriminate UN attacks on civilians in the poor neighborhoods have got to stop. The residents of Cite Soleil have repeatedly said they want an end to the violent repression of the country’s poor by Haitian police and the UN occupying force.”

While they were in Simond Pele, a UN bulldozer arrived and a truck dumped a load of dirt to block one of the entrances to the neighborhood. A Cite Soleil resident noted that blocking entrances was a tactic used by MINUSTAH [the occupation] prior to the July 6, 2005 Cite Soleil massacre, and said that were it not for the presence of the international delegation, the Brazilian force might have carried a full scale massacre.

The delegation expressed concern that after the release of a small number of high-profile prisoners, the more than one thousand other, lesser-known political prisoners may be forgotten. Like their more well known compatriots, these individuals were unjustly incarcerated by the “interim” coup regime installed by the U.S., France and Canada after the February 29, 2004 kidnapping of democratically-elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

“Representatives of popular organizations we spoke with said they want all political prisoners freed and they want their constitutional government returned to office, which is why they voted en masse for Rene Preval,” said Pauline Wynter, representative of the Congolese Ota Benga Alliance, “and for the return of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and the reinstatement of government officials and civil servants sacked by the coup government.”

OCCUPATION PALESTINE/LEBANON

Palestinian Concentration Camps

From: J
To: GI Special
Sent: August 29, 2006
Subject: Palestinian Concentration Camps

Dear GI Special,

Thanks for the reprint from Middle East Understanding. I think there a lot more Palestinian prisoners in Israeli Concentration Camps than 9,273, though.

What’s the population of Gaza? I’m not sure but I know it’s well over a million. I don’t know another description for Gaza other than a Concentration Camp.

Access in and out is controlled by Israel. The Mediterranean is sealed and patrolled by Israeli gunboats. The Israelis control the airspace. They’ve blown up the airport. They’ve blown up the electrical generating facilities. Facilities that we Americans built.

You need electricity in Gaza to make drinking water, not for air-conditioning.

The Israelis run their tanks in and around the place whenever they feel like killing some Palestinians. They kill Palestinians in their homes using F-16s, Apaches, and remote controlled pilotless drones.

I don’t know what else you’d call Gaza but a Concentration Camp. A killing field, maybe. With a high Concentration of victims.

The West Bank has been carved up into Concentration Camps by the Israeli Apartheid Wall. Which we paid for.

The next time you hear someone say “They hate our freedom” remind that person that “they” hate our decades of expropriating their land, murdering their men, women, and children, and our ceaseless efforts to extinguish their Palestinian nation.

Outside of the US, away from Fox and CNN, it is stone cold obvious that the United States of America is responsible for all of Israel’s bad behavior. We finance it, supply the weapons used against the Palestinians, and protect Israel from the wrath of the world at the UN. And the neocons in Washington apparently were the drive wheels behind the Israeli neocons’ shocking, awful series of war crimes in Lebanon.

Next time you think about Usama bin Forgotten, the 3000 Americans murdered on 9/11, the nearly 3,000 Americans murdered in Iraq, the nearly 20,000 wounded and maimed in Iraq, think of the neocons and of the Israel Lobby in the United States which is in control of “our” foreign policy.

It doesn’t have to be like this. We could just take control of our government and put an end to it.

[To check out what life is like under a murderous military occupation by foreign terrorists, go to: www.rafahtoday.org The occupied nation is Palestine. The foreign terrorists call themselves “Israeli.”]

DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK

RUMSFELD SAYS BUSH LIES

July 13, 2006. REUTERS/Jason Reed (GERMANY)

“The enemy lies constantly, almost totally without consequence.” Rumsfeld quoted by Robert Burns, 8.29.06 AP

CLASS WAR REPORTS

So Much For That “Democracy” Bullshit:
“Just 10% Of The People Own The United States Of America”
[And The Armed Forces]

[The writer fails to mention with that concentration of wealth, and associated power, they also own both the Democratic and Republican Parties, and the government, regardless of what politicians front for them, and have no interest other than maintaining their wealth, power, and the international U.S. Empire. For them, U.S. troops are so many Wall-Mart workers with weapons, whose purpose is to serve then and help them heap up more wealth and power. Nothing less, and nothing more. T]

August 23, 2006 Jason Miller, Civillibertarian.blogspot.com [Excerpts]

And just how heavily are the world’s assets concentrated into the hands of the elite?

While the United States is by no means home to the entire world’s de facto aristocracy, it is the “leader of the obscenely rich world” and by default is the “leader of the (ostensibly) free world”.

For example, Professor G. William Domhoff of the University of California at Santa Cruz wrote in 2001:

“In terms of types of financial wealth, the top 1 percent of households have 44.1% of all privately held stock, 58.0% of financial securities, and 57.3% of business equity. The top 10% have 85% to 90% of stock, bonds, trust funds, and business equity, and over 75% of non-home real estate.

“Since financial wealth is what counts as far as the control of income-producing assets, we can say that just 10% of the people own the United States of America.”

In 2003, the average worker in the United States was netting $517.00 per week. How much were CEO’s taking home at that time? A mere $155,000. 52 times per year. That is a staggering 301 to 1 differential. In 1982 the ratio of CEO to average worker pay was “a mere” 42 to 1.

From 1990 to 2003 US corporate profits rose 128%.

While War Profiteers Are Richer Than Ever:
US Data Show One In Eight Americans In Poverty

29 August 2006 By Joanne Morrison, Reuters

In the world’s biggest economy, one in eight Americans and almost one in four blacks lived in poverty last year, the U.S. Census Bureau said on Tuesday, both ratios virtually unchanged from 2004.

The survey also showed 15.9 percent of the population, or 46.6 million, had no health insurance, up from 15.6 percent in 2004 and an increase for a fifth consecutive year, even as the economy grew at a 3.2 percent clip.

As in past years, the figures showed poverty especially concentrated among blacks and Hispanics.

In all, some 37 million Americans, or 12.6 percent, lived below the poverty line, defined as having an annual income around $10,000 for an individual or $20,000 for a family of four.

Black median income, at $30,858, was only 61 percent of the median for whites.

Some 17.6 percent of children under 18 and one in five of those under 6 were in poverty, higher than for any other age group.

OCCUPATION ISN’T LIBERATION
BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOW!

Telling the truth – about the occupation or the criminals running the government in Washington – is the first reason for Traveling Soldier. But we want to do more than tell the truth; we want to report on the resistance – whether it’s in the streets of Baghdad, New York, or inside the armed forces. Our goal is for Traveling Soldier to become the thread that ties working-class people inside the armed services together. We want this newsletter to be a weapon to help you organize resistance within the armed forces. If you like what you’ve read, we hope that you’ll join with us in building a network of active duty organizers.  www.traveling-soldier.org/  And join with Iraq War vets in the call to end the occupation and bring our troops home now! www.ivaw.net

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