A Soldier's Perspective

Winter Soldier Flops

Ladies and gentlemen, I have renewed faith in this country. It's not that I ever lost faith in it. More like I was losing faith. But, regardless, it's been restored. In an effort to save you the agony of soldiering through the video of the IVAW events, I sacrificed my sanity and did it for you.

As you know, IVAW swooped upon DC like a swarm of vultures – a small swarm – supposedly to confess all the misdeeds and war crimes of Soldiers in Iraq. They came up woefully short. I knew that, of course, because it's hard to base an entire weekend's worth of negativity on second and thirdhand testimony.

IVAW could not have picked a more boring, more mundane, more monotone spokesperson when they handed a microphone to board member Margaret Stevens. Margaret's problem is that she probably likes she was born in the wrong decade, trying to relive the civil rights marches of the 60's. She tried to verbally spit inspiration into her microphone between periods of bewilderment and silence as she seemed to be trying to figure out exactly how she really felt. She called the military "racist" and accused us of "dehumanization of the enemy" and warned us about how WSII was going to expose gender and sexuality issues in the military – "Issues you don't hear from the voices of Americans." She makes a call to arms for Soldiers to "come forward and attest to the genocide, attest to the atrocities" that are theoretically rampant in the our military culture. Thankfully, the WSII started and I didn't have to hear any more of her psycho babble.

During the "Rules of Engagement" panel we were treated to testimony by the likes of Hart Viges, an airborne infantry Soldier who was in the military from November 2001 through 2004 with the 82nd or something. His words were so disjointed and filled with fake…look, the guy was definitely not chosen for his speaking skills. I don't think I caught one proper subject/verb/predicate sentence in his entire "speech". He talked about spectre gunships strafing towns alongside Kiowa helicopters and F18s.

Viges was a mortarman. By his own admission, he "never saw the effects of my mortar rounds in the towns" and his testimony was based solely on his imagination. "It leaves my mind open to the number of deaths" he caused, he said. "I don't know how many civilians I killed or helped kill." Then why the hell are you at WSII, ya moron!!

Here is an example of the kind of people IVAW is using as their spokespeople: Viges relayed an event where he was riding along on a convoy and two men with RPG ran out in the road in front of them. Dramatically, Viges found his manhood somewhere and aimed his rifle at the guy. "I had my sight on his chest," he said. "This is what I was trained to do. But, when I looked at his face, he wasn't the boogeyman. He wasn't the enemy. He was scared and confused." Yeah, and he was carrying an RPG that undoubtedly was used to kill your fellow Soldiers. Why do I say that? Because dumbass didn't shoot the terrorist. "He was probably fed the same BS I was fed. I didn't pull the trigger; he got away," confessed the man responsible for who knows how many dead Soldiers because of his cowardice and negligence in performing his assigned duties.

Next up was Clifton Hicks and his trusty sidekick, Steve Casey. Both were Privates – yes, Privates – in C Troop, 1st Squadron of the 1st Cavalry Regiment. Clifton was the obvious brains of the two, which really wasn't saying much. After all, they "weren't here to pass judgment on my Soldier or my commander, but on war itself." Of all their testimony, they never once mentioned an illegal act committed by a US forces. I think the only reason these two were even in IVAW is because they were angry they got got extended in Iraq when they wanted to go home.

They testified that Soldiers went to great lengths to disable vehicles that violated their checkpoints or didn't heed warnings to slow down. "There was a lot of collateral damage – no combatant damage that I could recall at the time," according to Steve. And that was pretty much his testimony. To sum up Steve's contribution to WSII, Soldiers did what they had to when they were threatened, but didn't arbitrarily kill innocents. Instead we disabled "20 or so" vehicles.

On an operation that Cliff wasn't present at, he testifies that reports of 700-800 KIA reported by the military "were indeed civilians". Yet, the bright Clifton doesn't exactly describe what a "civilian" is. Then he complains that an AC130 is called in to launch a sustained attack on a building from which "people were calling in fire" on US forces and "a handful of insurgents [were] shooting at us." He called the attacks by the AC130 unjustified because "nobody ever got killed from this stuff [the insurgent attacks]." What an Einstein!! They got lucky you poor excuse for a two legged vertebrate!! I would have prefered a JDAM on their ass!

Conveniently, the two mentioned over and over again that they had picture and video "evidence" of what sounded to me like justified attacks. Yet, even though IVAW had a huge projector set up, none of those pictures or video were present except for a short video that was too dark to see of a raid that hit the wrong house. You know, during WWII, Ally forces frequently made the same mistake – raiding the wrong targets. It happens in the fog of war. Intelligence is rarely pinpoint and a certain amount of analysis goes in to the decision making process. Analysis conducted by humans. Steve also felt bad that we strafed the crap out of a building where his unit was "mortared daily from that area." Perhaps, he would be happier if he were didn't survive one of those attacks.

Next up on the genius roster is Steven Mortillo. Steven served with the 1st Infantry Division from Nov 2002 to Nov 2005. Steven spoke about his boring presence patrols. He talked about how our military tactics involve responding to AK with overwhelming force – firing 25mm rounds and dropping 120mm mortar on their heads. And? "If someone shot at us in the city, we could use whatever we had in our possession to pacify the situation." I'm still trying to figure out what's wrong with that? It's stopped the incoming didn't it? Dead guys blown to bits can't shoot at my brothers and sisters.

Jesse Hamilton was perhaps the only person on the panel that seemed to know how to speak like an intelligent being. Dangling from his nice suit were his medals he earned through almost ten years of service. As the senior guy on the panel, a Staff Sergeant who served with the 101st as a forward observer, Jesse was assigned to a Mobile Training Team as an advisor. He volunteered to serve in that position. He never worked with Soldiers and went to WSII to complain about…wait for it…THE IRAQIS!! Again, nothing wrong with what Soldiers were doing. However, he did have a heaping helping of the leftist kool-aid. "It is a lost cause in Iraq," he reiterated of the tired old line that may have held water in 2004. "Regardless of when we leave, whether tomorrow or 100 years, as soon as we leave the Iraqis are going to handle things the way they handle them. It's their country. It's their culture." *snore. Sorry, fell asleep there.

Then, there was Adam Kokesh. Another highly visible IVAW member that didn't witness anything. What is wrong with these people? My gosh, didn't their VVAW handlers teach them anything. The point of WS is to LIE, LIE, and LIE some more about the "atrocities" of American troops in combat. They provided NOTHING of the sort. I think some IVAW testifyers got a good spanking by their VVAW predecessors when it was all over. Either that or disowned.

The bottom line is that WSII actually did MORE to boost the reality that Soldiers are not indiscriminantly killing women, children, and fluffy little puppies in Iraq. The best they could come up were anecdotal stories of a raid gone bad or a scared woman who was surprised by a presence patrol. IVAW went to great lengths to menace bloggers who dared to provide full disclosure of the insanity of WSII. Katie O'Malley reported that "bloggers were subjected to as many as 6 security guards at a time, received escorted trips to the bathroom and were threatened with ejection from the event." She also agrees with my assessment:

My conclusions after hearing and reading hours upon hours of the testimony? War is hell. Bad things happen. People get hurt. Sometimes innocents get caught in the fire. As to the specifics that IVAW members alleged, perhaps a few things were questionable and they should certainly be investigated. The rest of the antidotal stories confirmed nothing more except that in war, unfortunate things happen. This was a collection of war stories, not the exposure of war crimes.

Maybe VVAW will get lucky and we'll find ourselves in Iran or Pakistan for the next round. That should give them a chance at fixing the problems with WSII during WSIII. Maybe they'll have collected enough money by then to pay more people to be in attendance and fill all the vacant seats on the floor. Let's face it: WSII is the beginning of the end for the anti-war movement.