‘I thought I was signing up to do something honorable’
The fifth annual reports of the Mental Health Advisory Team have been released. Redacted version of the 110-page report on Iraq (PDF).
The reports were the work of a team of mental health experts who surveyed more than 2,200 soldiers in Iraq and nearly 900 in Afghanistan. The team also gathered information from more than 400 medical professionals, chaplains, psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health workers serving with the troops.
VetVoice’s Jon Soltz summed up the Iraq report’s findings:
Despite all the talk about how wonderful things are in Iraq, the overwhelming majority of troops in Iraq continue to say that morale in their units and their own morale is low. Just 11 percent reported that their unit’s morale was “high or very high.” Only 20 percent said their own morale was “high or very high.”
Extended 15-month combat tours, repeat tours, and the harsh daily stresses of occupation duty and counterinsurgency operations have led to high levels of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and unprecedented numbers of soldier suicides.
Recently, an article by Elizabeth Rubin in the New York Times Magazine revealed that combat troops in Afghanistan often rely on prescription antidepressants in order to remain fit for duty.
Next week’s Winter Soldier hearings can be expected to offer some individual stories to go with the statistics. The following is excerpted from a piece about Iraq Veterans Against the War and Winter Soldier from the London Times.
Jason Washburn is a Marine who served three tours in Iraq. He was at Haditha on November 19, 2005, the day of the massacre when 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians were killed, including women and children. Washburn says Haditha was not an isolated incident. “It’s the one that just happened to be uncovered.â€
Over the course of his three tours, there were more home raids than Washburn can remember. He explains how it worked. “Usually it was based on a tip – we’re told someone in the home is an insurgent. We would pick up people who had nothing to do with anything, keep them locked up until they came up with something.â€
He is glad that he didn’t witness some of the techniques used to get them to talk. “That’s not something I want on my conscience.â€
…Washburn’s anger comes from a feeling of betrayal. “I thought I was signing up to do something honorable.”
Perry O’Brien served as a medic in Afghanistan in 2003:
“Everything that we were doing seemed almost designed to create more terrorists. To turn people against America. I couldn’t understand how we were liberating anyone. But I could understand how an Afghan person who was ambivalent about America could easily become an extremist based on their interaction with American soldiers.â€
Kelly Dougherty was in the National Guard when she was sent to Iraq in 2003:
“You put it out of your mind when you’re over there. And then you get back and reflect on it…
“The soldiers and marines are just doing their jobs, doing what they were trained for or what they were told to do when they got over there. Things that seem really horrible just become routine – and they are implicitly or explicitly condoned, or encouraged, by the commanders and the policy-makers.â€
March 7th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
From Nissargadatta: I am that.
Q: What do you see?
M: I see what you too could see, here and now, but for the wrong focus of your attention. You give no attention to your self. Your mind is all with things, people and ideas, never with your self. Bring your self into focus, become aware of your own existence. See how you function, watch the motives and the results of your actions. Study the prison you have built around yourself by inadvertence. By knowing what you are not, you come to know your self. The way back to your self is through refusal and rejection. One thing is certain: the real is not imaginary, it is not a product of the mind. Even the sense ‘I am’ is not continuous, though it is a useful pointer; it shows where to seek, but not what to seek. Just have a good look at it. Once you are convinced that you cannot say truthfully about your self anything except ‘I am’, and that nothing that can be pointed at, can be your self, the need for the ‘I am’ is over — you are no longer intent on verbalising what you are.
All you need is to get rid of the tendency to define your self. All definitions apply to your body only and to its expressions. Once this obsession with the body goes, you will revert to your natural state, spontaneously and effortlessly. The only difference between us is that I am aware of my natural state, while you are bemused. Just like gold made into ornaments has no advantage over gold dust, except when the mind makes it so, so are we one in being — we differ only in appearance. We discover it by being earnest, by searching, enquiring, questioning daily and hourly, by giving one’s life to this discovery.
March 8th, 2008 at 6:29 am
We battle in the presence of the really really ignorant.
March 8th, 2008 at 6:31 am
Or rather…SOME of the people ALL of the time.
March 8th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
As my English Mom says when you explain your errors with “but I thought”;
“You know what thought did, followed a mud cart and thought it was a wedding”.
Why fight them? Simply disassociate from them. You know, shun them, build your own enclaves, maybe move away.
March 8th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
So Pop, when are going to show yourself in this glorious Land ‘O’ Zion? When the Elders accuse Bush? Enclaves can stretch this far and back, I reckon.
March 8th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
My Sis is having a baby in early April, I’m wheeling through if I have the time.
I don’t know anyone anymore in SLC. Who are you Cav? I have conveniently been, a great many people.
Truly, I love Utah, had some really great times there…, like the time 20 years ago I went to St. George before I knew anyone, or the scene.
I love looking at religious architecture, so I walked around and around, and around the temple in St. George. I couldn’t find any entrance. In my confusion I went to the “visitor center” and asked the old man there “what kind of Church of Jesus Christ is locked up like a fortress”?
The man demurred and said…”watch this video” . After 3 minutes I said to him, I was young and sassy, told him…”This is bullshit”.
He said, “oh I know how feel, I once felt that way”. He went on to say that through prayer he knew it was true. He continued and said, “I am a man of Science, I was the head engineer of the Hermes missile project before I found this Truth”.
The Hermes missile project was the first useful ballistic missile project completed by America, after Werner von Brauns’ guidance.
He implored me to continue to watch the video, I said, “no way, it’s brainwashing”. Mildly miffed he attempted to bring me into the fold of his belief…to wit I said,
“You made that missile, to destroy Gods’ world, I imagine that when you meet the MASTER, there could be HELL to pay…., no video, and locked up church of Jesus, is gonna save ya”.
Then I went to the movies, and went to a “beer bar”. That was terrible “revelation”, that the beer…didn’t really work. I woke the next morning with a headache, ate at a western greasy spoon, complete with rancid weak coffee, and then went to Zion….Park, one of the best places anywhere.
March 8th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
Ahhh, Glenn, you still have friends in Zion. Always welcome at my casa, dude!
March 8th, 2008 at 11:00 pm
Ok, who is everybody anyway? I never keep track, though I know I’m not the only one doing what I do.
March 9th, 2008 at 3:38 am
Well I agree with glenn about Zions park. This is a view a hiking buddy and I had just a few yards from our campsite and not another soul around. I think it’s the East Rim Trail.
March 9th, 2008 at 8:54 am
Let’s just say, you have more than a coupla sympatico here in the land of milk and cookies. Anonimosly yours, C
March 9th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
BREAKING NEWS::
http://www.chieftain.com/metro/1205046377/1
March 9th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Norman Vincent Peale to the courtesy desk.
March 9th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Stone them! Break it out People.
That or we should sponsor a cage match between the elders of the two churches.
March 10th, 2008 at 8:34 am
MORE BREAKING NEWS:
http://www.chieftain.com/metro/1205128800/1
Funny how one of dudes looks just kile Ken!
But then again, all missionaries have that glazed look with the buzzed haircut, so the similarity may just be coincidental.