"The Soldier's Terrorist"

[flvegan]

The Soldier's Terrorist

By Maxine Nash

It's becoming spring here in Baghdad. The days are getting warmer,
the sun shines longer, and I've seen some new growth on flowers and
shrubs in the neighborhood. It's a time of new beginnings.

Yet it doesn't feel like spring in my heart. In fact, my heart is
very heavy. I read a report today from a Quaker therapist who works
with returning U.S. soldiers and their families. The therapist
noted that the returning soldiers are feeling like they've lost an
important part of themselves because of the actions they've done in
Iraq, and fear they are damaged permanently by behaving against
their core beliefs. The therapist also mentions that most of the
soldiers returning from Iraq are angry, and that the anger seems to
be a necessity to staying alive in Iraq.

I've met these soldiers here in Iraq. I've met the angry one who
seems to be angry all the time, with a permanently etched scowl on
his face. I've met the one who tells me of doing things he didn't
want to do and then telling me the ways he tries to cope with
those actions. I've met the one who seems to have turned off all
emotion in order not to feel anything. I've met the one who, when
he got back home, said he'd done his time in Hell and he wasn't ever
going back.

They have names—Ricky, Jeff, Jon. They have beautiful green eyes
that go all the way down to their tortured souls. They have lives,
and personalities, that they remember but can't quite keep in touch
with when they are here and can't fit into when they go home.
They've seen their friends die, and they fear for their own lives.

Where is the new beginning for them? How can they un-live
everything
that's happened to them in this crazy situation and get back to
being whole human beings again?

The answer is of course that they can't ever undo what they've seen
and done as soldiers. No one can give them back the innocence they
had before coming here.

The same is true for me. I lost innocence that I didn't know I
had. I found out that my government and its military have condoned
incredible acts of violence, often against civilians. I've learned
that my government thinks very little about basic humanitarian rules
of conduct and that my government's military was woefully ignorant
of those rules in the first place. I've learned that all of this
can somehow be justified with a large portion of the American public
in the name of "the war on terror."

I do feel terrorized, but not by the usual suspects. I feel
terrorized by some of my own countrymen and women who think that
people who present some kind of danger to freedom in the United
States are somehow sub-human. I feel terrorized by my government
who seems to think that human beings are expendable as part of
the "cost of freedom." Mostly, I feel sad that both the citizens of
the United States and its government are willing to take the
humanity, and the lives, of U.S. soldiers to somehow feel safe again.

http://www.cpt.org/iraq/iraq.php