American Soldier: We even shot women and children!

Soldiers tell stories about Iraq

Monday, July 26, 2004
By NATALIA MU�OZ
[email protected]

NORTHAMPTON - When his turn came to speak at the community dialogue on the Iraq War, Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey of the United States Marines Corps chewed his gum slowly and slowly scanned the 150 people in the audience.

What he was about to say required deliberation.
"We shot a man with his hands up," he said, "We even shot women and children."

Massey was one of three Iraq War veterans to speak yesterday at a forum sponsored by the Veterans Education Project and the American Friends Service Committee.

The event, held at the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Michael Curtin Post, in the Florence neighborhood, offered the audience and opportunity to hear first-hand experiences of veterans who hold varying opinions on the war in Iraq.

Air Force Reserve Tech. Sgt. Pablo Rodriguez, a Northampton police officer, and Army National Guard Sgt. Richard Riley of Amherst, spoke about their experiences in Iraq.

Both Rodriguez and Riley said they were proud to serve in Iraq, and if called they would go back.

"I'm glad I had an opportunity to serve," said Rodriguez, who did security details at the Baghdad Airport.

Riley, who served with the Guard's 180th Engineering Detachment, built bridges as well as housing and other facilities for GIs in Iraq and Kuwait.

Massey told the audience of his disillusionment with the war. The only one of the three to engage in combat, the 12-year veteran from North Carolina said he was fully prepared to kill or be killed. But that was before the war.

Today he said he takes five different anti-depressant and anti-anxiety pills to help him deal with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Firing on civilians and securing oil fields was not the duty he signed up for, he said.

"Why are Marines learning to shut down oil wells - are we the Environmental Protection Agency now?" he asked as he told the audience of his realization that this war was not one he agreed with.

He started asking questions and was reassigned to combat duty.

"I'm in the desert, I'm gung-ho, ready to kill," he said, putting "your tax dollars to work. Unfortunately, your tax dollars went into a lot of civilians. I was there. I pulled the trigger.

"My main purpose in life, for 12 years, was to meet the enemy on the battlefield and destroy him," he said. "When I left to go to Iraq I didn't care whether or not I died. If you die in combat, that's an honor."

There were days when he thought to himself, "Today is a good day to die," said Massey, who received an honorable discharge.

But earlier in the evening, as people streamed into the hall and the sun lit up his face he realized yet again, "I'm glad to be in the sun."

At least someone gots enough balls for confession . . .

[edit on 7-9-2004 by fanoose]

News flash: Civilians die in war and combat causes shell shock. More at 11.

Oh my God! This man is a traitor! String him up! Let's hope he never runs for president...

-koji K.

I'm starting to wonder if it is possible to wage war without committing shameful acts. Those are shameful acts, what he described. But Marines don't take prisoners for a reason. They can't carry them on their backs. The women and children, that's another story. That is wrong with few exceptions, but there hasn't been a contemporary war without atrocity to some degree on both sides.

At least in the Civil War we were considerate enough to drag each other out into a field to blow one another away. What a civil war it was... What am I saying? Heinous things happened there too.

This war is wrong for so many reasons, and it is having a detrimental effect on all those who participate in any way. The President failed to consult the scales of justice before entering this debacle.

It's true... this kind of thing happens in war. All wars. Which is why I'm surprised so many people are shocked at Kerry for mentioning it, and why I'm also surprised we so willingly invaded Iraq.

-koji K.

Originally posted by DeltaChaos
I'm starting to wonder if it is possible to wage war without committing shameful acts. Those are shameful acts, what he described. But Marines don't take prisoners for a reason.

Marines do take prisoners. We have a policy of not shooting enemies who are surrendering or civilians.

Problem in Iraq is this: You are manning a checkpoint and guy in civilian clothes or even policeman outfit walks up and chucks a grenade at you. Or a group of civilians comes around corner and one guy whips out an automatic rifle. Or you're standing at a store and a civilian walks up to your friend, puts pistol to his head and pulls trigger. Or a car is approaching your checkpoint and doesn't stop on time. Maybe driver is panicked or didn't understand, either way he could also have a car bomb. You shoot and kill civilians.

This is an insurgency, the insurgents are dressed as civilians and it's very difficult for a soldier fighting an insurgency to never hit civilians. The line between civilian and insurgent are nearly invisible!

My brother was in Panama when they were trying to catch Noriega.
He told me about a time when civilians were accidentally blown up and he had to help pick up body parts to put in body bags. And other things happened while he was there that they never show on the news. I hope that people who read these posts aren't too shocked because war truly is hell.

What were the circumstances -

... This red Kia came into our area, and we fired a warning shot. They didn�t stop. I won�t say the Marine Corps did not take adequate steps. We did all within our power. I don�t fault the Marine Corps. It�s the intelligence reports that led to the kind of mass hysteria that led to the genocidal type of atmosphere that was prevalent. And that�s what it felt like, like we were just mass exterminating Iraqis.

The Kia came into our area, and they went past our signs in Arabic saying �stop, halt.� We fired warning shots, they didn�t stop. We opened up on them with 50-caliber and M-16s and 240s.

This was not a bunch of soldiers executing civilians or women or children for fun or out of spite. These were soldiers who fired warning shots and shouted out orders to stop in Arabic - all to no avail. It was not their fault.

Oh and just because its pertinent, this guy didn't even remember the incident until the women who is helping him write a book mentioned it.

Link

You know Fanoose - you keep bending the truth or spinning the truth to suit your propaganda and your credibility will soon be shot.

Originally posted by koji_K
Oh my God! This man is a traitor! String him up! Let's hope he never runs for president...

-koji K.

Nicely said

But again coming from a war that this administrations has not business doing, I don't blame the soldiers they were doing what they were told and following orders, the chief in command should be resposible for the murder of this people we never declared war on that country and the "war" was of liberation not decimation. Bush is a killer of women and children, not our troops.

[edit on 7-9-2004 by marg6043]

Has there ever been any war where innocent civilians were not killed?

Originally posted by taibunsuu

Marines do take prisoners. We have a policy of not shooting enemies who are surrendering or civilians.

(Some Graphic contents there)

• Got a Quarter? I want to play "Murder, American Style!" (video)
  This recent footage (probably January 2004) was obtained by ABC news. It demonstrates just how aloof murder has become to US military forces in Iraq (and, you wonder why the suicide rate is up).
  
  It is claimed that the three humans shown in the footage are insurgents. Well, if the war is over, then they are guilty of crimes. The US government is spending a small fortune in an effort to establish a judicial system in Iraq. Perhaps the solution should be to maintain surveillance, contact ground forces and arrest these �perpetrators�. Instead, the two pilots on this Apache AH-64 helicopter (see Apache Down ), perhaps with encouragement from some remote observer, administer �justice� in a way that has become common in this �high tech war�.
  
  The weapon of choice is a 30mm cannon (each shell is over an inch in diameter) with a very high rate of fire. You can see the destructive force, quite clearly.
  
  As you watch the following footage, note how the injured person is given �no mercy�, in fact, the one voice insists that he be taken out before the second vehicle.
  
  Is there any wonder that the Iraqis are turning against �their saviors�?
  
  
  
• Murder, American Style - Shoot them while they're down (video)
  Rules of war; reason and humanity provide that if an enemy is down, injured and incapable of causing you harm, you derive the greatest benefit by capturing a prisoner of war. This provides intelligence information; is how you would prefer to be treated, and fits, very well, the character of America, as we would all like to envision it.
  
  This assumes that you know if the injured person is an enemy soldier, though that cannot be ascertained by the video you are about to see.
  
  ay close attention to what is coming. You should, as an American, be appalled by the blatant -- and gleeful -- murder of another human being that posed no threat, at all, to the jubilant murderer.
  

Fanoose, do you really think that if there were no insurgency that civilians would be killed? Or do you think GIs are just running around like SS 'cleaners' who were wasting entire villages of Ukrainians in WW2?

Fanoose, the Apache video was covered here months ago. They were insurgents, hiding weapons in a field, to be used against US and Iraqi forces later. Graphic as it might be, that's the price of war.

The Marines shooting the man lying wounded is in the same category. Sad as it may seem, but in the heat of battle, with bullets whizzing overhead, and explosions everywhere, and watching your friends die, I am sure they weren't really in the frame of mind to decide whether or not they should finish off a wounded enemy.

That's the price of war.

Fanoose I saw the second video before but not the first one, I tell you they are following orders unless they went of a killing spree for themselves and that is plausible under the circumstances in Iraq, they are giving these troops free will on how to handle the situation, but then again we don't have witnesses to tell their side of the story. Right?

And then again people wonder why US is so hated in the middle east.

Originally posted by nathraq
...I am sure they weren't really in the frame of mind to decide whether or not they should finish off a wounded enemy.

They sure were in the frame of mind to have a good chuckle about it, though. They'll be sorry soon enough...

Originally posted by marg6043

And then again people wonder why US is so hated in the middle east.

Considering that most of those people's own governments are guilty of the same things (public stonings for forgetting your head wrap, beheadings for not voting for Saddam), stuff like this should be taken in passing. Unless *gasp* those people actually don't like totalitarian governments.

I posted an article about this poor soul the other day. If he committed these atrocities, as an SNCO (Staff Non-Commisioned Officer) he is responsible for them. He cannot lay them at the feet of anyone else. He is in the same league as Hanoi John. He should have gone straight up the chain-of-command.

As to the psychotropic drugs he takes, it is wholly immaterial. Many men who never commit atrocities have to take medications to function normally once they return from a combat zone. When the nervous system has been "wired" to function under such extreme stress for extended periods, it takes time to return to normal and sometimes one never does. It is the price that many men pay for the freedom every American on this board enjoys. I am one of them.

Here are my comments relative to the article I posted and you can go to that thread to see the comments of others.

www.sacbee.com...

Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey blames the President for his committing atrocities in Iraq. I believe he has no one to blame but himself. No one is under any obligation to commit crimes and no one has any obligation to obey unlawful orders. I believe this Marine has dishonored himself and dishonored his Corps. If these things happened or if he was ordered to do these things, he should have gone straight up the chain of command all the way to the President. It is his right; it is his obligation.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by taibunsuu
Marines do take prisoners. We have a policy of not shooting enemies who are surrendering or civilians.

I know Marines are bound my the same Law as Land Warfare as we are. That was just a little fecetiousness on my part.

And about the other stuff you said: True, true, and true.

Originally posted by DeltaChaos

They sure were in the frame of mind to have a good chuckle about it, though. They'll be sorry soon enough...

Meaning?

Anyone who takes up arms knows there is a risk of being killed. Like it or not, if I am in arms against an enemy force, I bloody well am gonna know that it's kill or be killed. That is warfare. That is the chance they are taking.

This isn't the middle ages, where enemies glared at each other in battle formation before attacking. Guerilla type warfare leads to guerilla type tactics.

Originally posted by nathraq
Fanoose, the Apache video was covered here months ago. They were insurgents, hiding weapons in a field, to be used against US and Iraqi forces later. Graphic as it might be, that's the price of war.

The Marines shooting the man lying wounded is in the same category. Sad as it may seem, but in the heat of battle, with bullets whizzing overhead, and explosions everywhere, and watching your friends die, I am sure they weren't really in the frame of mind to decide whether or not they should finish off a wounded enemy.

That's the price of war.

That guy got hit by 30mm frag rounds. On the infrared you could see him dragging intestines 10' behind him. Entire lower half of body disintegrated. Finishing him off was probably a lot kinder than it was cruel.

Grady I don't think accidental shootings is an atrocity, it was accident. And it's just not guys who end up killing civilians that get PTSD. PTSD, (I prefer term shell shock) is caused by conflict of nervous system telling mind that enough is enough. Some people can manage fine after war, some people are complete wrecks! My granddad even though he was succesful businessman and otherwise had good life after WW2 had PTSD and would have 'episodes' of it. He never shot a civilian but was in Navy and survived 4 ship sinkings, two were in a row, ship sank, they got off, picked up, rescue ship sank. My uncle was in Air Force, during 'Nam, building aistrips in Thailand of all places, well guerillas and such would snipe at construction crews. This guy spent two years over there and when he came home he couldn't sleep without pistol under pillow and for about 10 years my aunt had to walk on feathers around him when he was asleep.