Posted on 04/16/2006 1:41:47 PM PDT by paltz
Into Iraq With 'Generation Kill': An Interview with Evan Wright
Evan Wright spent two months living with twenty-three marines from First Recon, the elite unit who spearheaded the invasion of Iraq. In magazine articles and his book Generation Kill, Wright chronicled the triumphs and horrorsphysical, moral, emotional, and spiritualthat these marines endured. We talked to him about his experience of the Iraq War, and the human costs of just wars.
By Angelo Matera
Evan Wright: There were a couple of reasons. The first reason had to do with a book called by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, which showed that in past generations only 15 to 20% of combat infantry were willing to fire their weapons. After the first ambush we were in, Lt. Fick and I were discussing this book and how todays guys have no problem firing their weapons. For instance, Fick remarked after a firefight, "Did you see what they did to that town, they fucking destroyed it. Cpl. Trombley, the machine gunner who was next to me in that ambush, hed even been sort of ecstatic, comparing it to Grand Theft Auto, the video game. I never read Tom Brokaws book, but if you go back and look at the actual greatest generation writers, people like Kurt Vonnegutwho wrote and Joseph Heller, Norman Mailer, and their contemporaries, who actually fought in World War II and wrote about it, theres no romance at all. In fact, a lot of their work is very anti-war. So Generation Kill is a play on that myth, because what war is really about is killing. Its not about anything else, really, for the guys, or for the participants on the ground. My book also goes into how soldiers kill civilians, they wound civilians, and you know, we forget how the people who fought in World War II were doing the same things. They were shooting women and children by accident, and of course, our governments were bombing women and children, civilian populations. In that respect its also an ironic title. Its a title that works against itself because it implies that its really easy for these guysthe marines I was withto kill. And at first it did seem easy for them to kill, but as the book goes on you see guys like Sergeant ColbertIce Manbreaking down and being really affected by these deaths. So thats the title. Its interesting that you mention the book On Killing by Dave Grossman because I wanted to read a quote about it to you: Stressing that human beings have a powerful, innate resistance to the taking of life, Grossman examines the techniques developed by the military to overcome that aversion. In the book Grossman makes the case that the military is ignoring the post-traumatic effects of killing on soldiers. Do you have any sense whether this is true? Well, as an empiricist, I have to say that, personally, Ive only seen the guys a year after combat. But the question implies that its the militarys responsibility to deal with post-traumatic stress, and I would argue that its societys responsibility. Now that these guys have fought, is the military itself really responsible for everything that happens to a veteran after hes discharged? I dont know. Of course they minimize it, because the militarys not going to tell these guys Hey go out there and do your job and kill, and by the way we just have to warn you, you might be screwed up for the rest of your life. Theyre not going to do that. I think we as a society are content to remain isolated from the military, which is part of the beauty of an all-volunteer army, from the standpoint of empire-building, because we as consumer-citizens dont have to worry about these issues. If there are problems with the military, its their problem, not ours, because thats how we conceive of war. Were really alienated from the people who fight wars. Theyre almost a separate class. Then we get angry when we hear reports of people getting affected by war, and we say, well, theyd better take care of theirs. But we forget that its our society that suffers when they suffer. Is it true that you were in the most forward vehicle of your battalion? It's funny, because it almost sounds like bragging, but I spent much of the war in the lead vehicle of the entire US invasion of central Iraq. It's a strange historical fact, but Lt. Fick, the platoon commander of the unit I was with used to joke that the only way I could have been closer up in the invasion was to be in the front seat rather than the back seat of the Humvee I was in. There was nobody in front of us through much of it. Your unit rode into Iraq in an unarmored Humvee, yet suffered very few casualties. The American military overall, during the invasion, suffered relatively few casualties. Ive always found that amazing. How do you account for that? One of the reasons conservative Catholic commentators cited to justify this war, in opposition to Pope John Paul II and just about all the bishops, was that conditions had changed. Technology had made war more precise, so you could overturn a regime without the death and destruction of prior wars. What do you think about that, given what you saw? The first Gulf War was an extravaganza of high technology, and we were mesmerized by images of high-tech bombs sailing through bathroom windows into where the bad guys were hiding. Its true that the military has these capabilities, but they apply only under certain circumstances. They dont apply in desert sandstorm environments, and in guerrilla war those abilities are severely eroded by the tactics that are used against us, so Id say that way of thinking is delusional. Its interesting, theres a soldier in my book named Sergeant Espera, and in my book, before we entered Nasiriyah, he said that hed talked to a priest, and he asked him well, whats the deal with killing? And the priest told him, in effect, its OK to kill for your country, for a good purpose, as long as you dont enjoy it. What ended up happening with Espera is ironic because there were guys who were kind of opposed to what they were doing, but after combat, its such a high, people are sort of exuberant, theyre talking about these gory things in an excited way. But Espera was always beating himself up, because I think he thought he was going to go to hell if he enjoyed it. I was just with him recently and we were driving, and he was talking about how hes got these nightmareshes very pro-war, hes a very conflicted guyhes got nightmares, he worries, he loves his daughter, and he worries that somehow because he killed people in Iraq that somehow his daughter is going to be taken from him, and hes obsessed with this... He thinks thats how hell be punished? But then he said, that priestand the word he used was MF, the MF wordthat MF priest I talked to, he said He told me killing is OK, for a purpose. Where in the bible does it say that? Where did Jesus say you can kill people for a purpose? Then he said, isnt there a rule where we cant put mans law above Gods law, and he added, As soon as the priest told me I could kill with a purpose, he said, there was nothing he could tell me after that, because he lost all credibility with me. I love Espera, he lives near me, and we talk all the time. That was his view. To me, one thing that gave your book credibility, that made it clear you weren't being self-righteous in your moral judgements, was your honesty about your own instinct for self-preservation. Specifically, before entering a town, you wrote about how you were glad to see the town pounded by artillery. Yes, that was in the book, about how happy I was seeing Nasiriyah slammed with artillery. But there was actually a more interesting incident. The platoon I was with was holding a position at the edge of this town, about fifty feet from these walls. We were taking sniper fire; we were there for about ten hours. We were being flanked by these rogue RPG (rocket propelled grenade) teams trying to hit our humvees. And the Marines rules are You cant shoot into this village unless you see a muzzle flash shooting at us. So were taking fire but were not shooting back, and after a couple of hours of this, I was just ready to
I was hoping they would call in an artillery strike. There were all these people popping up in windows and spying on us. It was really frightening. We had killed or hit three or four Iraqis who tried to sneak behind us to fire RPGs at us, and were all alone there, right? These marines had it in their power, these twenty-year olds, they could have gotten on the radio and found a reason to call in an artillery strike on this corner of the village. They could have leveled it. It would have taken just a handful of 155 millimeter rounds to really shatter this portion of the town that was bothering us, and I was hoping they would do that, because I was like to hell with these peoplethere were old ladies and kids walking aroundI just wanted to live. And they had better instincts than I did. If I had my hand on the radio, I would have done it. Its been said that because the whole world was watching, more care was taken in Iraq to limit civilian casualties than in any prior war. Do you agree? I dont know about that. You just quoted language thats been used by military leaders, but I didnt necessarily see that concern. Doesnt the example you just described support that claim? Well, I think you made a more important point, that no matter how well-intentioned, and with the global media keeping watch, you still have the horrors, what you just described
Yea, and of course Im as conflicted as Sgt. Espera; I still believe that nations must fight wars. But the interesting example that I always bring up is Rwanda. A lot of my friends were really angry that we didnt do something there. These are really liberal, typically anti-war people. And I wonder if they realize that if we had gone into Rwandaa very good war from a moral standpoint, most people would probably agreeI wonder if they realize that you would have had soldiers at checkpoints at night firing in panic at civilians, slaughtering people by accident. Youd have all sorts of terrible things happening. And I think that the problem with American society is we dont really understand what war is. Our understanding of it is too sanitized. In your book, at the end, you give a clear picture of the chaos and disorder in Iraq right after our victory, when there was a power vacuum. You know what surprises me? How clearly obvious it was to us by April 14th, 15th, that the whole invasion was a disaster, that there was no plan. We got into Baghdad before the fall on April 8th. We were in the suburbs, and we went to Saddam City, which is now Sadr City, on April 10th. We were there for the next couple of weeks, the first Americans in many of those neighborhoods. We saw, and it was right in the book, the lack of any American plan, that it all relied on wishful thinking. There was even a marine colonel who was arming Shias, handing AKs in Sadr City, because they were going to take care of the bad guys for us. And we Americans decided that we were just going to stay in these camps at night, not go outits all in the book. I remember thinking at the time, My God, this is going to be a disaster, and thinking, I cant be right. I just have a very small limited view. We could not have invaded this country with so little planning. Lt. Fick and I used to just sit around having these debates: This couldnt be as bad as it looks to us. Theres got to be someone in charge. Theres got to be good stuff going on in the occupation of Baghdad, and were just not seeing it. But it turns out we saw exactly what was going onnothing, in terms of building security. Reading your book made some of the more surreal aspects of movies like Apocalypse Now and Three Kings seem plausible to me. Did you see Three Kings? I saw it after I got back. The funny thing is that as outrageous as some people think the book is, its toned down in some places. But it all happened. I crosschecked everything. The books makes it appear like I was just sitting in the humvee with the marines and I wrote what happened
Well I was sitting in the humvee and I was there, but in addition, after every engagement or incident, I would go around and interview the people in the battalion, or people in the adjacent units, to sort of triangulate what was really going on to verify what I saw and heard. For instance, theres a story in there about a Marine reserve unit that was handing out porn to these Iraqi children, and an elder came out from the village who was really upset by this. The kids ran off, but one of them, through a translator said Uh-oh, that old man is really mad at you, hes going to get a rocket launcher and attack you because you are corrupting our morals, and the old guy walked out with this rusty old rocket launcher tube, and the reservist marines panicked and they launched twenty-six Mark-19, 40-millimeter grenade rounds. They completely missed the old man, because they were reservists and they hadnt been trained properly, and they dropped them all on this little hamlet. A Mark-19 round, a single one, is a devastating weapon to drop into a mud hut village. They dropped 26 of these in there. Also, Oliver North, who was working for Fox News as a correspondent was nearby and ran up and was trying to film it, and word was he picked up a weapon and was trying to shoot into the hamlet also. I heard this storyand this is one of the few things in my book that I didnt witnessand I said this cannot be true. So I went and I interviewed between 15 and 20 participants, including the gunner who actually dropped the rounds on the village. Everybody corroborated it. So yea, theres some outrageous stuff in the book but its all true. Why was the pornography being distributed? At the time it was just sort of for the amusement of the marine reservists. By porn, what I mean is something like Maxim magazine. But this is a society where, although Saddam was fairly secular, theyre not at all used to pictures of women even in workout gear. Its scandalous. So to see the reactions of these kids to women in bikinis
The corruption is affecting the Marines or the population
? Both. Because of the disorder and the disruption of their routine
? Yeah. I dont mean to disparage soldiers at all. Theyre young men, and thats what can happen when you have a lot of them together. Its not all corrupting. Im sure there are a lot of positive exchanges. Based on reports in the religious press it seems that many soldiers come from traditional families, what with pictures of soldiers praying, etc. I have a tough time reconciling that with the porn and the language presented in the book
Its an interesting thing; I think with my group if I met them on the street outside the Marine Corps I would have thought, My God, these guys are the salt-of-the-earth, small-town, religious America. But get with them in the platoon tent, like a day before the invasion, and theyre the most foul-mouthed, atheist bastards on earth. I actually think its the opposite of the saying, you know, how there are no atheists in fox holes. I think theres an opposite force at work, that theyre trained to kill and violate all these taboos. For that moment theyre the most irreverent
Look at Sgt. Espera. He felt he couldnt be a Catholic and a Marine. These guys from small town America, what theyre being told to dothey didnt learn that in Sunday school. Theyve got to throw all that out. In e-mails, on the internet, or in newspaper letters, you sometimes see soldiers claiming that the media is distorting whats happening in Iraq, that the situation is not as bad as the media makes it seem. How would you characterize the media coverage of Iraq given what youre hearing from your friends in the military? Yea, the bias of the media is talked about a lot. Yes, Im sure were building schools and electric plants, and shipping equipment and parts in to make Iraq function. I havent been there in a year, so Im not an expert on the ground there. But being in touch with both reporters and soldiers who are there, or have been there recently, and knowing how the media functions, I think the problem with the media is television. There are so many limitations to television. It doesnt contextualize. It tends to focus on one dominant image that may even be unrelated to the story. The image is chosen because its interesting. For instance, in my book I wrote that the Marine Corps, in the march to Baghdad, mostly depended on artillery bombardment as a tool for stand-off attacks on targets. They didnt rely on aircraft as much. But the media seldom covered artillery bombardment, because the media always gravitates towards the hot image. Stock footage of an F-16 taking off from an aircraft carrier is a much hotter image than artillery cannon. So the soldier building a school, and the soldier wasting away smoking hash, both feel their story is not being told because television is almost incapable of presenting a complex story. Thats the main problem with mediathere are others. Reporters arent traveling right now because theyre going to get killed or beheadedbut thats what weve encountered with this war, as a culture, where we thought this war was going to be easy because we all watched the CNN footage of precisely targeted bombs. Theres a scene in the book where you describe how deserting Iraqi soldiers had to be sent backto possible deathbecause the Marines couldnt handle them. And you were prescient in saying that theyd probably become insurgents as a result. Can you talk about how anger of this kind, along with anger at having friends and family killed, has affected the situation in Iraq? If you look back at the first Gulf War we captured and imprisoned large numbers of Iraqis, and the interesting thing is that most of them had fairly positive experiences. When we got into Baghdad there were a number of older residentsin their thirtieswho I talked to who really liked us because they remembered being treated well when they were captured in the Gulf War. In this war, in regard to enemy combatants, we didnt apprehend them and process them. We lost two opportunities. One was to find out who these people were, and whether there were leaders among them. And two, the opportunity to indoctrinate them about the good intentions of the U.S. occupiers. We let the army melt away, and we let them float around ready to pick up the insurgency, especially after Bremer fired the army and the soldiers realized that that they werent employed any more. So you think they had a level of expectation about all that? As far as I could tell, yes. But when we failed to deliver, thats when they turned on us. That makes our blunder all the worse, because you could argue that the collateral damage was inevitable, but it wasnt inevitable that we would completely blow the occupation as we did. Do you think that with enough troops we could have maintained order? Was it even possible after that? I think so. It wouldnt have taken much of a show of force to get the Iraqi hoodlums to back down. We just didnt have a plan. And we didnt capture enemy combatants. That was a huge mistake. I bet you when they analyze this in the future theyll figure out that most of the early looting, the criminal activity that plunged Baghdad into chaos, was carried out by disgruntled, disbanded soldiers. We could have captured those guys, and in a positive way. That would have been the army we would have had running the country. How would you characterize the attitudes of the soldiers youre in touch with? Theres a lot of cynicism. I personally hope that Im wrong, and that the cynics are wrong. I hope it turns into a great success. Let me just say that I sense on the left I have friends where they almost get into this mode where theyre hoping for disaster. I think its important in our society, with this war, not to get into that mode. But I dont know if we can actually fix the problems weve created, personally, much as I hate to be pessimistic. I dont know if we can put it back together. And I dont know if we can hold on to it. Because of the chaos? War is very psychological. In Iraq, I think the psychological element in our favor was lost because the people turned against us, and all of these insurgents were inspired, and they banded together and built an incredible level of confidence because they learned they can fight and kill Americans. They learned our weaknesses. On April 10th, they didnt know. We picked up Iraqi soldiers who surrendered to unarmored humvees, lightly-armed marines, because these soldiers believed that humvees had this special protection and they couldnt be shot or bombed. That was a great position to be in. That sense of invincibility we had was lost. So its double-edged. The population is against us, and the insurgency is inspired. When you say the population is against us, what are you basing that on? Its based on reports I have from soldiers, Marines returning from Iraq, from their interactions with civilians. Its not that theyre for the insurgency, but theyre caught in the middle. In a place like Fallujah, they were subject to American fire, and they were subject to insurgents coming into their neighborhoods and homes and firing on Americans, drawing more fire. What a lot of marines are reporting is that people are just dispirited by this and more willing to believe in the insurgency, again because of the security issue. Which explains why Iraqi police or soldiers are not willing to go out on a limb
Its like a lot of people in south central Los Angeles, an area Im familiar with. Theyre not anti-police. But theyre not going to cooperate with the police, because the police arent there in enough numbers to actually protect them from the bad guys. Did the war change you? Was it what you expected? Aside from making me much more suspect about war, it gave me a lot more sympathy for Arabs, and Iraqis, than I had before. Its a curious thing, because I was in a lot of situations where Arabs, and Syrians in particular, were trying to shoot us. Some Americans look at Iraqis and say that theyre kind of duplicitous and two-faced, that theyll curry a favor and then turn the corner and shoot at you. But what Americans see as duplicity is often just the strategy of people caught in the middle, trying to survive. But I guess I got a lot more sympathy for Iraqis because I saw a lot of women and children killed by our side. That road outside of Nasiriyahwhen we drove through there on March 25th or so, I saw all these women and children shot on the road by Americans. How did you know they were shot by Americans? You can assume that if someone has a bullet in them from an American weapon that it was intentional. Our sights tend to be very good. They were shot by helicopters and LAVs, light armored vehicles. They were shot in vehicles and they were shot in buses, because its true that it was justified in the sense that there were some civilian buses that had Fedayeen fighters in them. Instances like that. You hear those explanations but when you see a little girl in pretty clothes that someone dressed her in, and shes smushed on the road with her legs cut off, you dont think, well you know there were Fedayeen near by and this is collateral damage. Theyre just civilians. Again, you have all this romance and lore of war, of the soldier, and how they sacrificed. But the real rule of war that you learnand this was true in World War IIis that the people who suffer the most are civilians. Youre safest if youre a soldier. Im haunted by the images of people that I saw killed by my country. Theres no way around that. By guys you were with? Yea, they were killed by my friends, or people who became my friends after I wrote my book, and theyre haunted by it too. I was in Afghanistan before, and I spent a lot of time in the Gulf states. I made a lot of friends with Arabs, and Im very sympathetic to their world view. I have a lot of sympathy for the Palestinians, and I dont think Americans quite understand that situation, and the historical position of the Palestinians. Is it fair to say that in the U.S. we dont understand the level of suffering and indignity felt in the Arab world? Thats completely fair. I'd say thats the basis for the Vaticans position regarding the Middle East, which is very evenhanded between Israel and the Palestinians. This is puzzling to many conservatives Catholics, who dont understand that the Church must have a preferential option for the weak and suffering, and that solutions have to address the root causes of conflicts, rather than relying on violence. Its impossible to write a story about Americans in Iraq and not connect it to the Palestinians, because in the Arab mind, its all of a piece. You cant go anywhere in that part of the world without people talking about that issue. Only Americans think its separate. But the funny thing is that before the war there were Americans who were making the specious argument, you know, the road to peace in Israel lies through Baghdad. Arabs were bringing it up to me. Thats been the neoconservative argument, that bringing democracy to Iraq was the best way to solve the problems of the Middle East. I hope it works, but in practice I dont think its working. How did the ordeal change you personally? It changed me a lot internally. But its indescribable. You know, when I was with the First Recon I tried to keep things very impersonal. I was with them for two months, and there was a lot of joking and talking, but I never let it get personal. For instance, I supported the war, on the grounds of removing the weapons of mass destruction. But I didnt tell them that because I didnt want them to think that I was going to be on their side, that I was the pro-war journalist. But with the book over Ive become friends with them. And when I see them now, they fill this one need I have, that theyre the only people I know who understand that combat experience. And its something I cant share with anybody else except with them. When you asked the questionHow did the experience change me?I cant answer it. It changed something but I cant put it into words. You shared an ordeal with them and you have that bond. Yea, the horrors that we saw. Did any of the guys get into trouble on account of what you wrote? Sgt. Espera was kicked out of the battalion. Sgt. Kocher, whos not a huge figure in the book, he got into a world of trouble and was also kicked out of the battalion. Another guy was supposed to be promoted from corporal to sergeant, and he didnt get promoted. It affected his pay. None of the people who got into trouble displayed any animosity towards me. Did you get any negative reactions to the book, people contesting your view of the war? On October 6th, I went down to Camp Pendleton, to see some of the wives and friends of the Recon Marines I wrote about. The guys I wrote about were returning from Iraq, and they invited me to the homecoming. I went there and checked in to the base. I identified myself as a reporter, no problem. I go on the base, and a Marine from First Recon who worked in the supply unit, he actually had a couple of marines grab me, put me in handcuffs, twist my hands behind my back, and they threw me in the back of a car. But since I hadnt done anything wrong they couldnt arrest me. I asked him why he was doing this and he said We dont like what you wrote. We dont like your book. We dont like what you said about our officers. He was out of control. You cant do that to people. That was the only negative reaction. But what was funny was that a week later the base newspaper did a story about the book and called it a cool book. Was the book widely read by the Marines? It was extremely widely read by the Marines. Why did they like it? Because its true? Yea, they think its honest. The guys who like itIm not going to say that everyones a fan of itbut the people who like it say, wow, you really showed Marines as they are. The funny thing is that the book shows them doing all these terrible things, the language, they shoot civilians, they dont want to and they react to that, they become enraged about this, all these things that are really negative, but I think that it shows that a lot of them are really likable people [laugh]. And I think it has that sort of balance, and I think the Marines like that because, in a strange sort of way, its kind of a flattering portrait of them.
[To read an excerpt from Evan Wright's book, Generation Kill, ]
GODSPY: Why did you name the book Generation Kill?
The other reason was more important to me. For the past decade weve been steeped in the lore of , the title of Tom Brokaws book about the men who fought in World War II, and a lot of people have developed this romanticism about that war. They tend to remember it from the Life magazine images of the sailor coming home and kissing his fiancé. Theyve forgotten that war is about killing. I really think its important as a society to be reminded of this, because you now have a generation of baby boomers, a lot of whom didnt serve in Viet Nam. Many of them protested it. But now theyre grown up, and as theyve gotten older I think many of them have grown tired of the ambiguities and the lack of moral clarity of Viet Nam, and theyve started to cling to this myth of World War II, the good war.
I think that the problem with American society is we dont really understand what war is. Our understanding of it is too sanitized.
Everyone talks about the high-tech weaponry, but really its a testament to the marksmanship of the Marines. At night the Americans have the advantage of the night vision goggles, but in a lot of the heavy engagements and ambushes, we were ambushed in daylight, and we were ambushed by greater numbers of enemy troops who had the element of surprise, and they often had heavier weaponsrocket-propelled grenades, which is a really ingenious weapon. The Iraqis had all these advantages and the Marines came through slaughtering them. Why? These were old-fashioned gun fights and the Marines were better marksmen. I saw in that first engagement in Al-Gharraf, I remember thinking wow, these guys can outshoot the enemy and I hope it stays that way.
These guys from small town America, what theyre being told to dothey didnt learn that in Sunday school. Theyve got to throw all that out.
I saw that in the training of the men that I was with. But I also saw the 3,000 shells hurled into Nasiriyah, which is a huge amount of bombing. Well never know how many people died from that. I saw the battalion commanderand this is in my bookissue the order, while seizing an airfield, that everyone is declared hostile, which meant the Marines were almost obligated to shoot people they saw, even if they were unarmed. So, I get really uncomfortable when they talk about our side saying were taking every concern. Yes. I believe they are; in the macro picture, theres a lot more concern than there used to be. But, keep in mind that when push comes to shove, well just mow down people right and left, without any consideration for them, and well cover it up. I was there when the battalion commander gave the order not to treat a 12-year old boy with four bullets in him. Now, I can never know, in his mind, what his motives were. He later claimed it was because he thought there wasnt a secure route to get the boy treatment. He later reversed his decision as soon as he realized that the men were really upset. I think he made that decision because he didnt want to have a wounded civilian on the books attached to his battalion. Thats our military. Its not that its evil. Its a human institution.
The real rule of war that you learnand this was true in World War IIis that the people who suffer the most are civilians.
But the interesting thing is I was in touch with some Marines who were in Fallujah recently, they had just returned, and one of their jobs was to train the Iraqi local forces. Numerous Marines were telling me that porn was one of the ways they were motivating the Iraqis to go out on patrols and find weapons hidden by the insurgents. One marine told me Yea, we started rewarding them. Wed give them a Playboy or a Hustler every time they found something. Another thing that is very common is that the Americans all have pornography, which the Iraqis really want. And the Iraqis all have hash, and pharmaceuticals, because in that part of the world theres a big problem of people being addicted to valium, which is manufactured locally and floods the market, because of the strictures against alcohol. According to numerous sources of mine, its become a big problem that there are numbers of Americans smoking hash and taking pills and boozing it up over there. My book has the boozing it up, but I left out the fact that there were marines smoking hash in Baghdad within days of the fall. The interesting point is that in an occupation theres always a corrupting influence. So the Marines who were telling me these stories were really upset because they felt like, gee, our Marine Corps is being corrupted now, and the morale is getting affected because theyre locked up in these camps, sitting around, smoking hash, popping pills and drinking.
I remember thinking at the time, My God, this is going to be a disaster. I cant be right. We could not have invaded this country with so little planning.'
For instance, they do death checks. Theyre trained, after a firefight, if there are wounded Iraqis lying around, the death check is you put your rifle up to a guys eyeball, in his socket, and if he flinches you shoot him. A death check is youre checking to see if there are any people left to kill. I thought the American military was supposed to take wounded and treat them. And this is what theyre doing in Iraq after firefights, apparently. The recent case involving a young marine who was convicted bears this out. Ive done a number of interviews, developing this as part of a story, and so far its from very good sources, it looks to be true that this is the policy.
Another thing is the bombing and shooting of towns. But people were not as outraged as you would expect when, say, the Marines killed civilians by accident. There was this moment of good will on the Iraqis part. What really started the insurgency and turned the populace against us was our inability to provide security. The book goes into these amazing firefights in Baghdad after the sun went down and the Americans went into their bases. There was this huge level of chaos and slaughter going on that we permitted to happen. And that probably turned the populace against us. The looting of Baghdad was an amazing event and it went on for weeks. I talked about that in the bookthe home invasions and abductions. I mean if youve ever seen the movie Mad Max, thats what Baghdad was like after we liberated it. Thats what turned them against us. I think the Iraqis had this innate understanding at the beginning of the war that they might have to pay a price, and they were willing to do that because the Americans were going to bring something better.
Its impossible to write a story about Americans in Iraq and not connect it to the Palestinians, because in the Arab mind, its all of a piece. Only Americans think its separate.
READER COMMENTS
04.30.05 William Owens says: |
I also enjoyed this article - Wright's insight was very accurate, though limited. I'm a Catholic veteran and a reserve infantry officer in the Army who's about to be activated for Iraq. The person/alities described are exactly those of the average grunt, as are their poor/disadvantaged backgrounds. The Army has always been a haven for people who lack families and who find in their fellow soldiers the family they did not have as children. The Marines are the same [ ... but different in that Marine way. But not better. They ran away at Bull Run in the civil war!!!]Quite seriously, religious people should be wary of using harsh language and harsh judgments against the military (particularly Catholics). The Army, like the church, takes a lot of heat from ignorant "experts", particularly after Abu Ghraib. Catholics who want to know what it's like in the current Army should ask themselves whether they think it is fair to typecast the Church based on the priest-pedophilia cases. Obviously both institutions are filled with great people but also have the odd rotten person without morals and honor. Both instituions are needed.This said, my concern with Wright's article is that the Armed Forces (especially the Army) has already been typecast as filled with societal misfits and rednecks, and this article does nothing to alter this. While Wright's insights are accurate, they are not a full picture of troops in wartime. Many are educated, devout religious men and women and spend off-duty hours helping their comrades or the civil population. When in Bosnia, my troops rebuilt an orphanage. We weren't unique. Our Army has always done our best to alleviate suffering, even as we train to kill. Some of the most warm-hearted men and women I know are the same ones that I have relied on to train their weapon out and be prepared to shoot.I know that many Christians are taught to turn cheeks, be meek and mild etc but the facts are that those in the military - particularly the infantry - man the ramparts behind which religious people can practice their faith and be secure. While the merits of wars may be argued, I and other soldiers have to do our duty and don't get a say. Catholic pacifists may query this line of work. They may wonder why I serve. But they should ask themselves why do Catholics have more %representation in the armed forces than the nation as a whole? For my part, I grew up in a very Catholic home, did ROTC in a Catholic school, and am the son of an Army officer - my father's family is very Catholic and also has many Army officers in it. While my mother was the driving religious force, my father was an example to me as a man, a Catholic and a soldier. Never did I think there was a conflict between being a good Catholic and a soldier. Like the Church, the Army breeds strong characters and the military ethic demands much of you. When talking about the military, don't forget that it is just as morally absolutist as the Church. It has its own code. In other words, please give us respect for our code and mission, not condesencion or a superficial platitude. Jesus did in Matthew 8:5-13. We are people of faith as well.Finally, if you feel that you need a vocation where you can serve your country and serve your fellow man, and enjoy being in the company of men and women of vast integrity who are prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice, then please join the Army. Uncle Sam and soldiers like me need people like you with us when we go in harm's way.Sincerely,William D. Owenswd_owens@operamail.com |
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01.05.05 lillyrose says: |
I think that this interview is the best thing Godspy has run. It is full of insight--about our culture, the culture of the military, the media, the current generation, the Middle East. . . Congratulations on a great interview! |
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01.05.05 Godspy says: |
Evan Wright spent two months living with twenty-three marines from First Recon, the elite unit who spearheaded the invasion of Iraq. In magazine articles and his book Generation Kill, Wright chronicled the triumphs and horrorsphysical, moral, emotional, and spiritualthat these marines endured. We talked to him about his experience of the Iraq War, and the human costs of just wars. |
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The USMC site, when I checked a few minutes ago, was temporaily out of service so keep checking.
I feel sorry for people like Sgt. Espera who is spoken of in this account. It is fairly clear in Scripture, to my mind, that taking the life of an enemy combatant while a member of a lawful state institution (like the military) is fundamentally different from murder. Perhaps he had no one to put it to him this way. Obviously the state is allowed by God to do certain things (enforce the law, even execute) that individuals in their personal lives are forbidden to do. I'd be happy to hear any other thoughts.
Of course that does not excuse, if accurate, tales of killing civilians purposefully. I'd like to see the USMC response to this book.
If I thought this was true I wouldn't have pinged you.
Generation Kill - The Missing Manual
Given that some people do not know that, and that some people ignore that, and that some people choose to forget that, perhaps a reminder is necessary, and perhaps from time to time, somebody needs to make it clear that --- war is hell.
Yet Evan Wright remains unconvinced by his own reports and philosophy --- he fails to examine the dangers of state-sponsored killing on any scale other than war, especially when sanitized.
He is against a little girl's loss of her legs, but he is glad that she apparently was relieved of a dreary future, rescued from "living," put out of her misery by state-sponsored euthanisia (in the same manner of speaking that popularly cloaks "abortion").
He omits again and again, that state-sponsored killing on any scale, is the work of the state - and that the worst of it, against which we have had to go to war in order to stop it, has been the "product" of unlimited governments - the most notable, recently being nationalizing socialist and communist, with fascist elements of some followers of Islam picking up the rear.
Buoyed by the urge to write, Evan Wright ought to work at removing the veils of secrecy and evil behind those totalitarian governments and totalitarian governing bodies that have hidden the mass murderous nature of their agents. He has, after all, the luxury of protection in speaking out about bad government, given his freedom to do so, protected by generations of Americans who have fought and died to stop governments from hanging him for his craft.
Mr. Wright might help a lot, to reveal that the problem with totalitarian states' and their generations raised to kill, is that they "don't really understand what war is." Their enlightenment is what's missing from the big picture, and he ought to go tell them, starting with explaining to them, his right of free speech.
- First_Salute
April 16, 2006 Easter Sunday
The word "kill" in the bible doesn't cover all killing... it means "MURDER".. I f#cking HATE the way liberals and hypocrites compare the two.
They've taken the word and bastardized it, and are so corrupt and hateful that an entire "generation" of soldiers will be labeled this way. Well guess what... not all Marines that have done the deed and seen battle beat themselves up. They believe in God, have families that help them through the hard times and a faith in God that will see what's in a man's heart.
I will pray that Sgt. Espera will be befriended by a Christian brother in arms and have him read the bible with him. Jesus never said that the defense of the faith or one's homes were a mortal sin... only the hatred of those poor souls that you meet.
I hate the libs as much as any opponent... they are more despicable and loathsome than anybody I'd ever meet in combat.
Gee, thanks for getting my blood pressure up.
This whole "kill" vs "murder" thing is old stuff. I wish that Fox or Rush or somebody would do a real serious follow up on this and try to put this myth do death.
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