Winter Soldier (36 page)

Thanks to the other editors who published my freelance articles on Winter Soldier, who got the story out and kept me paid while I made my way through this labor of love: Katherine Stapp, Jeffrey Allen, David Barsamian, Monica Lopez, Tena Rubio, Harold Myerson, Andrew Lam, Joshua Holland, and Emily Schwartz-Greco. Thanks to Dal Lamanga, Jack Sawyer, and Historians Against the War for their generous support of this project. Thanks to Investigative Reporters and Editors for granting this project a Freelancer Fellowship Award.

Thanks to journalists Esther Manilla and Sarah Olson for helping me slog through these transcripts and for giving me such good advice about how to proceed. Thanks to Dahr Jamail and Salam Talib for being with me in Iraq and also at Winter Soldier. We are in the very unique space of seeing this war from both sides of the gun. It is a very difficult place to be, but the bridge we can build is very important. Salam, I will always remember running over to your scooter and giving you a giant hug as we signed off the air as Winter Soldier concluded.

Finally, but most importantly, I owe a deep debt of gratitude to my wife Ngoc Nguyen for her unconditional love. Thanks for understanding the mission I have taken on these last five years and for encouraging me to continue when I get discouraged. You worry about me enough but not too much. Thanks for all the “processing.” I appreciate it more than I let on.

About Iraq Veterans Against the War

Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) was founded by Iraq War veterans in July 2004 at the annual convention of Veterans for Peace (VFP) in Boston to give a voice to the large number of active-duty servicemembers and veterans who are against the Iraq War, but are under various pressures to remain silent. From its inception, IVAW has called for:

* Immediate withdrawal of all occupying forces in Iraq;

* Reparations for the human and structural damages Iraq has suffered, and stopping the corporate pillaging of Iraq so that their people can control their own lives and future; and

* Full benefits, adequate health care (including mental health), and other supports for returning servicemen and women.

Our membership includes recent veterans and active-duty servicemembers from all branches of the military service, National Guard members, and reservists who have served in the U.S. military since September 11, 2001. IVAW’s strategy is to mobilize the military community to withdraw its support for the war and occupation in Iraq.

Today, IVAW members are in forty-eight states, Washington, D.C., Canada, and on numerous bases overseas, including Iraq. IVAW supports all those resisting the war, including conscientious objectors and others facing military prosecution for their refusal to fight. IVAW advocates for full funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs, and full quality health treatment (including mental health) and benefits for veterans when they return from duty.

About Aaron Glantz

Aaron Glantz is an independent journalist whose work has appeared in the Nation, the Progressive, the San Francisco Chronicle, the American Prospect, Forbes, Alternet, and on Democracy Now! and Yahoo! News. In addition to Winter Soldier, he is author of the San Francisco Chronicle bestseller How America Lost Iraq (Tarcher/Penguin) and the forthcoming The War Comes Home: Washington’s Battle Against America’s Veterans (University of California Press).

Aaron reported extensively inside Iraq from 2003 to 2005 and has been covering veterans’ issues since his return to the United States. He the recipient of a Project Censored Award, an Investigative Reporters and Editors Freelancer Fellowship Award, and a California Journalism Award. He is currently a Fellow at the Carter Center’s
Mental Health Program and the Hechinger Institute at Columbia University Teachers College.

About Anthony Swofford

Anthony Swofford served in a U.S. Marine Corps Surveillance and Target Acquisition/Scout-Sniper platoon during the Gulf War. After the war, he was educated at American River College, the University of California, Davis, and the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He is author of Jarhead: A Marine’s Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles and the novel Exit: A Novel. He lives in New York.

About Jared Rodriguez

Jared Rodriguez is a documentary photographer, military family member, and activist living in New York City. He is currently working on a portrait project about antiwar activists, veterans, and military family members. He can be reached at www.jaredrodriguez.com.

About Mike Hastie

Mike Hastie served as a U.S. Army Medic in Vietnam from 1970 to 1971. He says that when he photographed the anger, anguish, grief, and sense of betrayal visible in testifiers at Winter Soldier, he felt like he was taking pictures of his own PTSD and the trauma of his fellow Vietnam veterans.

Haymarket Books is a nonprofit, progressive book distributor and publisher, a project of the Center for Economic Research and Social Change. We take inspiration and courage from our namesakes, the Haymarket Martyrs, who gave their lives fighting for a better world. Their 1886 struggle for the eight-hour day, which gave us May Day, the international workers’ holiday, reminds workers around the world that ordinary people can organize and struggle for their own liberation. These struggles continue today across the globe—struggles against oppression, exploitation, hunger, and poverty.

Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq
The critically acclained, indispensable account of life in Iraq under U.S. occupation, now with a new afterword. ISBN 978-1-931859-61-5.

Road from ar-Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejía
Camilo Mejía with a foreword by Chris Hedges • A courageous, personal account of rebellion within the ranks of the U.S. military in wartime—written by the first soldier to publicly refuse to return to fight in Iraq. ISBN: 978-1-931859-553-0.

Winter Soldiers: An Oral History of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War
Richard Stacewicz • Thisis the story of the soldiers who spoke their conscience and helped end the war in Vietnam. 978-1-931859-60-8

War Without End: The Iraq War in Context
Michael Schwartz • In this razor-sharp analysis, TomDispatch.com commentator Michael Schwartz demolishes the myths used to sell the U.S. public the idea of an endless “war on terror. 978-1-931859-54-7.

Vietnam: The (Last) War the U.S. Lost
Joe Allen • This history from below analyzes the impact of the war in Vietnam on the region and its people, as well as on American workers, students, and politicians, and discusses the relationship between the era’s antiwar, labor, and civil rights movements. ISBN: 978-1-931859-49-3.

Blackwater (Español)
Jeremy Scahill • The New York Times bestseller and scathing exposé now in Spanish, in a fully updated edition. ISBN: 978-1-931859-62-2.