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http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000143.html

October 28, 2004
A SOLDIER'S STORY: "VOTING FOR BUSH WON'T HELP US" 

I JUST SAT NEXT TO A VERY TOUGH SOLDIER FROM THE 82ND AIRBORNE on a
flight back from Europe. I have been thinking for two days about how
to share some of the things he told me without compromising him.

This guy I met is not one prone to talk; he was very serious, very
mellow -- and comes from a family of enlisted military men. His dad
was in Vietnam.

He has had one rotation in Afghanistan, one in Iraq. He is now in
Germany but will soon be transferred back to Iraq. He was at Tora Bora
and has seen a lot of Iraqi, Afghan, and American dead.

According to him, 75% of all soldiers want Bush defeated in the
election and don't care who defeats him; anger and resentment are
high. He says that 90% of the officers remain far out of harm's way.
From lietenants all the way up, there is general understanding that
the officers are hiding in holes, or holding back in well-defended
buildings and quite cavalier about sending troops out for assignments
and errands that are frequently stupid, poorly planned, and dangerous.

He has said that he has experienced good and bad commanders to whom he
reported -- but that when it came to taking the anthrax vaccine (which
a judge has just said that the military can no longer order its
soldiers to take), he quietly refused. He told his commander that he
just wouldn't take it -- and that many, many soldiers have avoided
taking this anthrax vaccine without incident. He said that a friend of
his took it and his nervous system was severely affected and is now
permanently disabled. He said he would rather have "an Article 15
(non-judicial punishment) than be dead."

I asked him about Lariam, an anti-malarial drug which I have written
about before. Lariam, also known as Mefloquine, can, according to drug
warning labels cause aggression, psychosis and suicidal tendencies.

He told me that he had been issued seven tablets to take over a week
-- and stopped after the second because of incredible negative
physical reaction to the drug. He said that several people in his unit
became deeply depressed, others very sick. And he said that most
people in the military have had to become somewhat accustomed to the
idea that the Pentagon looks at the soldiers as "guinea pigs" to test
drugs on.

At Tora Bora, he reported on the massive bombing that went on there
and said that during the clean up period, they used sensors to detect
the remains of those killed and then would punch large poles down into
the dirt with pricks that would suck blood up to test the DNA of the
victim there on the spot. He said that it surprised the soldiers that
they had DNA testing capabilities that were advanced enough to give
readings immediately -- and said that they scoured everything that was
bombed to try and find bin Laden.

At this time, I learned from one of the stewards on the flight that
there was the coffin with a dead American soldier on the plane. The
person to whom I was talking just reacted by saying, "everyone wants
out -- everyone."

I asked him what he thought happened at Abu Ghraib and the handling of
prisoners in general. He blamed both the people in the prison and
their superiors. He says that everyone knows that the adrenaline rush
and completely new experiences these young Americans are having lead
to scary behaviors. He also stated that it is well known among the
troops that al Qaeda takes (or keeps) no prisoners.

Early in the Afghanistan incursion, he said that he was on one of the
last helicopters out of a very scary incident in which about ten U.S.
soldiers were killed in a well-planned diversion and ambush by al
Qaeda and the Taliban. He was at a fueling station between Kandahar
and Shkin, very close to the Afghanistan/Pakistan border. A group
began firing on U.S. soldiers at the fueling station, and some
choppers and soldiers went after them. From behind, from the mountains
on the Pakistani side, a massive number of al Qaeda and Taliban forces
were streaming down behind the Americans -- and the soldier I was
talking to could see this from the air in the chopper he was in.

Black Hawks were called in -- and the Taliban took out one or two --
but basically everyone just retreated. According to him at least ten
soldiers surrendered to al Qaeda, and they were found later. One of
the soldiers had had his penis castrated, and then this was stuffed in
his mouth (sorry for the graphic detail, but it's important). The
other soldiers were all shot in the head. Several others were "cut
up," he said. To him, it was clear that they had been tortured.

He said that these experiences have been repeated in other encounters
with al Qaeda -- and thus many of the soldiers who feel on the front
lines of a war they don't understand and can't figure out -- have them
so incredibly on edge that it's not surprising that they could come
undone in a prisoner-holding situation. What he said though is that
all of the officers know this to be the case and probably expected
this kind of behavior from the soldiers and MPs.

He said that at night, when they are moving people or supplies, or
making deliveries, they are scared -- and drive at 80 or 90 miles an
hour with their lights off. He said lots of innocent people are killed
by this night-driving and while the troops are supposed to report any
damage or harm they do, almost none do -- no one wants to stop. This
confirms an anecdote about the same kind of killer-driving that
Seymour Hersh recently shared with me.

Interestingly, he said that all enlisted men or officers in command
positions have orders not to talk about their war experiences with the
junior and fresh troops. He refuses -- and tells those people under
him everything he knows because he thinks it will help save their
lives. When he went to Afghanistan at the beginning, basically nothing
was told to them; he kept repeating "nothing." And he said that their
basic training in North Carolina was 180 degrees opposite of what they
really needed to know for this kind of combat.

He said morale is very low among the troops and that they all want out
-- few believe in the war or Bush, and he thinks that many of these
troops' negative feelings are being transmitted back to extended
family networks that have traditionally been supporters of the
Republican Party, like his own family.

He shared quite a bit more, including that his military commanders are
planning for at minimum an eight year deployment in Iraq, maybe
longer. He also shared an interesting anecdote that about a year ago,
certain commanders in the 82nd Airborne had been told to prepare for a
quick incursion into Cuba. I was stunned.

He said, "Yep, we couldn't believe that on top of everything else,
Bush thought he could go take out Castro." The Navy Seals were going
to go in and do the dirty work, he said, and the "82nd was going to go
in for clean-up." He said that he never heard more about it but that
the orders clearly didn't go forward -- but they were prepared for
that possibility and told that "Bush just wanted to take out Castro."

Another thing he shared was that after this incident at Shkin,
mentioned above, the Navy Seals were sent in to go find the al Qaeda
and Taliban troops hiding in the Pakistan mountains. He said that they
were all through those mountains in Pakistan and what he told me was
probably classified. But they found nothing, packed their bags, and
went home.

I don't want to analyze all of this -- but I want to emphasize that
the guy who spoke to me was someone who quite genuinely believed in
his country and in military service. He looked like the kind of guy
who kept to himself and was clearly not used to articulating the kind
of feelings and experiences he was sharing. He said he is just a very
stable kind of guy, someone who doesn't react much to all the death he
has seen -- though he feels for people. But he says that few of the
soldiers he knows and with whom he works has the detachment from
events and this horrible situations he generally has.

He said that in contrast to Vietnam where U.S. soldiers were killing
other U.S. soldiers and officers whom they didn't like -- that is not
happening in Afghanistan or Iraq. But he said people are getting
depressed and disillusioned. They don't know what their objectives are
-- and they see lots of dead children, dead innocent men and women,
grieving families, whose early appreciation for Americans has given
away to profound hate and resentment.

He said that if he were one of the Iraqi citizens experiencing what an
occupying force was doing, he'd be fighting too. He said that the only
way to win is to get out of there -- let the Iraqis resolve the issues
they need to resolve internally. Give them money, give them resources,
give them advice if asked -- but get the U.S. troops out.

Needless to say, my mind has had a hard time detaching from the
grimness of this brave soldier's assessment.

-- Steve Clemons