[Mb-civic] t r u t h o u t - Confessions of a Marine

[Linda Hassler]

Really graphic depiction of the Iraq War from the inside....

Linda Hassler

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/110205A.shtml

Jarhead 2005

Confessions of a Marine
     By Jean-Paul Mari
      Le Nouvel Observateur

      Thursday 27 October 2005 edition

Iraq: The story no American publisher wanted.

  In a just-published book, Master-Sergeant Jimmy Massey tells about his 
mission to recruit for, then fight in, the war in Iraq. He tells why he 
killed. And cracked.

      Jimmy Massey is 34 years old. He's originally a Texas boy, raised 
as a good Southern Baptist who loves squirrel hunting with his air 
rifle. After 12 years in the Marines, Jim is a broken man, a veteran 
afflicted with Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, a depressive hooked on 
his medications, haunted by the nightmare images in which he massacres 
innocent civilians, scenes experienced in Iraq when he was nothing but 
a killing machine. Jim has cracked, has withdrawn from the service for 
medical reasons, and has written a raw and brutal book. Telling the 
life of a Marine of today, revealing "how he talks, how he thinks, how 
he fucks, and how he kills." The army denies the facts and his former 
comrades have insulted, rejected, and threatened him. His testimony 
ulcerates Neo-Conservative America and shocks the politically correct. 
In the United States, no publishing house has dared to publish his 
manuscript. Extracts follow.

      The Recruiter

      When you're a recruiter, you have to learn fast. And I rapidly 
learned that if I wanted to keep my job, I couldn't allow myself to 
have any scruples.

      I went to public schools every day where I was able to contact 
young people easily. I had already been given a list of all the 
students, with their phone numbers. So I really didn't need the 2002 
law - the No Child Left Behind Act 1 - which stipulates that any high 
school receiving federal funds must furnish military recruitment 
officers with the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of its 
students. [...] As usual, I said to myself, "I'm going to get them, 
those fuckheads," since, you must understand, a recruiter has only one 
thing in his head if he wants to pay his rent: landing contracts. [...]

      One day in 2000, I was with my warrant officer in the cafeteria of 
a little local university. Chief Warrant Officer Dalhouse rushed over 
to me, saying "Hey! Chief-Sergeant, I'd like to introduce you to 
Timmy." I lifted my head towards Timmy to discover ... a retard! Two 
hundred and ten pounds of muscles, the features and the speech of a 
retard. Upset, I looked at my new boss and asked him: "Are you shitting 
me?" He firmly replied: "No, Chief-Sergeant, you are going to interview 
this guy. He is seriously thinking about joining the Marines."

      [...] Timmy was short and massive; he wore blue jeans, work boots, 
and a T-shirt in the Andrews High School football team colors. He 
reminded me of the Lenny character from Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men." 
He seriously wanted to sign up with the Marines; it was obvious. [...] 
"Now, let's talk about your handicap. I know it's been harder for you 
than the average person and you've already shown a lot of 
self-confidence by overcoming your disability." Timmy lowered his eyes; 
I saw he was a little embarrassed. Then he raised his head, his eyes 
glistening with tears, and in a trembling voice, answered: "You're 
right, Sergeant, it's been really hard for me. Once, when I was new, 
the other guys locked me in a closet. They shoved me around and 
insulted me. I was so angry I knocked down the closet door." "- Timmy, 
no one will ever bother you again. The Corps will help you acquire all 
the self-confidence you'll need to overcome the obstacles you could 
encounter in the course of your life." He sent me a look full of 
gratitude. [...]

      When a kid told me he had taken Ecstasy, here's the sort of 
conversation we'd have: "Listen, guy, are you sure it was really 
Ecstasy? Maybe it was Doliprane." When I said that, I'd nod my head up 
and down. "Yeah, I'm not sure, in fact." "So you think it was 
Doliprane?" still nodding my head. "Yeah, it was Doliprane." [...]

      The War in Iraq

      "You call that pacification? I've got a problem with it," I said 
in a nauseated voice. "My friend, you've gotta get a grip. If you keep 
making waves, they'll judge you as a war criminal."

      We had reached the military site Al-Rashid on an overcast, dark 
and sinister day. [...] When we stopped, I saw ten Iraqis, about 150 
yards away. They were under forty years old, clean and dressed in the 
traditional white garment. They stayed on the side of the road waving 
signs and screaming anti-American slogans. [...] That's when I heard a 
shot pass just over our heads, from right to left. I ran into the 
middle of the street to see what was happening. I had barely rejoined 
Schutz when my guys unloaded their weapons on the demonstrators. It 
only took me three seconds to take aim. I aimed my sights on the center 
of a demonstrator's body. I breathed in deeply and, as I exhaled, I 
gently opened my right eye and fired. I watched the bullets hit the 
demonstrator right in the middle of his chest. My Marines barked: "Come 
on, little girls! You wanna fight?"

      I acquired a new target right away, a demonstrator on all fours 
who was trying to run away as fast as possible. I quickly aimed for the 
head; I breathed in deeply, breathed out, and I fired again. One head: 
boom! Another: boom! The center of a mass in the bull's eye: boom! 
Another: boom! I kept on until the moment when I saw no more movement 
from the demonstrators. There was no answering fire. I must have fired 
at least a dozen times. It all lasted no longer than two and a half 
minutes.

      I know that they had also been shot in the back; some of them were 
crawling and their white clothes turned red. The M-16's 5.56 is a nasty 
bullet: it doesn't kill all at once. For example, it can enter the 
chest and come out at the knee, tearing all the internal organs on the 
way through. My guys were jumping around in every direction. Taylor and 
Gaumont hollered: "Come back, babies!" "They don't know how to fight, 
those cocksuckers! Fucking cowards!" They slapped one another on the 
back, exchanging "Good job!," but they were frustrated because some 
demonstrators had succeeded in getting away. I wanted to keep on 
firing, I kept telling myself: "Good God, there must be more of them." 
It was like eating the first spoonful of your favorite ice cream. You 
want more. [...]

      Those demonstrators were the first people I killed. [...] That had 
a hell of an effect on me. What an adrenaline, rush, fuck! Fear becomes 
a motor. It pushes you. It had more of an impact on me than the best 
grass I ever smoked. It was as though all those I had ever hated, all 
the anger that was accumulated in me was there in that being; you feel 
like you're absorbing life like a cannibal. You're really happy with 
yourself; you feel really powerful and everything becomes clear. You 
reach nirvana, like a white luminous space. But after a few hours, you 
come down from nirvana and find yourself in dark waters; you swim in a 
pool of mud and the only way to go back to that other feeling is to 
kill again. [...]

      After pulling out at dusk, we heard shots, at least a hundred. 
Lima Company had opened fire on a vehicle. I learned later that there 
were three women and a child inside. As far as I know, there was never 
any inquiry. [...]

      Forty-five minutes later, a red Kia Spectra came towards us at 
around 35 mph. It penetrated the green zone; a few of my Marines let 
loose a warning round and the sniper fired on the engine, but the 
damage didn't keep the car from continuing into the red zone. The 
vehicles installed in the rear immediately opened fire with their 240 
Gulfs; we joined in with our M-16s, targeting the car and firing at 
least 200 rounds at high speed. The KIA stopped in a grating around 25 
yards from my Humvee, and my Marines pounced on the vehicle and began 
to extract the four wounded Iraqis. The occupants, young men tastefully 
dressed, were bleeding profusely. [...] Six stretcher bearers arrived 
with stretchers and took them away. The survivor came towards me 
groaning, a tortured expression covering his face. He looked in the 
air, his hands raised: "Why did you kill my brother? We didn't do 
anything to you. We're not terrorists."

      I walked away without saying anything to him and sat down inside 
my vehicle, devastated. I got out when I heard the Marines and the 
stretcher-bearers bringing the Kia's occupants back to the car. "Fuck, 
what are you bringing them back for?" "Chief-Sergeant, the chief 
Medical Officer said he couldn't do anything for them." I looked at the 
Iraqis, containing my anger with difficulty. They were twisting and 
groaning, dying by inches and in pain. [...] I couldn't speak. I looked 
inside the car. Obviously, there were neither weapons nor explosives 
there. I was more and more disgusted.

     The Last Straw

      [...] Captain Schmitt came towards me and asked me, very calmly: 
"Are you OK, Chief-Sergeant? [...]" "- No, Captain. I'm not OK." "- Why 
not?" I answered without hesitation: "It's a bad day. We killed a lot 
of innocent civilians." "- No. It's a good day," he retorted in an 
authoritarian tone. Before I had time to answer, he had already moved 
away from me with a confident tread.

      Today, Jimmy Massey is no longer a Marine. He lives in a little 
village in North Carolina, spends his time making anti-recruitment 
visits to schools and militating against the war in the association he 
founded with five other soldiers: Veterans Against the War.

      ----

      (*)Kill! Kill! Kill! by Jimmy Massey (with Natasha Saulnier), 
published by Editions du Panama, 390 p., 22 Euros.


  
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