As I read through the comments regarding my last piece, I couldn’t help but notice that some members made some very good points.

Some members commented that they do not feel safer because of what I do. The truth is, they aren’t. What I do, has nothing to do with any of you being safe. My job is to track convoys and keep them safe. Your safety lies in the hands of people who make a lot more money than I do. Blame your lack of safety on Bush, Rumsfeld, Gates, Casey and Petraeus. Those are the people who give us our missions. Those are the people who are not handling the Iranian and Syrian border. Those are the people who aren’t pressuring the Iraqi government to make progress. Those are the people who aren’t telling my bosses to bring the madness to the organizations who make you unsafe.

Other members called my willingness to follow orders “mindlessness” and an “abdication of personal responsibility”. I beg to differ. The fact that I have the desire to sit down and write this precludes the idea of me being mindless and I am fully aware of my personal responsibilities. I am personally responsible for what I personally do. Personally, I track convoys.

But most disturbingly, I realized that many people were operating under the assumption that as recruits, we were fully informed and fully aware of the intricacies and complex dynamics of the organization we were about to enter and therefore complicit in its activities whether we were to contribute them directly, indirectly or not at all. In my opinion, that is completely wrong.

Joining the military is a life-altering decision. Unfortunately, the recruitment process is very much geared to young people and is very often a deceitful, manipulative process. The average age of the first termer (serviceman in the midst serving his first contract) is nineteen. Nineteen. How can anyone expect a nineteen year old kid to understand the magnitude of the decision they’re making when they sign that contract? I’m not saying that being young is an excuse. But, would anyone really be terribly surprised?

It wasn’t until well after I joined the Army that I realized the gravity of the situation in which I had placed myself. In hindsight, I should have done more research. I should have networked more. I should have talked to more people, asked more questions. Even still, knowing what I know now, I would have made the same choice. I would have done everything exactly the same and I would have ended up here all over again.

I haven’t killed since I’ve been here. If I have to, I will. I’m under the impression that we aren’t really supposed to talk about confirmed kills. But if I had one, I wouldn’t be proud of it. I wouldn’t be ashamed of it either. It’s not like we’re all running around here getting drunk and killing up folks.

Escalation of force. [If you are in the Army, feel free to page down.]

Escalation of force is a big part of the Rules of Engagement. Translated: who or what you can fuck up and how badly you can fuck them or it up. I can’t tell you how many classes I’ve had on EOF and ROE. There are some crazy assholes out there. But those of us who have a shred of sense know that we are not allowed to rape kids or kill families or fuck with detainees.

They teach us to:

What you just read (or skipped) is written in a card that I, and everyone in my Brigade have in their left shoulder pocket.

ROE is no joke to the military. All those pieces of shit who committed those war crimes are in jail. Well… almost all of them. They warn us over and over how serious ROE is. After the Abu Ghraib story broke, we were all sent to extensive mandatory training about how to treat detainees.

I remember an example that the instructor gave:

We’re not allowed to be assholes to these people. Many of them thank us for our presence. MJT's interview with the interpreter resonated strongly with me as I often work closely with those in my battalion. They work for us be because they want peace. They believe that helping us will bring that to them. They work extremely hard and they are out there in harms way next to my brothers and sisters. They are make much less than I do and risking much more.

Recently, one of my favorite translators who goes by the name of Martinez lost two of his family member to death squads. I cried for him when I learned this. And I don’t fucking cry. The next time I worked with him, I expressed my sympathies and I cried again. And I don’t fucking cry. I asked him if he wanted to go home and stop working for the Army and he said, “No, I want to work for the Americans. My family may be gone but my country is still here. I must do something. I must make change.”

I asked him, “Why do you believe that you are helping Iraq by working with us?” He replied, “Because when I talk to my people, they tell me I am brave and they thank me.”

They thank him and it makes him feel good. Go fucking figure.


OhSoOrdinary wrote a very pleasant blog about why she joined the Army and hopes that you will read it in order to understand the meaning of "free stuff".