The New Heroes of the Iraq War

The New Heroes of the Iraq War

Dissenters Heroes?

by April Fitzsimmons, Sgt. USAF (1985-1989)

LOS ANGELES, Ca – “On your knees!” shouted the Marine Sergeant.

I felt the right one crunch as I knelt on the concrete. “Hands over your head!” he hollered. I lifted them high into the air. I felt vulnerable and scared. “How did it come to this?” I thought. “How did I get here?”

As the US Marines bound my wrists with plastic ties and blindfolded me, my life flashed before me.

In 1985, at the age of 17, after a few hours in a Montana Jail, I decided to clean up my act and enlist in the United States Air Force. I gained instant “good girl” status with my Dad and my neighbors. Everyone shook my hand and said how proud they were of me, and my decision.

Even though I’d always wanted to be an actor and a writer, enlisting in the military seemed like my best chance for success and the quickest way out of Dodge. I didn’t have any money for college, I didn’t want to stay in our small Montana town, and while the rest of my classmates shuffled off to school, I felt good about my plan. It felt safe and special and all the adults in my life said I was brave and courageous. I went from ex-con to the next American hero overnight and all I had to do was take a test and sign some papers.

I became an Intelligence Analyst in the midst of the Cold War. Stationed in Southern Italy, we spied on the Soviet Union, the Eastern bloc, Iraq and Iran. We listened to them and they listened to us and we reported everything we found to a little office in the states called the National Security Agency.

I got involved with the theatre on base and did some acting to kill the time, but like most folks with a job they can’t really talk about, I drank. I drank to unwind, to get jolly, but mostly I drank to forget what I was seeing at work.

One night after hanging out at the NCO club, I was sexually assaulted by a fellow service member in my dorm room. My roommate was working a night shift and this guy had the key to the girls’ dorms and he was letting himself in to see how much he could get away with. I was so frightened about what happened that I didn’t say anything. He was caught a couple weeks later after he raped a girl and I finally got the courage to speak up about my attack. I testified against him and after the trial he was transferred off the base. I never got therapy. I never told my parents. I just pretended the whole thing never happened. I stayed quiet.

And then a bunch of really nice things happened to help me forget. I became Airman of the Year, an intelligence briefer for a General and the Ambassador for our command and just before the first Gulf War, my enlistment ended. I got an honorable discharge and I finally started to do what I’d always wanted to do in the first place.

I moved to Hollywood and worked on a bunch of movies behind the scenes in film production and then I wrote a book about it and went back to acting school. I didn’t tell anyone I was a vet because I was embarrassed about it. I remember being at a barbeque, telling some guy I was trying to impress that I’d served in the military.

“Why would you do that?” he asked, looking at me like I’d just swiped an old woman’s purse.

“Um… because I was young,” I said and changed the subject.

Contrary to what my recruiter and the out-processing people had told me, the military didn’t really give me “special status” in the civilian world unless I wanted to work in the same field I’d already worked in. The thought of spending another minute, hunched over a desk in a windowless room, pouring over data about an enemy that would be obsolete in another twenty years seemed senseless and miles away from the creative life I craved. So I kept quiet about my vet status.

Everything was stat until 9/11. Sitting on my couch in Los Angeles, I watched the plane hit the second building. I watched the suits jockey for sound-bites about the evil-doer’s, the axis of evil and evil in general. And then I saw Dick Cheney. I hadn’t really thought of him for years. He was the Secretary of Defense at the end of my service commitment and from his Washington DC bunker had steered the troops into the first Gulf War. I heard Cheney and Bush lie and manipulate the public into thinking that Iraq had something to do with 9/11. I listened as Cheney lied to the public and said we were very unsure of Iraq’s weapon capability. I watched the President get giddier by the day at the thought of a retaliatory strike. And I watched young men and women line up at the recruiter’s offices. The whole thing felt wrong.

I started to research and finally do the homework of an American citizen. I read the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Koran, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky and John Perkins. I read about the Project for the New American Century and I discovered a formidable plan at work to gain a stronghold in the Middle East. I listened to and met other veterans who were also disturbed by what was happening; people like: Gen Batiste, Gen. Zinni, Gen. Shinseki, Col. Ann Wright, Ron Kovic and Ray McGovern. I heard James Baker say on NPR that we will go to the war with the Middle East to maintain our economic interests. And then I watched our country privatize the oil fields of Iraq last week. I got so angry with our mission to convert the Iraqis to our “way of life”, like we were a part of some religious crusade. With most of New Orleans still struggling to recover from Katrina, I couldn’t believe that we were so preoccupied with trying to mind another country’s business when we couldn’t even mind our own. I got so outraged at the misinformation being manufactured by the administration and being manipulated by the media that I couldn’t keep quiet anymore.

All this flashed through my mind as I knelt on the ground as part of Operation First Casualty. This action started with a group of veterans from the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) when they decided to storm Manhattan and D. C. to reenact for civilians the reality of the troops patrolling Iraq. It was named Operation First Casualty under the premise that the first casualty of war is the truth and the IVAW is dedicated to bringing the truth of this war to the streets of America.

It wasn’t easy for these former Marines. As we rehearsed and then occupied the streets of Santa Monica, California, it stirred up all their dormant aggression. It was hot and sweaty in those heavy vests in the 90 degree heat. The experience of the reenactment brought on nightmares and flashbacks and fresh PTSD episodes. But they did it because they’re brave and committed to raising awareness in these sleepy, fat towns where folks are more interested in shopping than learning about the human cost of war.

So there I was on my knees with a team of US Marines yelling at me and I started to cry. Not because that’s my job (the role of an Iraqi civilian being searched) but because that’s a natural, human response for me when I’m on my knees blindfolded and bound. I cry. From behind the blindfold I could see no future. All I could see was a perpetual cycle of violence, and all I could hear were the frightened sobs of my Iraqi sister, and all I could feel was shame and confusion.

I serve now on behalf of the troops who have seen the moral error of this war. I stand beside leaders like Lt. Ehren Watada who bravely pointed out the constitutional justification for refusing to fight in the Iraq War. And I support Operation First Casualty and defend Adam Kokesh’s right to wear his uniform while performing street theatre in order to wake up Americans to the harsh reality of this war. And I will continue to stand beside the women and men that slowly come forward after being sexually assaulted by their fellow service members and hopefully give them the support they need to speak up.

This is who I serve now and these are my new heroes. They will receive no medals for their courage. In fact some of them will go to jail, get demoted and lose their veteran benefits. But the rewards they will reap in their souls, knowing that they did what was morally right during an illegal war, will bestow upon them a lifetime of peace.

I’ve discovered that heroes come in all shapes and sizes. Is a hero someone who does something just because somebody tells him to? What defines a hero? Throwing oneself in front of a bullet and receiving a medal, does that make a person a hero? What if that bullet was only fired because you were standing there? If you ceased to stand there and take the bullet, would you cease to be a hero?

I believe the heroes of this war are the veterans who are standing up against it. Personally, I don’t think it’s heroic to barge into someone else’s home with an AK-47 and night goggles, rouse them from sleep, rifle through their possessions, kick their walls and detain the man of the household because he is between the age of 12-50 just because some Commander in Chief, who flaked on most of his service commitment, said that’s what has to happen in order to root out every terrorist on the globe. What part of that scenario is noble, courageous and heroic?

I don’t believe that by barging into homes “over there” will prevent them from attacking us here. I think that’s part of a cleverly crafted script, brilliantly acted out by the puppets in Washington. By fighting them there, we only create more enemies, here, there and everywhere.

And I don’t recall Superman seeking out the evil-doers. I recall him waiting in his office, doing work in his community and addressing the call to action, when the call came. The call came. Saddam is dead. It’s time to come home. There are plenty of well paid contractors to clean up the mess. You belong to and are paid by the American people and the majority of the American people want you home. It’s up to you. You are more powerful, more strategic, more intelligent and more effective than those ten people in Washington that say you have to stay and clean up Iraq. It’s a political mess now, not a military one.

Collectively, you are much more than a bunch of guys and girls with guns. Collectively you can bring yourselves home to your wives, husbands and children. Collectively you can tell this government that you are done with this fight. Collectively you are the only ones who know the reality of this war and collectively you are the only one’s who can speak up against it.

“The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself.”
– Archibald MacLeish (US Army Veteran, Pulitzer Prize Winner)

For more information about Operation First Casualty visit: www.ivaw.org

Photo by Lovella Calica