The face of battle
[Phillip Carter,
Thursday August 2, 2007 at 2:52pm ]
The Guardian's award-winning photographer and filmmaker Sean Smith spent two months embedded with U.S. soldiers in Baghdad and Marines in Iraq's Anbar province. He produced a graphic documentary film depicting the men he was with, the dangers they face, the exhaustion and disillusionment they feel. He closes his first film, about two platoons fighting in Western Baghdad, with this blunt statement from an Army infantryman:
". . . I challenge anybody in Congress . . . to do my rotation. They don't have to do anything, just hang out with me and go home at the time I go home, and stay here 15 months with me. We're supposed to be on the way home right now. We were supposed to be flying home in 6 days. 6 days. But . . . because we have people up there in Congress with the brain of a 2-year-old . . . who don't know what they're doing . . . they don't experience it. I challenge the President or whoever has us here for 15 months to ride alongside me. I'll do another 15 months if he comes out here and rides along with me, every day, for 15 months. I'll do 15 more months. [Buddy says 'hooah' in the background] They don't even have to pay me extra. I just want him to come out here and ride with me for another 15 months."
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They weren't. You can tell. With the emotions pumping, they screwed that all up.
The woman when they come back is yelling, "I'm alone, there's no one here, get out of my house. Please leave Iraq alone. Give us peace. Leave."
She is probably Christian, from the look of her home.
The man who was killed was said to be a taxi driver. The car, however, wasn't a taxi.
At the triage, they did the right thing. Wounded were treated regardless of nationality or status.
What this film most graphically shows is how strained a unit gets after so many months in combat. Around Ramadi, we were the same way by the end of a year.
Shreds you up, even after you realize you will die.
I've heard it argued on these threads that it is impossible for us to leave Iraq, since "it just ain't going to happen". Our political purpose is simply too important to allow us to relinquish it, or we can't bear the thought of losing another war, or can't conceive of ourselves as simply another country . . . no better, and no worse than any other. Capable of making horrific strategic blunders . . . yet holding those responsible for such disasters accountable . . . Ideals die hard.
The regime's argument for a while has been that our reason for being in Iraq is because we first went in, that is we have to destroy the threat we ourselves created. As to what our actual war aims were/are, don't even bother to ask. It's all about "culture" and we're in the middle of it since we're in the middle of it. War is also possible with Iran . . . a rethrow of the geo-strategic dice "and everyone's got their fingers crossed". . .
My thanks for posting this are added to those above.
And, if GWB takes the good soldier's invitation, I'll be happy to pay for the airline ticket.
Al
I have taken your suggestion from a prior thread. Thank you.
Now, I don't hear that so much. More and more, they sound like that young enlisted man -- pissed, frustrated, angry and just tired. They talk about Iraq as "Groundhog Day" and know the exact count of how many buddies have died or been maimed. They have long felt the nation sent them to war while everyone else went shopping.
They'll be coming home one day and there will be a price to pay. What exactly, I'm not sure. I'm just convinced we're ready for that.
Thank you, Tom. You have helped to make a difference.
Al
Essentially, a lot of today's repressive legislation has roots in that period, when the politicians failed to deliver the promised "land fit for heroes", and realised that there were a lot of angry young men out there who were trained killers. It's the practical aspect of the fear of communism.
Add some elements of what happened in Ireland--the infamous "Black and Tans" were ex-soldiers--and you can see what prompted some post-WW2 planning in the UK. The USA had the G.I. Bill, while the UK had the National Health Service.
And what happens if disturbed veterans get organised in ways which aren't approved of: not the romanticised fancies of "The A-Team" but the bloody reality of soldiering?
One example from British History, to show the possible up side: "The Jarrow Crusade". It was an organised protest, a march from Jarrow, in North-East England, to London. It was a plea to government to do something about the rising unemployment. The men who made the march were picked to represent the town; men of good character, ex-soldiers in good health. And the March was planned, with food and shelter arranged, coverage in the local press. It was a media event.
In the 1920s Veterans pervaded British life, in a way that they don't now. It was the same after WW2.There were enough to make the politicians take them into account.
Now? I get very cynical about modern politicians.