1 1 2 CONGRESSIONAL PROGRESSIVE CAUCUS 3 WINTER SOLDIER ON THE HILL 4 U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES PUBLIC MEETING 5 6 Taken on the date of: 7 Thursday, May 15, 2008 8 9 Taken at the Rayburn House Office Building 10 Room 2261, Washington, D.C. 11 12 PRESIDING: 13 LYNN WOOLSEY, Congresswoman from California 14 BARBARA LEE, Congresswoman from California 15 MAXINE WATERS, Congresswoman from California 16 ALSO PRESENT: SHIELA JACKSON-LEE, Texas 17 MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio 18 KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota 19 DONALD PAYNE, New Jersey 20 21 Start time: 9:33 o'clock, a.m. 22 Taken by Cathy Crump, the court reporter 2 1 C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S 2 Agenda Item: Page: 3 I. Opening Statement, Co-Chair Woolsey...... 3 4 II. Opening Statement, Co-Chair Lee.......... 9 5 III. Introduction by Kelly Dougherty, IVAW.... 16 6 IV. Testimony of Jason Lemieux............... 23 7 V. Testimony of Scott Ewing................. 32 8 VI. Testimony of Geoffrey Millard............ 40 9 VII. Testimony of Kristofer Goldsmith......... 45 10 VIII. Questions and Answers, Panel I........... 53 11 IX. Testimony of Vincent Emanuele............ 74 12 X. Testimony of James Gilligan.............. 82 13 XI. Testimony of Adam Kokesh................. 92 14 XII. Testimony of Sergio Kochergin............ 102 15 XIII. Testimony of Luis Montalvan.............. 111 16 XIV. Questions and Answers, Panel II.......... 121 17 XV. Closing IVAW Remarks..................... 153 18 XVI. Closing Statement by the Co-Chair........ 155 19 XXII. Closing Statement by the Chair........... 160 20 - 0 - 21 22 3 1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 I. OPENING STATEMENT BY CO-CHAIR WOOLSEY 3 MS. WOOLSEY: In honor of everybody that's 4 here on time, we're going to get started. 5 I thank you all for being here. I'm Lynn 6 Woolsey. I represent the Sixth District of 7 California. That's the two counties just north of 8 the Golden Gate Bridge, north of San Francisco. 9 Well, I own half of the Golden Gate Bridge, just so 10 you have some kind of an idea of the magnificent 11 district this congresswoman represents, not because 12 it's beautiful, which it is, but because the people 13 are beautiful that I represent, and they look all 14 like you out there in this audience. 15 So thank you for being here. 16 I want to thank you my friends and my 17 co-chair Congresswoman Barbara Lee. We chair the 18 Progressive Caucus together, and Maxine Waters will 19 be here, in and out. She is the founder and the 20 chair of the Out of Iraq Caucus, and the three of us 21 do a lot together. We call ourselves The Triad, the 22 Woolsey-Waters-Lee Triad, and people know a lot 4 1 about us around here, because our issues are your 2 issues and you make it easy for us to carry your 3 issues. 4 I also want to thank those who have sponsored 5 today's event. Thank you very much for your work, 6 for your intelligence, and your indulgence. 7 Our colleagues will be joining us off and on 8 throughout this three and a half hours. I think you 9 know that the very issue we're talking about today 10 is on the House Floor all morning and all afternoon, 11 and it is going to take people away from this 12 hearing because the decision today of whether or not 13 we spend another $170 billion to continue this 14 occupation in Iraq is a very serious issue and will 15 be discussed all day long. 16 So be patient. Your words will be taken down 17 -- well, not taken down. That's a negative around 18 here -- will be transcribed and will be circulated. 19 So you are not talking to a vacuum. 20 Now I want to thank the Iraq Veterans Against 21 the War. You've traveled all over this country, 22 across the country to be here with us today and to 5 1 put yourselves at the front table and to do exactly 2 what we need you to do, and that's so important. 3 What is also important is to thank all of you brave 4 men and women for not only your service to our 5 country, but your willingness to speak out about 6 that service. 7 Iraq has become one of the most important 8 foreign policy failures in recent history, and your 9 words behind this discussion today will continue 10 with our discussion on that and continue with the 11 proof of what a waste we've set ourselves up with in 12 this country. You know, around here in recent 13 months, we've heard from General David Petraeus. 14 We've heard from Ambassador David Crocker. We've 15 heard from the White House over and over again. And 16 they're all armed with Power Point presentations. 17 They're armed with colorful posters and all of the 18 language trying to convince us that after five 19 years, we are finally making progress in Iraq. 20 Well, we know that's not so, and what makes 21 this morning so unique to us is that we now have an 22 opportunity to hear from not the military's top 6 1 brass, but directly from you, the very soldiers who 2 put your lives on the line to carry out this 3 President's failed policies. 4 Today's event actually is a continuation of 5 Winter Soldier hearings that were organized by the 6 Iraq Veterans Against the War earlier this year at 7 the National Labor Council in Silver Spring, 8 Maryland. Over three days, dozens of veterans 9 shared their personal stories and testified about 10 their own experiences on the ground in combat in 11 Iraq and Afghanistan. 12 These weren't pundits. They weren't analysts 13 talking, talking about the wars in Iraq and 14 Afghanistan in the abstract. These were the 15 stories, the stories we're going to hear today and 16 the testimonies of the men and women who had 17 experienced the horrors of war up close and 18 personal. 19 The Winter Soldier finds its roots more than 20 200 years ago in the writings of Thomas Payne. 21 Thomas Payne said: "These are the times that try 22 men's souls. The Summer Soldier and Sunshine 7 1 Patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service 2 of his country, but he that stands it now deserves 3 the love and thanks of man and woman." He knew what 4 he was talking about then and it fits perfectly now. 5 The first Winter Soldier hearing was in 1971 6 when a group a Vietnam Veterans testified before the 7 Congress on that conflict and helped to galvanize 8 the nation against the Vietnam War. Today's forum 9 builds on the strong history of the Winter Soldier. 10 It is our goal to provide these testimonies as a 11 means of bringing Iraq from the abstract so that the 12 American public can see it from a soldier's 13 perspective. 14 But before I turn things over to 15 Congresswoman Lee, I'd like to lay out the format 16 for today's events. First, Kelly Dougherty, the 17 executive director of the Iraq Veterans Against the 18 War, will give a brief opening statement, and then 19 she will introduce our first round of panelists. 20 You need to know that these men brought their own 21 counsel, and they all have to know that they're free 22 to call on your counsel if you think that you need 8 1 to respond to something that counsel can help with. 2 After the entire panel has spoken, we will 3 then give members the opportunity to question the 4 panelists. Now, members will be able to either give 5 a five-minute opening statement or give a short 6 statement and ask questions, but they will be given 7 a five-minute time period. The speakers will be 8 given nine minutes, and we have here -- Jason hold 9 up the cards. We will be warning you when you have 10 finished five minutes and then you have two minutes 11 and one minute. 12 Do you have things written on there? Okay. 13 So you'll know, because we have to be out of this 14 room at 12:30. So we need to pull this together and 15 move it along. Now, you have to know nine minutes 16 is a long time. At a hearing in the Congress, five 17 minutes is it, and a lot of times, we speak in 18 one-minute increments all over the place. We've 19 learned to say a lot in a short time. Obviously, I 20 haven't learned that for today. 21 Following the first panel, then we'll have 22 the questions and answers, and then Kelly will again 9 1 introduce the second panel, and we'll have five more 2 speakers, and then we will have questions and 3 answers. Then when it's all over, Jeff Millard of 4 Iraq Veterans Against the War will provide us with 5 closing remarks. 6 So now I'd like to introduce Sergeant Kelly 7 Dougherty. Oh, no, no. I'm not going to do that. 8 I'm going to have Barbara Lee go next and then I'll 9 introduce you, Sergeant Kelly. 10 II. OPENING STATEMENT BY CO-CHAIR LEE 11 MS. LEE: Thank you very much and good 12 morning. 13 Let me begin by paying tribute to my friend 14 and colleague, Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey of 15 California. There are few individuals in Congress 16 who really can match her passion for ending the war 17 and occupation in Iraq. She was the first member of 18 Congress to introduce a resolution calling for the 19 withdrawal of our young men and women several years 20 ago. So I'm proud to serve with you, Congresswoman 21 Woolsey, as co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, and 22 thank you very much for your vision and your 10 1 steadfastness. 2 How many times now have you been on the floor 3 of Congress at night? 4 MS. WOOLSEY: 264. 5 MS. LEE: Every night, she's there, every 6 night after session, late at night, bringing forth 7 to the American public what we have done in our 8 country, unfortunately. So thank you, Lynn. 9 [Applause.] 10 MS. LEE: I want to welcome you. I want to 11 say how good it is to see you. I had the 12 opportunity, actually, to talk with you during the 13 four-day Winter Soldier weekend in Silver Spring 14 that was over the radio, and I remember one of the 15 persons I talked with wanted to know why there 16 weren't more members of Congress or any members of 17 Congress there, and I mentioned then that we all 18 were in our districts that weekend, Congresswoman 19 Woolsey, Congresswoman Waters, all of us, including 20 myself, doing much of what we do every weekend in 21 terms of organizing constituent work, all of the 22 activities. 11 1 In fact, I knew that we wanted to be there 2 with you, and someone asked me over the telephone 3 during the interview, Well, what about having a 4 hearing in Washington, D.C.? And I said right; I 5 know that Congresswomen Woolsey and Waters and many 6 members of Congress would welcome you and greet you. 7 This day is long over due. 8 So this is really, I think -- I have to thank 9 our staff. I have to thank all of you for following 10 up to make sure that this happened and that you're 11 here today, bringing your stories, the real stories 12 with regard to what has taken place. 13 Of course, it's really ironic that today we 14 will debate and vote on three amendments to the Iraq 15 Supplemental Appropriations Bill. Of course, I plan 16 and I know Congresswoman Woolsey and Waters plan to 17 vote against the amendment providing an additional 18 -- can you believe this? -- $183 billion more money 19 to fund this occupation and war through June of 20 2009. 21 We have long advocated that funding be 22 appropriated only for the limited purpose of fully 12 1 funding the safe and responsible re-deployment of 2 American troops and contractors from Iraq, no more 3 funds for combat operation. We offered an amendment 4 last night that would do just that. Regrettably, my 5 amendment was not accepted. So once again, once 6 again, I intend to vote against funding this war and 7 occupation. 8 Now, a second amendment to the supplemental 9 contains two restrictions and conditions that we 10 have championed. First is the prohibition against 11 the establishment of permanent military bases in 12 Iraq. We need to, once again, make sure the 13 President understands that is what the American 14 people want. It's been passed and signed into law 15 at least eight times, and actually the President has 16 issued a signing statement basically saying he's not 17 complying with the law. So once again, we're going 18 to do it again. 19 The second condition that we have championed 20 will prohibit the President from negotiating, 21 entering into, or implementing any agreement with 22 the Government of Iraq that includes security 13 1 assurances for mutual defense unless the agreement 2 is in the form of a treaty requiring ratification by 3 the Senate or as specifically authorized by law. 4 Today's proceedings are historic because it 5 has been 37 years since the first gathering of 6 Winter Soldiers convened in Detroit in 1971 to speak 7 out against the Vietnam War. Those who came forward 8 to tell their story did so not to harm the country 9 that they had risked their lives to serve. Now, I 10 am the daughter of a Lieutenant Colonel 25 years in 11 the Army, and my dad served valiantly in World War 12 II and in Korea. So I honor and respect and support 13 and salute our troops, all of you who are here 14 today. 15 During that period, also, they spoke to make 16 our country better, and that's what this is about, 17 by ending a war that is hurting America at home and 18 abroad. These proceedings are also timely. In the 19 five years and counting since President Bush 20 launched the war in Iraq, the grand committee rooms 21 of Congress has been host to politicians, pundits, 22 cabinet secretaries, and consultants. We have heard 14 1 from arm chair generals and Ivy tower military 2 geniuses. Congress has listened with bated breath 3 to prime ministers and flag officers, field 4 generals, and think tank superstars. 5 The nation has heard the President proclaim 6 "Mission Accomplished" and the Vice President 7 predict that we would be welcomed as liberators. 8 Congress has heard a defense secretary rationalize 9 his incompetence with the excuse that "Remember 10 stuff happens when you go to war with the Army you 11 have rather than the Army you want". 12 Congress has heard from Generals and 13 journalists, celebrities, and contractors. We have 14 heard from just about everyone but the people who 15 really matter the most, and that's you, the men and 16 women who volunteered to go into harm's way, those 17 who perform tasks with extraordinary courage, those 18 who patrol the streets and protect the convoys and 19 the tanks and follow their orders, those who leave 20 their loved ones behind and deploy to Iraq again and 21 again and again. 22 After Shock and Awe, Clear and Hold, Last 15 1 Throes, and Bring Them On, we have heard enough. 2 We've heard enough from those who got us into this 3 mess and from those cheerleading and the false 4 bravado which has kept us in it, five years of war, 5 five years, more than 4,000 dead, 30,000 wounded, 6 tens of thousands of Iraqis who have lost their 7 lives and millions more who have lost their homes. 8 We've spent more than $500 billion destroying a 9 country that never attacked or endangered us, and 10 now here we are in the middle of what I call this 11 Bush Iraq Recession with Americans barely, barely, 12 barely surviving. 13 So today, we're here to bear witness to this 14 truth, to benefit from your wisdom which you have 15 gained from your experience and to thank you, of 16 course, for your service. And we're here also to 17 learn from your lives and those of your lost 18 comrades, your brothers and sisters in arms who have 19 been forever changed by what we have done to them by 20 sending them across the sea into this desert. It's 21 high time this nation stopped and listed to those 22 who risked so much and asked for so little. 16 1 So today is your day. This is your time. On 2 behalf of a grateful people, welcome and thank you. 3 MS. WOOLSEY: Thank you, partner. 4 [Applause.] 5 MS. WOOLSEY: As members arrive, I will 6 introduce them to you, but they will then have their 7 statements after the panel has completed. Sheila 8 Jackson-Lee has joined us. She is from Texas. 9 Thank you, Shiela, for being here and thank 10 you for all you do and for your wonderful heart. 11 III. INTRODUCTION BY KELLY DOUGHERTY, IVAW 12 MS. WOOLSEY: Now we get to introduce 13 Sergeant Kelly Dougherty. 14 Kelly grew up in the small town of Canon 15 City, Colorado. She joined the Colorado National 16 Guard in 1996 as a medic. In 1999 and 2000, she was 17 deployed to Hungary and Croatia as a military police 18 person in support of the mission in Bosnia. After 19 returning from that mission, she transferred to a 20 medical unit. In January 2003, she was transferred 21 back to a military police unit in anticipation of 22 their deployment to Iraq. 17 1 She arrived in Kuwait in February 2003, moved 2 into Iraq when the invasion was launched in March 3 2003. Her unit was stationed near the southern city 4 of Nazrah and did mostly patrols and convoy escorts. 5 Kelly returned to the United States in February 6 2004, and in July of that year helped found Iraq 7 Veterans Against the War, IVAW. She finished her 8 biology degree and has since been volunteering with 9 IVAW to build a local chapter and remain connected 10 to members in her home area. 11 She has also helped to form Events for Vets, 12 a peer support group in her home city. Kelly has 13 served for several months now as the chair of the 14 IVAW Board of Directors and currently is employed as 15 executive director. 16 After making some introductory remarks, she's 17 going to introduce our first panel. 18 Sergeant Dougherty. 19 SERGEANT DOUGHERTY: Thank you and good 20 morning. 21 I am an Iraq veteran and the executive 22 director of Iraq Veterans Against the War, and I 18 1 would like to thank the Progressive Caucus, 2 especially its co-chair, Congresswoman Woolsey and 3 her staff and Co-chair Congresswoman Lee and 4 Congresswoman Waters for hosting Winter Soldier on 5 the Hill Presented by Iraq Veterans Against the War. 6 Two months ago, over 200 IVAW members 7 gathered in Silver Spring, Maryland to submit, 8 listen to, and offer their eyewitness accounts of 9 the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and their 10 first-hand experience in the U.S. Military. Winter 11 Soldier Iraq and Afghanistan represents the 12 tradition of veterans who, as Thomas Payne said, 13 "stand up for the heart of their nation during its 14 darkest hours". We continue our duty to our country 15 and our fellow human beings by offering our 16 testimony to Congress today. 17 The stories you are about to hear will not be 18 easy to listen to, but believe me, they are much 19 harder to relive. We have witnessed firsthand the 20 ultimate violence, chaos, fear, and suffering of war 21 and occupation and are intimately familiar with the 22 indelible mark that it has left on our lives. 19 1 These nine Iraq veterans here today are going 2 to relive memories that they would probably rather 3 forget, but they won't because they know that the 4 people need to hear their stories in order to 5 understand the way that war impacts people, their 6 families, and their communities. These stories are 7 raw, heart breaking, and disturbing, but most of 8 all, these are the stories of U.S. veterans' real 9 lived experience while in our military, supposedly 10 serving for the benefit of this nation and our 11 people. 12 Later today, Congress will vote on whether to 13 approve over $160 billion to continue the occupation 14 of Iraq. Every day that the occupation continues, 15 more men, women, and children will be killed, mamed, 16 or forced to flee their country as refugees. More 17 veterans will return home with lifelong scars, 18 emotional and physical, with little support to help 19 them readjust. Many will fall victim to suicide, to 20 depression, poverty. Later today, Congress will be 21 speaking about the cost of the Iraq occupation in 22 terms of dollars and sense, but for us, we're going 20 1 to show the real human costs of this war and 2 occupation that are hard to measure with dollar 3 signs. 4 Congress continues to look to their fellow 5 politicians, to pundits, to Generals to see what is 6 happening in Iraq, but rarely are the veterans and 7 active duty men and women themselves, many of whom 8 have served repeated tours, been asked for their 9 insight into what is happening. If the Congress' 10 aim is to know the true cost of the war in Iraq, 11 then you must listen to the testimony of the 12 soldiers, the Marines, these service members who 13 served during this occupation and the Iraq people 14 who have survived it. 15 Today is just one step in the process of 16 listening, really listening to these accounts. Each 17 veteran who will be offering their testimony today 18 has undergone a review process in order to verify 19 and support their experiences. We are prepared 20 today to testify under oath, but cannot because 21 we're not in front of an official committee of the 22 House, but we welcome and look forward to that 21 1 opportunity. 2 When I was in Iraq, I saw the devastation 3 that our invasion and occupation have met out upon 4 the Iraq people. I saw and at times participated in 5 the dehumanization and degradation of the Iraq 6 people by robbing others of their inherent dignity, 7 by denying them respect, and by treating them as the 8 less than human others, we ultimately robbed 9 ourselves of our dignity, humanity, and compassion. 10 When I returned home from Iraq, I was angry 11 and disillusioned and I had a desire to use my 12 experience for something positive, and I was 13 fortunate enough to join with six other veterans and 14 former Iraq Veterans Against the War in July of 15 2004. IVAW is an organization of veterans and 16 active duty military members who served in the U.S. 17 military since September 11, 2001. We have members 18 across the country and overseas, in Germany and 19 Iraq. Less than four years ago, there were seven of 20 us, and today, there are over 1200. Our membership 21 has more than doubled in the past year and is 22 continuing to grow. 22 1 IVAW members stand united around our three 2 goals. The first is the immediate withdrawal of all 3 occupying forces from, a goal that Congress can help 4 us to achieve by refusing to authorize $162 billion 5 supplemental for the war. 6 Our second goal is benefits and care for all 7 returning veterans, which can also be taken in steps 8 towards helping with passing the new GI Bill. 9 And the third goal is reparations to the 10 Iraqi people. So far, there have been no meaningful 11 steps taken by the U.S. Government to provide 12 adequate compensation and assistance for the 13 catastrophe we've caused to the Iraq people, and we 14 are asking that that be made a priority. 15 IVAW is organizing the opposition to the Iraq 16 War from within the communities that have been most 17 affected, namely those of the recent veterans and 18 active duty service members. While many of us has 19 taken off our uniforms and put down our rifles, 20 we're still honoring our duty to stand up for what 21 is right and we won't stop until we can welcome all 22 of our brothers and sisters home. 23 1 I thank all of you for attending Winter 2 Soldier on the Hill and I thank you each of our 3 testifiers for their bravery and commitment. 4 Now this will be our first panel of Winter 5 Soldier on the Hill and all of our panelists will 6 introduce themselves. 7 Thank you. 8 MS. WOOLSEY: Thank you, Sergeant Dougherty. 9 I have been prompted to remind everybody that 10 no matter what, we aren't supposed to be clapping in 11 a hearing. So let's keep this as much as can to the 12 hearing process, which means no outspokenness and no 13 clapping. The outspokenness gets to come from our 14 panelists. 15 Are we starting with Scott or Kristofer? Oh. 16 Jason. I'm sorry. Jason Lemieux. 17 IV. TESTIMONY OF JASON LEMIEUX 18 MR. LEMIEUX: Members of the Progressive 19 Caucus, thank you for coming to hear our testimony 20 today. I also want to extend a thanks for Kelly 21 Dougherty for introducing us. It is an honor for me 22 to be part of an organization with selfish leaders 24 1 like Kelly Dougherty. 2 My name is Jason Lemieux. I served four 3 years and ten months in the United States Marine 4 Corps Infantry with Weapons Platoon, Lima Company, 5 Third Battalion, Seventh Marines. During that time, 6 in absence of a congressional declaration of war, I 7 served three deployments to Iraq, including the 8 initial invasion. On July 9, 2006, I was honorably 9 discharged from the Marine Corps with the rank of 10 sergeant. I have been a member of Iraq Veterans 11 Against the War since August 2006, and I currently 12 serve as the secretary of IVAW's National Board of 13 Directors. 14 The written testimony I submitted today 15 illuminates how unit loyalty and comradery, 16 psychological trauma, lack of strategic guidance, 17 command complicity, and our national insistence on 18 minimizing short-term casualty rates all lead to 19 widespread destruction of civilian life and property 20 in Iraq and make rules of engagement for all 21 practical purposes unenforceable, all of which I'll 22 note has historical precedent and could have been 25 1 anticipated before the invasion began. 2 It's very painful for me to slash so much of 3 my written testimony to nine minutes here for this, 4 but please understand that what you hear from me is 5 the tip of the iceberg, both of my written testimony 6 and of my experiences in Iraq. 7 Throughout my three tours, I was present on 8 numerous occasions when Lima Company and the 9 platoons therein were ordered by commissioned 10 officers to shoot any Iraqi who seems suspicious or 11 made us feel uncomfortable with the assurance that 12 the chain of command would, quote-unquote, take care 13 of us. Taking care of us meant that the chain of 14 command was loyal to their Marines before the rules 15 of engagement or the laws of war and would protect 16 Marines from legal prosecution even if it meant 17 providing false information to investigators. 18 In the summer of 2005, I was preparing to 19 finish my four-year contract just as the Third 20 Battalion Seventh Marines was gearing up for a third 21 deployment to Iraq, this time to Ramadi. I 22 voluntarily extended my enlistment contract by 10 26 1 months to redeploy with 3-7 for a third tour. I was 2 solidly against the occupation of Iraq, believing it 3 unwinnable, illegal, and immoral; however, I 4 extended my contract to help bring home all of the 5 junior Marines who had never served in combat. 6 Part of the agreement I made with my 7 commanding officer for extending my contract was 8 that I would lead an experimental intelligence 9 section for Lima Company instead of serving in an 10 infantry platoon as I had done on the previous 11 deployments. Many of the Marines serving on their 12 second or third tours showed signs of psychological 13 trauma, and as deployments dragged on and friendly 14 casualties mounted, morale plummeted and excessive 15 force became routine. 16 As the intelligence section leader on the 17 third tour, I was responsible for sending our 18 battalion intelligence reports that often detailed 19 the excessive force I mentioned earlier. One of 20 these reports involved an attack on Entry Control 21 Point II, or ECB II as it was known to us in Ramadi. 22 ECB II is located on a bridge over the Habbaniya 27 1 Canal and it's the only route into Ramadi from the 2 northwest. West of ECB II is the city of Tammin, 3 which is really an extension of Ramadi, although not 4 part of the city proper. 5 During my deployment, ECB II was manned by 6 Lima Company Marines 24 hours a day. If was 7 occasionally attacked by snipers firing from Tammin, 8 but these attacks were usually ineffective. I 9 submitted an incident report for one such attack in 10 January or February of 2006. I am sorry I don't 11 remember the exact date, but in any event, I 12 interviewed multiple squad leaders from two 13 different platoons separately and cross-checked 14 their information to collect the information that I 15 would use to submit my report. 16 I was also required to send a count of all 17 ammunition expended with my report. So after 18 conducting my interview and cross-checking their 19 information, I determined that ECB II had received 20 four rounds of poorly-aimed enemy fire and returned 21 fire with thousands of rounds of M-16 ammunition, 22 thousands of rounds of M-240 gulf medium machine gun 28 1 ammunition, hundreds of rounds of 50-caliber heavy 2 machine gun ammunition, hundreds of rounds of Mark 3 19 automatic grenade launcher ammunition, several 4 M-203 rifle grenades, a novel explosive rocket, 5 which has a thermobarrick warhead quietly developed 6 by the Marine Corps in the run-up to the initial 7 invasion that is designed to kill or neutralize all 8 personnel inside of a two-story building and has 9 been known to level entire tour-story buildings down 10 to the foundation, and a 120-millimeter main gun 11 round from an Abrams tank, all of which were fired 12 into an area of Tammin known to be owned and 13 occupied by local civilians. 14 One Humvee platoon squad leader even admitted 15 to me that his platoon couldn't even detect any 16 enemy fire and they were just shooting because 17 ECB-II was shooting. When I was discussing the 18 incident with the Lieutenant who commanded the 19 platoon at ECB-II, he proudly encouraged me to check 20 out the house that he had called the tank round on 21 the next that I was passing by. 22 So as I wrote my report, the Lima Company 29 1 executive officer came in and asked me to see the 2 report, and of course I obeyed this order, and when 3 he was finished reading, he looked up and said to 4 me, Lemieux, I think your views on this war are 5 affecting your reports. I was taken aback by this 6 claim. So I asked what he meant, and he said here 7 that the platoon only took four rounds of enemy 8 fire; there's no way they expended all of that ammo 9 and they only took four rounds. 10 Now, I was shocked that the executive officer 11 would accuse me of lying and, furthermore, that he 12 did not understand Marines routinely use such 13 excessive force in Iraq, especially the platoon in 14 question. So I informed him that such behavior was, 15 in fact, routine and I had interviewed multiple 16 squad leaders separately and cross-checked their 17 information to confirm the numbers in my report. So 18 after I finished explaining all of this to him, he 19 stared at the report for a moment before saying, We 20 can't send this report to battalion saying they 21 expended all of that ammo for only four rounds. He 22 then proceeded to sit down at my intelligence 30 1 computer and falsify the very same report that he 2 had just accused me of falsifying to change the 3 number of enemy rounds that the infantry platoon had 4 reported receiving. I don't remember the exact 5 number that he changed it to, but it was in the 6 double digits, if not higher. 7 It's worth noting that the only reason the 8 executive officer or myself was even aware of this 9 particular use of excessive force is because ECB-II 10 is so close to our base that we could hear them 11 shooting and there was no sense in them lying about 12 it; however, if they had been on patrol a few 13 kilometers away, we would know nothing of their 14 activities except whatever they felt like reporting. 15 So to summarize my written testimony, I was 16 involved in fire fights during which the rules of 17 engagement were lifted by the chain of command or 18 were simply ignored, resulting in needless and 19 strategically counterproductive civilian deaths. I 20 was ordered multiple times by commissioned officers 21 and non-commissioned officers to shoot unarmed 22 civilians if their presence made me feel 31 1 uncomfortable. These orders were given with the 2 understanding that my immediate chain of command 3 would protect their subordinates from legal 4 repercussions. 5 In my unit, which I believe is representative 6 of most serving in Iraq, the primary loyalty is not 7 to democracy or to the flag or to America or to the 8 Iraqi people or to the rule of law. It is to each 9 other's safety at the expense of everything else. 10 There were two separate instances in which 11 commissioned officers ordered me to falsify reports 12 of incidents involving civilian casualties. 13 Cover-ups of excessive force were routine and 14 effective, usually reaching no higher than the 15 platoon level throughout my three tours. 16 Contrary to what some military commanders 17 have reported, Anbar civilians assumed 18 responsibility for their local security in the, 19 quote-unquote, awakening because of what Al Qaeda 20 and Iraq had done wrong and what we had failed to do 21 right, not what we're doing right now. 22 And, finally, Third Battalion Seventh 32 1 Marines' focused on counter-insurgency operations 2 caused its readiness to perform conventional 3 military operations to severely decline throughout 4 my service. This decline must be attributed not 5 only to the physical, but also to the inevitable 6 mental and moral factors of service in the Iraq 7 occupation. 8 Thank you for your time. 9 MS. WOOLSEY: Thank you. 10 [The prepared testimony of Jason Lemieux is 11 incorporated herein.] 12 MS. WOOLSEY: Scott Ewing. 13 V. TESTIMONY OF SCOTT EWING 14 MR. EWING: Good morning, ma'am. 15 My name is Scott Ewing. I served in the Army 16 as a scout from 2004 through 2007 and deployed to 17 Iraq with the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment in 18 March of 2005. I spent most of the year there in 19 Tall Afar, a city of 200,000 in the northwest region 20 near Mosul. In March 2006, we returned from our 21 deployment, and President Bush made a speech at the 22 City Club in Cleveland in which he talked about our 33 1 specific deployment and in that speech basically 2 said that we were finally making progress in Iraq 3 based on what we had done. 4 I'm going to talk about three issues: 5 Civilian casualties, detainees, and house searches. 6 During my deployment, I saw far more 7 civilians injured and killed than insurgents. When 8 I say civilians, I mean men, women, and children who 9 are not suspected in any way of being involved in 10 wrongdoing. I also personally saw more innocent 11 civilians injured or killed by American forces than 12 by the enemy. 13 One particularly memorable incident occurred 14 after we raided two houses and found no one there. 15 Everyone thought we were going home, but a vehicle 16 stopped again and we were told to get out and go to 17 a nearby house. I assumed that we were going to 18 search it, but when we went in through the front 19 gate, I noticed that there were already other 20 American soldiers there, a mortar platoon from our 21 troop. There were six Iraqi men against the wall, 22 and as I rounded the car that was in the driveway, 34 1 we saw several middle-aged women sprawled out on the 2 cement, covered in blood. It looked like somebody 3 had opened up on them with a machine gun. 4 What we found out shortly thereafter is that 5 one of our Apache helicopters had shot high 6 explosive rounds into their front yard. So we 7 started treating them with bandages. The first 8 woman that I got to had shrapnel that had penetrated 9 her head. She was still alive, but she died shortly 10 thereafter. The other women were very badly 11 wounded. We got medical supplies from the Bradleys 12 and tried to bandage their wounds. Two of the 13 injured women were laying next to each other over in 14 the back of the Bradley, and a little boy about nine 15 years old came up to me and pointed to his chest, 16 and there was a blood spot on it. So I kind of 17 looked and listened to his breathing to see if his 18 lungs had been punctured, and they hadn't. So I set 19 him in the back of the Bradley next to the two 20 women, and they were all taken to an aid station 21 which was just outside of the city. 22 There are numerous other events, incidences, 35 1 that involve civilian casualties. I don't have time 2 to go into them all, but this incident illustrates 3 the first serious difference between what I saw in 4 Iraq and what is seen back home. There has been 5 virtually no explicit reporting by the mainstream 6 media of civilian casualties caused by U.S. troops 7 in Iraq. Any time a suicide bomber kills civilians, 8 it is highly publicized, but from my personal 9 experience in Tell Afar, the number of Iraqis killed 10 or injured by our forces far outnumber those killed 11 by insurgents or suicide bombers. 12 I'm going to talk about detainees next. 13 Colonel McMaster went through great lengths, 14 it seems, to ensure that detainees were not abused 15 the way they had been in previous units. In some 16 ways, I think his efforts were successful, but this 17 is little consolation to those Iraqis who were 18 detained without good reason. In one case, we 19 detained three men just because they were running. 20 We were told that a helicopter has seen them running 21 through the street. They went into their house, and 22 when we went there, we found nothing. There's no 36 1 evidence that they had done anything wrong, and we 2 detained them anyway. 3 In another case, an older man approached us 4 while we were on dismounted patrol, seeking help, 5 medical help. He had been shot through the foot in 6 some other kind of random fire in the city, which 7 happened all the time. Four of his friends joined 8 him in the front yard, and we asked them -- we 9 questioned them, asked them what they were doing. 10 They said they were in town for a funeral, and so we 11 used a chemical explosives detection kit called 12 X-spray on their hands. One is supposed to take a 13 piece of paper and swab their hands with it and 14 spray that on the paper, but nobody had read the 15 instructions. So a staff sergeant who was with us 16 sprayed the X-spray all over their hands. Of 17 course, everything is dusty. So it changed colors 18 slightly to brown, and on that basis, we brought 19 them in to talk and detained them. 20 When we got there, the JAG attorney told us 21 that we couldn't detain people based on X-spray as 22 evidence, as primary evidence, but said we'll take 37 1 care of it anyway. So in the end, we basically -- I 2 filled out a sworn statement as honestly as I could, 3 but I was also asked to sign some short forms, and 4 as I signed the short forms, I realized, well, maybe 5 there's something on the back, and I decided to look 6 after about the third one, and on the back, the 7 staff sergeant who was with us had written that 8 these men admitted to engaging the Jolak Tribe, 9 which is a tribe who we had an alliance with, in 10 hostilities, and they had not made any such claim. 11 We had no evidence that they were engaging the 12 Jolaks in hostilities, and yet on that basis, we 13 detained the men, and that involved a commissioned 14 officer who was a JAG attorney in doing that. 15 The third thing I want to talk about is 16 searches. 17 Can I have the first slide? You can advance 18 the slides slowly as I talk. Our squadron 19 commander, Lieutenant Colonel Hickey was quoted in 20 the "Washington Post" in September of 2005 as 21 saying: "If we go in there and tear these people's 22 homes apart, we lose these people." This idea made 38 1 a lot of sense to me. It's consistent with 2 counter-insurgency doctrine, which they had said the 3 goal of the counter-insurgency is to win the support 4 of the population that otherwise might support the 5 insurgency. 6 In September of 2005, we conducted a 7 large-scale mission involving thousands of soldiers 8 and cleared the entire city over a two-week period 9 of time. During this time, we were told to search 10 aggressively, and soldiers smashed windows, broke 11 open and threw furniture, scattered the contents of 12 drawers onto the floors, stepped on dishes, and left 13 graffiti in Iraqis' homes. 14 And I have to warn the cameras that some of 15 the graffiti that is going to appear is vulgar in 16 nature. 17 All of this happened under the supervision of 18 our platoon leader and the platoon sergeant. I've 19 since talked with Lieutenant Colonel Hickey about 20 this, and he reiterated that ransacking people's 21 homes was not authorized and was not consistent with 22 their goals. 39 1 You can continue through the slides until you 2 get to the last one. 3 So these are homes that we searched, and this 4 was typical of searches. So people were either 5 outside or they came home to homes like this. This 6 is the house that was burning during this 7 large-scale mission in September. 8 Keep going through the slides, and you can 9 end with the last one and maybe go to the next one 10 so we don't leave that up. 11 There's a clear difference between the image 12 projected through the words and the media in what 13 really happened. Although this is not the kind of 14 behavior that's going to make the headlines, it is 15 incredibly important for several reasons. First of 16 all, Iraqis put a huge premium on honor and respect, 17 and trashing people's homes did not win us friends 18 in Tall Afar. Additionally, from talking with other 19 soldiers and veterans, these kinds of searches have 20 been commonplace throughout the occupation and all 21 over the country. 22 Loyalty is viewed as disproportionately owed 40 1 to one's unit without regard to the behavior of the 2 soldiers and the leaders within it. The initial 3 assignment of loyalty is meant to create a 4 functional team, but when serious problems with 5 adherence to Army regulations or bad tactical 6 decisions are made, this loyalty speciously serves 7 to prevent disgrace and embarrassment. Mistakes are 8 hidden rather than corrected, and patterns of 9 misbehavior are left unrecognized and root causes 10 are rarely addressed as a result. 11 Thank you for having us again. 12 MS. WOOLSEY: Thank you. 13 [The prepared testimony of Scott Ewing is 14 incorporated herein.] 15 MS. WOOLSEY: Geoffrey Millard. 16 VI. TESTIMONY OF GEOFFREY MILLARD 17 MR. MILLARD: My name is Jeff Millard. I 18 served for nine years in the New York Army National 19 Guard, 13 months of that in Operation Iraq Freedom. 20 The last nine months of my nine-year military career 21 was spent on unexcused absence, the Guard's version 22 of AWOL. I was mailed my honorable discharge in May 41 1 of 2007. 2 I'd like to summarize my written testimony. 3 All of the testifiers have submitted full written 4 testimony to the chair so that it can be entered in 5 the record, and I will summarize my testimony. 6 MS. WOOLSEY: I'm going to interrupt you just 7 for a second, because when you said that about your 8 testimony, I want to make sure that all of you know 9 that your entire testimony will be entered into the 10 record. 11 Thank you. 12 MR. MILLARD: I would like to thank the 13 Progressive Caucus, especially though, the chair, 14 Representative Woolsey and her entire staff, 15 especially though, Bill Goold and Chris Shields. 16 Also, I'd like to thank the co-chair, Representative 17 Lee, and Representative Waters for listening to more 18 than just politicians, pundits, and Generals. Thank 19 you for listening to soldiers. 20 At some point in the summer of 2005 -- I have 21 to say I can't remember when. You see, in Iraq, a 22 year becomes a month. A month becomes a day and 42 1 that day seems to repeat over and over and over 2 again through your entire tour. This is true for 3 me. I worked for a General. My detractors have 4 often referred to me as a General's secretary, and 5 while as a former infantryman and former engineer 6 that angered me at the beginning, I have to say I 7 was a General's secretary. 8 One day, there was a briefing that was 9 briefed for the General that there was a traffic 10 control point shooting. In it, a young private saw 11 a vehicle speeding at his traffic control point and 12 made a split second decision and put more than 200 13 rounds into this vehicle as it sped towards him, 14 putting it to a stop and killing all of its 15 inhabitants. He then watched as the mother, father, 16 and two children were dragged from that car. 17 That evening, as it was briefed to the 18 General and I flipped the slides for that briefing, 19 Colonel Rochelle from the 42nd Infantry Division 20 DISCOM Command -- and I have to apologize for a 21 little vulgarity here, but I feel it's integral for 22 my testimony. He turned in his chair to the entire 43 1 division-level staff and said, and I quote: If 2 these fucking Hajjis learned to drive, this shit 3 wouldn't happen. I was set back by that. I 4 expected more out of high-ranking officers coming 5 from a line unit. I expected a lot more, and as I 6 looked around at the other officers and high-ranking 7 NCOs in the room, non-commissioned officers, I found 8 no dissenting facial expressions or body language, 9 just nodding of the head as if to say, Yeah, if 10 these "f-ing" Hajjis learned to drive, this wouldn't 11 happen. 12 I don't think that that's really true, but 13 yet it seemed in Iraq everything became Hajji; 14 everything that wasn't us became Hajji. If it was 15 the Pakistanis that did our laundry, they became 16 Hajjis. If they were the KBR employees that made 17 our food at the chow hall, they became Hajjis. And 18 in the Muslim world to a Muslim, the term "Hajji" is 19 a term of great respect, but when we use it, we use 20 it as a term of dehumanization. It is not a term of 21 respect. It's not meant for someone who has 22 finished that pillar of Islam, one of the five 44 1 pillars of Islam, to go on the Haj. Instead, it's 2 meant as a term of disrespect, of dehumanization, 3 much the same as the term "Gook" during the Vietnam 4 conflict. 5 I would have conversations with other members 6 of my unit and asked them why they did this, why 7 people would say, I'm going to the Hajji shop to get 8 a Hajji DVD from these Hajjis, and I'd ask about 9 that, why use that, especially my roommate who 10 happened to from Puerto Rico. I'd ask him why and 11 he'd say, Who cares; they're just Hajjis. This was 12 a common response from members of my unit that I 13 just couldn't understand. 14 After so long, I stopped bringing it up. I 15 buried my head in the sand and I finished my last 16 few months of my tour. I came home and joined Iraq 17 Veterans Against the War, who I am very proud to be 18 here with today. I thank the Caucus and I thank 19 Iraq Veterans Against the War for allowing us to be 20 here. 21 Thank you. 22 MS. WOOLSEY: Thank you, Geoff. 45 1 [The prepared testimony of Geoffrey Millard 2 is incorporated herein.] 3 MS. WOOLSEY: Kristofer Goldsmith. 4 VII. TESTIMONY OF SERGEANT KRISTOFER GOLDSMITH 5 SERGEANT GOLDSMITH: Good morning. Honorable 6 Ladies and Gentlemen of the Congress, I would like 7 start by thanking you for allowing the IVAW to come 8 together with you to finally fight in part of 9 American history in the 21st Century that we can 10 truly be proud of. 11 All of our stories do not begin on the day 12 that we enlisted. All of our stories begin in 13 childhood. My story begins with this image right 14 here. There is a picture of myself in uniform in 15 basic training and there's a picture of myself in 16 uniform at about the age of 10 years old with a pair 17 dog tags and showing a Boy Scout salute. I can't 18 say that I was duped into the military by recruiters 19 because that would be an outright lie. I wanted to 20 be in the military my entire life. It was the only 21 thing I ever planned on doing, and that dream turned 22 into nightmares. 46 1 I joined the Army to kill people. I joined 2 the Army to kill Iraqis, to kill Muslims, to kill 3 people that were of a skin tone other than mine and 4 inhabiting the Middle East. On September 12, 2001, 5 I remember standing up as a 16-year-old boy -- I was 6 still in high school when this happened -- standing 7 up the day after September 11th and talking about 8 how we should use biological weapons or chemical 9 weapons over the entire Middle East to make it so 10 the religious land, the holy land, is not an issue 11 that harms America. 12 I want to state that I have since changed and 13 I am no longer racist and I am no longer filled with 14 hatred like that, but that is what drove me even 15 harder to join the Army and to fight in combat. 16 I joined as a Forward Observer and was 17 trained to use artillery, some of the most 18 destructive weapons that the Army has, though when I 19 deployed to Iraq in 2005, I was not authorized 20 artillery because we had drawn a truce with Muqtada 21 Al Sadr, the leader of the Mahdi Militia and a 22 prophet to some across all of Iraq, especially those 47 1 in Sadr City. 2 Begin with the first slide, please. 3 I took this photograph as was my job because 4 I wasn't authorized artillery. That blue Arabic 5 graffiti right there is on the side of a school 6 somewhere in Sadr City, and I didn't know until 7 three days ago when I had a good friend of mine who 8 is Iraqi translate it for me, but in 2005, an Iraqi 9 in Sadr City spray painted that and it translates 10 directly to "Welcome America to the Second Vietnam". 11 Vietnam and Iraq have not been compared only by Iraq 12 Veterans Against the War and Vietnam Veterans 13 Against the War. It is being compared to by the 14 very people of Iraq that Americans think are too 15 ignorant to realize what's going on in the world. 16 These are smart, educated people that are dying 17 every day. 18 Go to the next slide, please. 19 Underneath the black spray paint is red spray 20 paint. It's written in English, not spelled very 21 well, but obviously from the hand of an Iraqi, and 22 it says "The U.S. and Alawi are terrorment", meaning 48 1 terrorists. That is the feeling of the people in 2 Sadr City. They feel they have been let down by 3 America and by their own government that George 4 Bush's Administration put in power. 5 Before I go on, I want to say that I do not 6 blame you as Congress members for not ending the war 7 as many Americans do. I do not blame the President 8 for not ending the war. I blame the people of 9 America and their apathy because you are responsible 10 to follow what they say, and they have not done a 11 good enough job to convince the rest of your peers, 12 mainly Republicans, to fight to bring our troops 13 home and save lives in both America and Iraq. 14 Next slide. 15 The violence was already low due to the cease 16 fire with Muqtada Al Sadr -- next slide, please -- 17 so my primary mission, our primary mission was 18 supposed humanitarian aid. Humanitarian aid, 19 though, became trumped by presence patrols. This, I 20 go into further detail with my written testimony 21 that I've submitted, and presence patrols, what they 22 do is ensure that the populus knows that there's an 49 1 armed and dangerous Army or Marines, there is 2 military patrolling their streets every day and that 3 we are not going to let up. It's basically fear 4 tactics, fear tactics to create compliance among 5 civilians. 6 This humanitarian aid that we did was once a 7 week. We would on average once a week or three 8 times a month on Sundays, my platoon would be 9 assigned to escort pump trucks such as these to 10 clear the sewers of Sadr City, and what this really 11 was -- next slide, please. What this really was was 12 sucking up a puddle of sewage which would quickly be 13 refilled, often within hours or even minutes, just 14 to make it appear in our photographs that we would 15 submit to intelligence, that I would submit to 16 intelligence, that would be submitted to those of 17 America's government who control this war to force 18 them to believe that we are really doing 19 humanitarian aid, but as made obvious in the Bechtel 20 Report, "Bechtel's Dry Run" which was written by 21 Dahr Jamail and submitted to the Senate and also the 22 Inspector General, the Honorable Joseph E. Smits on 50 1 April 5, 2004, the state of the city is in dire need 2 of repair. 3 In an article by the humanitarian coordinator 4 of the Office of the Coordination of Human Affairs, 5 OCHA, dated 15 April 2008, under water and sewage it 6 says: "The lack of potable water is critical 7 because armored vehicles have torn up the road, 8 exposing drinking water pipes to raw sewage. 9 When I was there, it was in a horrible state. 10 That was three years ago. It was bad when Saddam 11 was in control. It is now worse than it was in 12 2005. In 2005, it was horrific. 13 Next slide, please. 14 This is a young girls schools in Sadr City, 15 and what you are looking at is the bathroom. 16 Because the sewage system was so backed up, the 17 young females, which are some of the most beautiful 18 little girls I've ever seen in my life, would 19 excrete onto the floor, and this was the state of 20 every single school bathroom that I had ever been 21 in. We made no attempts at repair. We were unable 22 to. 51 1 Next, please. 2 This is a school which is flooded. 3 Next, please. 4 That's kids being exposed to massive amounts 5 of sewage. 6 Next, please. 7 That is trash outside of one of the biggest 8 markets in Sadr City. 9 Next, please. That is sewage right outside 10 of the Red Crescent Hospital that we often visited. 11 We made no attempts, no real attempts to fix the 12 situation. 13 I'm sorry, but I'm running out of time. So 14 I'm going to skip to what effects have left and I'm 15 going to make it very brief. The images you're 16 going to see are vulgar. 17 Flash forward. Flash forward. Next slide. 18 These are the things that haunt American 19 Soldiers. This is an image that I was forced to 20 take for intelligence reasons. I was told that I 21 was taking this picture to identify this man. No 22 one in the world can identify that man by the 52 1 photograph. 2 Next slide. 3 I was "stop-lossed". My one hope and dream 4 in the military was to go to college after I went to 5 Iraq. I was "stop-lossed" the same week that I was 6 supposed to get out of the Army for an 18-month 7 deployment. This man went through the same 8 stop-loss as I. He almost lost his right leg and 9 the only reason he didn't is because in Germany 10 where they were going to cut it off, they messed up 11 his paperwork and flew him home. He's now able to 12 walk, but they were going to cut his leg off as a 13 quick fix, and that is what they're doing in the 14 hospitals in Germany to who knows how many hundreds 15 of American veterans. 16 Since I have returned -- or excuse me. I 17 attempted suicide. I never deployed a second time, 18 and because of that, I received a general discharge 19 and I lost my college benefits. The $40,000 20 promised to me in the Montgomery GI Bill, I will not 21 be eligible to receive, and currently, there is a 22 Senator in Congress running for President -- in the 53 1 Senate -- excuse me -- who is fighting to kill our 2 Karl-Webb GI Bill, and I'm one of the soldiers who 3 will never get that money. 4 So I would urge you to read my report, 5 distribute it among your peers as I show very 6 accurately that what's going on in Sadr City is 7 horrific and that veterans are not being taken care 8 of after they return home. 9 [The prepared testimony of Kristofer 10 Goldsmith is incorporated herein.] 11 VIII. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS, PANEL I 12 MS. WOOLSEY: Thank you very much. Thank -- 13 don't go away -- all four of you. Thank you for 14 your bravery. Thank you for your openness. Thank 15 you for trusting us with your words. 16 We have a lot of questions, I'm sure. We're 17 going to begin with Representative Maxine Waters, 18 who is part of the triad of Woolsey-Waters-Lee and 19 Sheila Jackson-Lee belongs to also. We never do 20 anything that doesn't include you. 21 Maxine Waters is the founder of the Out of 22 Iraq Caucus. Maxine and then, Sheila, you'll be 54 1 next. 2 MS. WATERS: Thank you very much, my dear 3 friend and colleague, chair, co-chair of the 4 Congressional Progressive Caucus and of the Out of 5 Iraq Caucus for providing the leadership to bring 6 the Iraq Veterans Against the War here today to 7 share with us this information about their 8 experiences in Iraq. 9 Of course, Sergeant Millard is no stranger to 10 me. I have interacted with him on more than one 11 occasion as he's been in these halls trying to tell 12 the story of what is going on in Iraq. 13 To all of you who are here today, I want to 14 thank you for your courage. I want to thank you for 15 your bravery and I want to thank you for your 16 sacrifices, and I want to thank you for having more 17 courage than many of the members of Congress have by 18 coming here in defiance of what you have been 19 instructed and taught to do and believe. You are 20 soldiers who have given a part of your life to 21 fighting an unjust war, a war where you were misled, 22 and you are soldiers who they attempted to tell you 55 1 that everything that you saw and everything that you 2 did and everything that you witnessed was what 3 happens in war and you were to be satisfied with 4 that, but you're not. I praise and honor you for 5 that and I thank you again for being here. 6 I have often wondered as I've read accounts 7 of killings in Iraq of civilians where they are 8 described to us in the newspaper as some attack or 9 some killings that have been executed because 10 they're suspected terrorists, suspected of this, or 11 suspected of that, and when I see women and children 12 and civilians being killed, I often wonder who are 13 those people. No one will ever be able to know what 14 the true story is, and they have nobody to stand up 15 for them and to say that they're innocent, that they 16 are guilty of no crime. They just get killed and 17 they die, and that's it, and I wonder often times 18 about those families and those children that we see 19 getting killed in ways that you described here this 20 morning. 21 Mr. Goldsmith, I want you to know I am so 22 moved by your testimony that you had the courage to 56 1 come here today and share with us what you have 2 shared and say this is how I thought a long time 3 ago, but that's not who I am today. That is very 4 powerful. That is very moving, and I had to be 5 contained up here by my leader. I just wanted to 6 stand up in applause, and she said just be cool 7 because we want to honor everybody in a very special 8 way. 9 Now let me say this, Mr. Goldsmith: I don't 10 like to make commitments that I am not sure I can 11 follow or carry out, but you are going to get your 12 GI Bill. You are going to go to college. 13 SERGEANT GOLDSMITH: Thank you. 14 MS. WATERS: I'm going to tell you here and 15 today that I'm on it. I'm focused. I don't know 16 what I have to do, but I'm going to get it. You're 17 going to get it. I'm going to make that commitment 18 to you today, and whoever is standing in our 19 collective way, because I know that my colleagues 20 share in my feelings about this, they better get out 21 of the way because we're going to get it. You have 22 to have it. You must have it. 57 1 And I'm so glad that you did not take your 2 life, that it did not work, and I want you to know 3 that no matter the disappointment, no matter the 4 lies, no matter the experiences, there are some 5 people here who believe in you. Some people are 6 going to continue to fight to bring our soldiers 7 home and some here are going to stand up and fight 8 for you no matter what the obstacles are. 9 I just wish you all would defy this leader 10 and just give him and everybody a big round of 11 applause. 12 MS. WOOLSEY: We'll do it at the end. 13 [Applause.] 14 MS. WOOLSEY: You're such an agitator. 15 MS. WATERS: I know. I know. 16 MS. WOOLSEY: She's the agitator of all of 17 us. 18 SERGEANT GOLDSMITH: Thank you, 19 Representative Waters. 20 MS. WATERS: You're so welcome. 21 Thank you all. 22 SERGEANT GOLDSMITH: Thank you very much for 58 1 that. I'd just like to add that I, myself, as 2 distressed as I may appear right now, find telling 3 my story to be therapeutic, and there are hundreds 4 of thousands of soldiers who are unable to tell 5 their stories. There are many that I know who got 6 out of the Army and are doing nothing but drinking 7 and sitting in their basement, yelling at the TV, 8 watching Fox News, and it's very hard for us to find 9 the courage to come up here, and I would to thank 10 you again for hearing us. 11 MS. WATERS: Thank you so very much. 12 MS. WOOLSEY: Congresswoman Sheila 13 Jackson-Lee. 14 MS. JACKSON-LEE: I'm honored to be able to 15 sit here with Congresswoman Woolsey, Congresswoman 16 Lee, and Congresswoman Waters, and I would claim 17 that we are sisters in arms for your battle. 18 I am grateful for Sergeant Kelly for coming 19 back and putting her anguish. The way we always 20 look at Americans is to fix it and to make it right. 21 I think your generation of solders will really claim 22 the name "The Greatest Generation", and we are 59 1 grateful for your presence. 2 To each of you, I want you to consider 3 yourself today to be the empowerment of those whose 4 voices cannot be heard, and I feel a sense of 5 urgency. I will leave this mike for a moment to go 6 to the floor to take some of the points that you've 7 made and to offer them in my opposition to the war 8 in what will be my vote against any more funding for 9 the war in Iraq. 10 We've made a personal commitment that we will 11 never vote for another cent. Sometimes we're 12 blind-sided. Sometimes they sneak it in or sneak it 13 around, but we try to be like Sherlock Holmes and to 14 find it and make sure we do not cast our vote. 15 What I think I heard from Mr. Goldsmith was 16 that there was this stop-loss policy of Secretary 17 Rumsfeld, and I think that what I've heard from my 18 constituents is that a general discharge -- in fact, 19 I think we heard that yesterday about a general 20 discharge -- now blocks everyone from their 21 education benefits. So let me join with 22 Congresswoman Waters to say that this has to be 60 1 fixed, morphed, refined, disguised so that 2 individuals who have for causes, for reasons, for 3 tragedies found themselves under this particular 4 discharge do not have to suffer anymore. 5 Let me also very quickly say that you are 6 creating a movement. It pains me to hear that you 7 are representing those who are shouting in the 8 darkness. So maybe as we have had, and I know that 9 you have gathered, but those hundreds of thousands 10 need to hear our voice. Let us welcome them to 11 Washington. Let's bring a hundred thousand of your 12 members to Washington and let's call the roll on 13 members of Congress to come and tell them why this 14 war continues. I think, frankly, that should be the 15 challenge today, get all of the news, TV watchers 16 that are shouting, get all of the PTSD folks that 17 cannot seem to think that anyone else cares, get the 18 thousands of those who may have attempted suicide 19 and God allowed them by intervention to still be 20 here, get them here on bus or train or road. 21 Now, I have been committed to a position. 22 Many of us have legal positions that we are 61 1 committed to, and I hope you can convince people to 2 vote for a proposition that, really, the resolution 3 that put this war forward in 2002 has expired. It's 4 over. There is no more authority, and I have a 5 resolution that suggests that you have done 6 everything we asked you to do. Saddam Hussein is 7 not there. There is an elected democratic 8 government and a portion of the UN security 9 resolution passed, war over, resolution, no 10 authority. No President right now has any authority 11 to be in Iraq and you should come home with honor. 12 I hope you can be convinced of that, because 13 every time Americans begin to think they want the 14 war over, someone will poison their mind: We have 15 to stay; the terrorists are there; we are fighting 16 the terrorists. You're telling us that what we are 17 doing is bloodying our hands. We are bloodying our 18 hands. We are disregarding the flag. We are 19 disregarding the Constitution and what Americans are 20 known for. We are defenders of peace, defenders of 21 democracy and freedom, and you are telling us that 22 that's not what we are doing. 62 1 So I hope that you understand that you can 2 stand up and say the authority of this President is 3 over. We have committed all of the aspects of the 4 resolution that were asked. It is over. It is 5 done. 6 And lastly, our brothers and sisters who came 7 home from Vietnam, we did not decipher from them and 8 the war, and somebody needs to stand up and join a 9 portion of what I've offered as a national day of 10 honor and celebration for every single one of you 11 and that we rise together, the pink ladies, the 12 other ladies, Republicans and Democrats and 13 independents, and celebrate a day of honor. That is 14 what I go to the floor and argue for. It was 15 offered in an amendment last night. 16 But I do want to say to each and every one of 17 you we have listened to your story. You might say 18 we don't have a question. That is because you are 19 more than eloquent and what we've done now is to 20 commit to you that we will be your soldiers, and so 21 come on up. Bring a hundred thousand of you. We'll 22 make it work and we will let the world see the brave 63 1 and patriotic young men and women and others of 2 older age that have cast their lot on behalf of this 3 nation. We will never, never let you down. 4 I yield back. 5 MS. WOOLSEY: Thank you. 6 Congresswoman Lee. 7 MS. LEE: Thank you very much, and let me 8 join my colleagues in saying thank you. All of your 9 testimony, your service, your lives have been 10 courageous and remarkable. 11 I wanted to mention a couple of things. 12 First of all, when I spoke to the Winter Soldier 13 gathering in Silver Spring, I believe it was only 14 Pacifica Media that covered that very powerful four 15 days, and I'm delighted that we have media here 16 today, because your testimonials and your stories 17 and what the truth is has not gotten out. In many 18 ways, the media has been complicit in what has taken 19 place. So I want to ask you to continue to get 20 these stores out, to continue to talk to the press 21 and your members of Congress so that the American 22 people -- and, Mr. Goldsmith, you talked about the 64 1 apathy. 2 I don't think the American people really, 3 quite frankly, have felt what we're feeling today 4 and have seen and witnessed what we know is taking 5 place, and so we have to continue making sure the 6 public understands what is going on. I'd like to 7 ask you this: Now, I know part of the psychology of 8 war is to dehumanize people so that the atrocities 9 that are committed, that those atrocities bear 10 minimal emotional impact on the soldier. 11 How does this affect the mental health of 12 those who have to do these things and how do we need 13 to move forward to make sure that suicide attempts 14 don't occur and that Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome 15 is minimized and that we can really help with the 16 psychology and the psychological needs of our 17 veterans? Because all of you talked about and we 18 saw and we witnessed on the slides this 19 dehumanization process in action, and that's part of 20 war and I don't know how they train our young and 21 men for this, but that's what occurs. So we have to 22 figure this out and what we can do to help when you 65 1 come home. 2 SERGEANT GOLDSMITH: Yes, Congressman. 3 Something that was brought up to me by a very good 4 friend of mine sitting behind me, Mathis Cheroux, 5 just mentioned maybe two weeks ago and it was 6 something I never thought about, was that every 7 enlistee spends a week of basic training or at least 8 a few days doing bayonet training, and we are 9 putting a bayonet, a knife on the end of a rifle, 10 and we repeatedly stab a dummy that looks like a 11 human being and yell kill with every movement. 12 MS. LEE: This is part of your training? 13 SERGEANT GOLDSMITH: Yes. That is the basis 14 of the military on a broad scale. That is the basis 15 and the first step to dehumanization towards the 16 enemy and the acceptance to kill. There is a very 17 popular thing that the drill sergeants require us to 18 say, and I remember the first time I heard it, I 19 refused to say it. It wasn't because I didn't want 20 to be a soldier. It was because I thought it was 21 weird, and the response to the question: "Soldiers, 22 what makes the green grass grow?" And the response 66 1 is: "Blood, blood, blood, Drill Sergeant." 2 So I would like to allow Geoffrey to go on 3 how we can move past that. 4 SERGEANT MILLARD: You asked in your 5 question, Congresswoman, what can you do to move 6 forward with veterans coming home with scars that 7 can't be seen by the eye, ones of mental wounds. 8 Well, in Iraq Veterans Against the War, we didn't 9 wait for the VA. We started a counseling group 10 called Home from Battle Buddies. In the Washington, 11 D.C. chapter, which I'm the president of, we meet 12 every Sunday at Washington, D.C., our home, to meet 13 for our Home from Battle Buddies. That program is 14 expanding nationally. 15 We in Iraq Veterans Against the War have a 16 saying that we're not going to wait for politicians 17 to end the war; we end the war every day in what we 18 do. We also do the same when it comes to our other 19 goals, including taking care of veterans. We have 20 started counseling groups, but what you can do 21 starts simply with getting more Iraq veterans into 22 college with the GI Bill. Even myself with an 67 1 honorable discharge and nine years of service am not 2 eligible under the current GI Bill for any benefits. 3 The GI Bill is the start, but also making 4 sure that the Veterans Administration is fully 5 funded, making sure that there is no waiting list 6 for PTSD care. We have seen multiple suicides this 7 year alone on veterans who have been waiting on a 8 waiting list to get mental health care at a VA. 9 This is inexcusable. There should never be a 10 waiting list for any veteran, especially not one so 11 young coming home from Iraq when they ask for mental 12 health care. 13 These are the types of things that while we 14 move forward in Iraq Veterans Against the War, that 15 Congress can certainly move more funding into the 16 VA, more funding into our veterans as they come home 17 and out of the occupation. 18 Thank you. 19 MS. WOOLSEY: Well, I'll be the final. I'm 20 the clean-up batter for this panel. 21 You know, you talk about the apathy of the 22 American people. I want to tell you I believe the 68 1 American people are totally with you. I believe it 2 with all of my heart. When I first introduced 3 legislation to bring our troops home, I was really 4 criminalized around the country. When Barbara Lee 5 voted against the President's power in the first 6 place, she was a villain to say the least, but she 7 wasn't. She was the one right person in the House 8 of Representatives. 9 But I think the people of this country, they 10 feel shame for how we treated the Vietnam Veterans, 11 and we should feel shame, but the apathy that's 12 there, knowing they support you, but not knowing 13 what to do, belongs here in the House of 14 Representatives. We are the ones that get hired, 15 elected to lead the way on how to bring our troops 16 home, and we know how to do it, but we want the rest 17 of the Congress to catch on, and we are the ones who 18 have to help ensure that your benefits are in tact, 19 that your life gets back together. 20 And I can tell you that this GI Bill -- you 21 know, we do this day in and day out. 22 There's Marcy Kaptur from Ohio. She's here 69 1 now. 2 The three of us, the four of us -- and Sheila 3 Jackson-Lee was here -- we never stop working on 4 these issues, but I learned something today. I 5 mean, I love it that you've brought so much to us. 6 The light bulb went on. We can pass this GI Bill 7 and there's going to be a whole bunch of action to 8 keep people out so they won't get coverage. Well, 9 you've got the front here. We're onto it. So we're 10 going to fix that for you. 11 But my question for you, if you can answer 12 this, how do you individually deal with your own 13 grief? I love it that you talk about what the 14 Veterans Against the -- the Iraq Veterans and all of 15 that are doing, but what do you do individually? 16 What is the one thing that you that do, 17 Jason? 18 SERGEANT LEMIEUX: Thank you, Congressman, 19 for your question. Well, let me say that when I 20 first exited the Marine Corps, I sought PTSD 21 counseling at the VA Hospital in Long Beach, 22 California. I had sessions there with a psychology 70 1 intern from September until December of 2006. She 2 then told me that my psychology sessions were going 3 to be terminated because she was moving to a 4 different ward of the psychology unit there at the 5 hospital where she would work with vets who have 6 terminal illnesses, because they rotated interns 7 throughout every department in the VA to get them 8 the breadth of experience. 9 I then submitted a letter to my Congressman, 10 the Honorable Ed Royce, to stop my termination. He 11 then did, or whatever happened, my sessions were 12 allowed to continue. In any event, she eventually 13 left her internship and I moved to a program called 14 the "The Soldiers Project" that works in the Los 15 Angeles area, and it's basically a group of Ph.Ds in 16 psychology who provide their services to veterans 17 for free. 18 So that's what I did, and I guess the other 19 thing really is that I serve in Iraq Veterans 20 Against the War and I try to right as much as I can 21 the wrongs I've made, and that would be the best 22 answer I could give you. 71 1 MS. WOOLSEY: Scott. 2 SPECIALIST EWING: Thank you, ma'am. For me, 3 I think being involved in IVAW has been very 4 important. I think I have felt an obligation to do 5 something to try to make up for the moral debt I 6 think that I've personally incurred. Beyond that, 7 for me, I am actually going to school. So academics 8 has played a big part in my getting over it and I'm 9 actually doing research into various parts of Army 10 life and moral psychology and stuff like that. So 11 that's also been very helpful. 12 Thank you. 13 MS. WOOLSEY: Geoff. 14 SERGEANT MILLARD: Well, as most of you have 15 seen me in these halls, it's usually in one of these 16 black tee shirts, and you ask what do I do to 17 recover? I get to wake up every morning, put on 18 that black tee shirt, and work to bring the troops 19 home and take care of them when they get home, and 20 make sure that Iraqis receive reparations. That is 21 what keeps me going. It gets my head off the pillow 22 every morning and makes sure that when it goes down 72 1 there very late at night for the couple of hours of 2 rest that I get, that I get to, as one of my heroes, 3 Harry Chapin, said "Sleep the sleep of the just", 4 because what we do every day in Iraq Veterans 5 Against the War keeps me going. 6 Thank you. 7 MS. WOOLSEY: Thank you. 8 SERGEANT GOLDSMITH: After being removed from 9 the Army involuntarily, I received very little help 10 getting into the VA. I received no training on how 11 to collect compensation which I believe that I'm 12 going to be entitled to, and I didn't contact the VA 13 for a couple of months until I fell into a pit of 14 depression, and I went on line, filed for 15 compensation back in October, and I haven't seen a 16 response other than we're waiting on your paperwork 17 to go through. The VA has gotten my paperwork, but 18 it's been seven months now and I haven't gotten 19 anything because there is a 400,000-claim backup at 20 the VA right now, and hopefully I'm getting close to 21 the end of that. 22 But I drank and I self-medicated for a very 73 1 long time until I spent almost every dime that I 2 came out of the Army with, which was about $20,000, 3 and it wasn't until February of this year when I was 4 contacted and asked by the IVAW to come speak at 5 Winter Soldier that I had ever told my story to 6 anyone. Even my family and my closest friends 7 didn't know the more graphic details of what I had 8 been through. I have used telling my story as a way 9 to recover, but again, there are tens of thousands, 10 if not hundreds of thousands, of soldiers and 11 Marines who are still self-medicating and haven't 12 found that outlet the way that I have. 13 MS. WOOLSEY: Well, I thank you all. 14 Congresswoman Kaptur, would you like to wait 15 for the next panel and give your remarks? 16 MS. KAPTUR: Sure. 17 MS. WOOLSEY: Thank you. I'd appreciate 18 that. 19 I want to say something about moral debt. 20 This has to weigh so heavy on you, but you have to 21 know that moral debt belongs up here. We thank you. 22 You did the job you were hired to do, that you 74 1 volunteered to take care of your country. You did 2 the best you could. The moral debt belongs to us. 3 Thank you. 4 Okay. Now the next panel. We're not going 5 to have -- we were supposed to have a video. That 6 isn't going to happen. So we're just going to go on 7 to the next panel. 8 Okay. Here we go. You guys, here is what 9 we've just learned. You're sitting here in the 10 middle of the Congress, you know. At around 11, 11 we're going to have a series of votes that are going 12 to take 30 to 45 minutes. So what we would like to 13 do is have you complete your testimony. So we can 14 go after your testimony and come back for the 15 questions and answers. We get 20 minutes once the 16 bells start ringing. 17 So if you could possibly, you know, go 10, 18 20, 30, 40, that's going to be cutting it real 19 close. 20 So, Vincent, would you introduce yourself and 21 begin? 22 IX. TESTIMONY OF VINCENT EMANUELE 75 1 LANCE CORPORATE EMANUELE: First, I would 2 like to thank the Progressive Caucus for inviting us 3 to speak with you this morning. We truly appreciate 4 the opportunity. 5 My name is Vincent J.R. Emanuele. I am a 6 resident of Indiana and I served with the United 7 States Marine Corps from September 2002 through 8 January of 2006 with the 1st Battalion 7th Marines 9 Alpha Company 3rd Platoon as a rifleman and a squad 10 automatic machine gunner. 11 I was deployed to Iraq in August of 2004 12 where I spent my time in Iraq as a rifleman in 3rd 13 Squad, 1st Team, 3rd Platoon. Our area of operation 14 was a small border town a mile south of the 15 Euphrates and 15 miles East of Syria, called Al 16 Qaim, Iraq. 17 The issues I will be discussing today include 18 rules of engagement or the breakdown thereof, the 19 death of innocents, the destruction of civilian 20 property, the abuse of prisoners, and the 21 mishandling of the dead, all of which took place 22 during the duration of our tour in Iraq. These 76 1 stories are not mine alone. These are our stories, 2 the stories of 3rd Platoon. I had the chance to 3 speak with several members from my platoon, and 4 these are the events they and I felt were pertinent 5 to discuss with you today. 6 An act that took place quite often in Iraq 7 was that of taking pop shots at cars that drove by. 8 This was quite easy for most Marines to get away 9 with because our rules of engagement stated that the 10 town of Al Qaim had already been forewarned and knew 11 to pull their cars to a complete stop when 12 approaching a United States convoy. Our rules of 13 engagement stated that we should first fire warning 14 shots into the ground in front of the car, then the 15 engine block, and then the driver and passengers. 16 Most of the time, however, the shots made their way 17 straight to those very individuals in the car. That 18 is if the car was even moving in the first place. 19 Many times, cars that had actually pulled off to the 20 side of the road were also shot at. 21 Of course, the consequences of such actions 22 pose a huge problem for those of us who patrolled 77 1 the streets every day. This was not the best way to 2 become friendlier with an already very hostile local 3 population. This was not an isolated incident and 4 took place for most of my eight-month deployment. 5 In one particular instance, we were sent on a 6 mission to blow up a bridge that was being used to 7 transport weapons across the Euphrates. During this 8 mission, we were ambushed and forced to return fire 9 in order to make our way out of the city. There 10 were several problems with instances such as these. 11 First, it was very difficult, if not impossible, to 12 clearly identify hostile targets. This resulted in 13 our unit firing into the town with little or no 14 identification of these hostile targets. Because of 15 inadequate intelligence and lack of personnel or 16 competent leadership, our platoon lost a good Marine 17 that day and I lost my best friend. 18 The Re-trans Site, otherwise known as a 19 Re-Transmission Site, was a communications post set 20 up on a plateau overlooking the town of Al Qaim. 21 This communications site was there to provide 22 communications between the main base at the railroad 78 1 station where we were stationed and an outpost in 2 Husaba, Iraq where Bravo Company's area of 3 operations took place. We would encounter mortar 4 fire on a daily basis. Most of the time, we would 5 return this fire with mortar fire of our own. Some 6 of the time, counter battery would call in a 7 specific location for us to exchange fire. On 8 occasion, when the counter battery could not call in 9 a specific location, our unit would fire upon the 10 town anyway, sometimes in the hills off to the west 11 of the town where we thought the mortar fire was 12 coming from and other times straight into the town 13 of Al Qaim itself, on the buildings, houses, and 14 businesses. 15 Because of the lack of personnel at the 16 Re-Trans Site, very rarely, if ever, did we conduct 17 a battle damage assessment report to report civilian 18 deaths and destruction. So almost all of the time, 19 these incidents went unreported and not 20 investigated. This was not an isolated incident as 21 well. 22 Another mission our platoon was tasked to 79 1 take on was that of transporting prisoners from our 2 detention facility on base back to the desert. The 3 reason I say the desert and not their town is 4 because that is exactly where we would drop them 5 off, in the middle of nowhere. Now, most of these 6 men had obviously been deemed innocent or else they 7 would have been moved to a more permanent detention 8 facility and not released back into the local 9 population. Our unit engaged in the punching, 10 kicking, butt stroking, or generally harassing and 11 abusing these very prisoners until the point at 12 which our unit would take them in the middle of the 13 desert, miles from their respective homes, and at 14 times throw them out of the back of our Humvees, all 15 the while continually punching, kicking, and at 16 times even throwing softball-sized rocks at their 17 backs as they ran away. This, once again, was not 18 an isolated incident. 19 Possibly the most disturbing of what took 20 place in Iraq was the mishandling of the dead. On 21 several occasions, our convoy came across bodies 22 that had been decapitated and were lying on the road 80 1 sometimes for weeks. When encountering these 2 bodies, standard procedure was to run over the 3 corpses, sometimes even stopping and taking 4 pictures, which was also standard practice when 5 encountering the dead in Iraq, this along with 6 neglecting to account for many of those who were 7 killed or wounded. 8 On one specific occasion, after I had 9 personally shot a man attempting to flee while 10 planting a roadside bomb, we drug his body out of 11 the ditch he was laying in and we subsequently left 12 that body -- slide, please. We subsequently left 13 that body to rot in the field where we saw this man 14 up to a week later. 15 These are just a few of the disturbing and 16 unacceptable stories I could share with you from my 17 time in Iraq. Others would include continually 18 dehumanizing Iraqis by referring to them as Hajjis 19 or sand niggers, even the racist and sexist nature 20 that exists within the military itself, which was 21 overtly obvious on a daily basis. I could also tell 22 story upon story of families being destroyed as a 81 1 result of an occupation that unfortunately should 2 have never taken place. Several members of my 3 platoon went through divorces and/or separations, 4 many of the time with children involved. 5 I could also testify to the overwhelming 6 majority of those I served with who did not think 7 dying in Iraq was honorable or acceptable nor did 8 they enjoy or want to go back to Iraq a second or 9 third time. Unfortunately because of personal 10 circumstances, whether they be financial or family 11 issues, many, indeed, were deployed up to three 12 times during their four-year enlistment. In fact, 13 many, including myself, at times did not have any 14 intention of helping the Iraqis. 15 Because of the hostile intent as well as the 16 loss of lives close to us, our best friends, our 17 unit had a general disdain and distaste for Iraqis 18 and their country. Further, our unit, for the most 19 part, did not trust our command and had a general 20 mistrust and distaste of this occupation from its 21 inception onward. I could also speak to the 22 personal attacks veterans, including myself and many 82 1 others, had to encounter once we were willing to be 2 treating for PTSD within our unit. The idea of 3 being a real Marine that does not complain when 4 coming back home and who sucks it up and does the 5 job that we were tasked to do, this mentality 6 resulted in many of the Marines I served with, 7 including myself, turning to drugs and alcohol to 8 cope with the horrors of this bloody occupation. 9 I'm going to leave the time for the rest of 10 the members. Once again, I would like to thank the 11 Progressive Caucus for inviting us to speak on this 12 occasion. 13 Thank you. 14 MS. WOOLSEY: Thank you. 15 [The prepared testimony of Vincent Emanuele 16 is incorporated herein.] 17 MS. WOOLSEY: Mr. Gilligan. 18 X. TESTIMONY OF JAMES GILLIGAN 19 CORPORAL GILLIGAN: Good morning, everyone. 20 My name is James Gilligan. I served a 21 four-year and two-year contract honorably for the 22 United States Marines Corps. While on active duty, 83 1 I achieved the rank of corporal and was promoted in 2 the Individual Ready Reserve to the rank of 3 Sergeant. I was deployed in Kuwait and later in the 4 initial assault five years ago to Iraq for Operation 5 Iraqi Freedom in 2003 with the 2nd Marine Division 6 2nd Combat Engineer Battalion H & S Company, CEB 7 Main, and served as a member of the Nuclear 8 Biological Chemical Recognizance Team for Combat 9 Engineer Battalion Main. Later in the same month of 10 returning home, I deployed to United States Naval 11 Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba with 3/6 Weapons Company 12 CAAT Platoon. I was assigned to the Joint 13 Operations Center and later on, the fence line. 14 I have personally observed Camp X-ray from the 15 outside and later once inside. 16 In 2004, I was deployed with the same unit to 17 Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring 18 Freedom. I have testimony on all three deployments 19 to be entered into the record; however, today, in 20 the message of solidarity with IVAW, we're only 21 going to talk about and speak about Iraq. 22 I am also a member of that 120 a week. In 84 1 2007, I tried to take my life as well. I feel deep 2 regret and remorse for what we've done in Iraq and 3 on the Global War on Terror. This is my testimony. 4 Kuwait and Iraq 2003, the initial invasion 5 was to be a mechanized breach or a MCLC. It's a tub 6 of C-4 on a high-tension rope with a detonation cord 7 inside. It fires on a rocket over a mine field and 8 is used in counter land mine warfare to make a lane 9 which trucks can drive through. We practiced this 10 maneuver twice in Kuwait and never performed it. It 11 was on the oral history review for DSIT AE 015 12 conducted January 14th of 1991, an interview between 13 Major Dennis P. Levin of the 130th Military History 14 Detachment and Major Walter Wilson, Jr. S-3, 1st 15 Battalion, 504th Infantry. It was quoted right 16 away. 17 Major Levin: "The primary focus of this 18 interview is about the training relative to the 19 Iraqi strong point that was constructed on the Ali 20 Range, and I am interested in what preparation you 21 had before the training operation and then if you 22 could just kind of take me through the operation as 85 1 it went." 2 Major Wilson replied back with: "The main 3 preparation we did other than issuing formal 4 operations orders was to rehearse it twice before we 5 actually conducted the attack, and also, we had 6 about two Officer Professional Development classes 7 on the Iraq strong point and what it consists of and 8 how we would envision taking it down." 9 This tactic was in the works prior to the 10 invasion. Twelve years later, we were issued the 11 same warning orders, and instead of breaching under 12 fire, we breached the country twice by road, the 13 second time by the UN security car through Kuwait 14 and back onto the Iraqi roads. This was all due to 15 the incompetence of the leaders of the convoy 16 commander. I am sure without fail that we were the 17 only ones in history to have ever invaded a country 18 and invaded it all in 10 minutes twice. 19 It was then that we drove on through the day 20 and continued unhindered for most of the next two 21 days while American air power pounded the hell out 22 of Iraqi armor and buildings with depleted uranium 86 1 rounds. The amount of destruction was tremendous, 2 and we watched once while in a traffic jam as a pair 3 of Apaches laid rockets and gunfire into the heart 4 of a city a few kilometers in the distance. Without 5 a doubt, I have been in and around buildings 6 destroyed by depleted uranium rounds as well as 7 vehicles, armored personnel carriers, tanks, and 8 corpses. 9 During the invasion, we were also exposed to 10 severe sandstorms, which meant that we were 11 breathing in sand for days, sand that more than 12 likely contained depleted uranium. I went for 47 13 days without a shower in the initial invasion, and I 14 could buy a Playstation II game in a Post Exchange 15 before I could even shower because our contractors 16 were already making bases and had a routine supply 17 line while we were sleeping out in the open. Almost 18 daily, I found Iraqis who spoke English whose 19 questions were who we were and how long we were to 20 be there. 21 Today is the Conscientious Objector Day, May 22 15th, and the day that honors those who choose not 87 1 to fire their weapons. They do go to combat 2 sometimes by force of their command. We were just a 3 week before the flight to Kuwait when I saw my First 4 Sergeant chew someone out about his C.O. status. I 5 heard the First Sergeant say what if those "F" blank 6 rag heads came into your home and raped your 7 daughter and tortured and murdered your wife? I was 8 shocked to hear the bravery in the young Lance 9 Corporal's voice as he told the First Sergeant, No, 10 I don't know what I would; why, would we do that to 11 them? His remarks were overlooked and he deployed 12 regardless and remained in rear positions, but was 13 still exposed to indirect and routine patrols. 14 I never fired my weapon in combat. I had 15 plenty of waiting and traveling around in a gun 16 truck. I was bombed, mortared, rocketed, IEDed and 17 even shot at. All through that, I still had not had 18 the reasonable level needed to escalate the deadly 19 force. I do not believe in the free fire orders 20 commonly given to ground forces currently operating 21 in Iraq and I do not believe that they are morally 22 correct. 88 1 We were always running about five minutes too 2 late or two kilometers away from the action. Our 3 tactics were search and avoid. It was a good 4 mission if we did not have to fire our weapon. 5 Though many were anxious to get their combat action 6 ribbon, I am certain many did not fire their weapon. 7 We were shot at several times, but it would be a 8 sporadic thing, happening at your position or on 9 another patrol; however, this was not the case for 10 most of the units. The Marines in Fallujah were in 11 armored personnel carriers and were ordered to mount 12 bayonets. The destruction on the civilian 13 population level was atrocious. Saddam had pardoned 14 many convicts and prisoners. We knew that if we 15 were to get into a major civilian area, we would 16 kill a lot of innocent people. 17 During the initial ground invasion, a Key 18 Wife volunteer from 2nd CEB was called by her 19 forward deployed Marine who told her a Marine had 20 died while securing an airfield. She immediately 21 called everyone on the Key Wives list. With the 22 gossip, calling everyone on the list, not confirming 89 1 who or what unit, surely caused a lot of heartaches 2 for families and wives at home while the Marine was 3 from 1st CEB and not 2nd CEB. This misinformation 4 is irresponsible of the senior leader who did not 5 observe military operational security. 6 One dark night on a road convoy north, I 7 remember during the initial assault my unit 8 witnessed at U.S. Military helicopter crash nearby 9 where we had stopped for the night. When we could 10 not be sure of signs of ejections or shoots, we had 11 asked our leaders to go to the site, what would be a 12 short foot patrol to help this U.S. pilot. We were 13 told not to go and to stay put through the whole 14 night. I had fire watch during the night and stayed 15 awake through the rest of the night, but we never 16 went. 17 Destroying Iraqi property was such a pleasure 18 for some, but for me one day, it was orders. I was 19 ordered to take Lance Corporal Jerome with me as 20 security, and I received orders via inter-squad 21 radio to destroy a civilian's pickup truck. I 22 slashed as much as I could and I kicked in the 90 1 windshield for good measure. It was later with 2 regret that I thought that this might have been this 3 man's livelihood. 4 Looting during the initial invasion was 5 rampant. Nearly everyone had something, rugs, pens, 6 pictures, you name it, anything that you could find 7 that would fetch a price. Later, I had to surrender 8 to U.S. Customs officials military liaison my pins 9 with Saddam's head on the design. They wanted them 10 back because all uniform items were to be 11 confiscated for the rebuilding and reconstituting of 12 the Iraqi Army. Meanwhile, we were running over 13 guns and blowing up weapons caches. 14 Slides. 15 Those that didn't bought their souvenirs on 16 the street, some of which were probably stolen. 17 That's a picture of me as a tunnel rat in 18 Afghanistan. 19 Next slide. 20 For some members of my unit, it was the Iraqi 21 Atomic Energy Facility that was profiting. It was 22 there that I was told that members of my unit had 91 1 breached a safe containing gold coins. I was not on 2 that foot patrol which took place deep within the 3 compound; however, I was shown the coins later from 4 fellow NCOs in my platoon. 5 When I deployed, it was with two SAPI armor 6 protective plates, yet I was ordered to give one to 7 a fellow Marine from 1st Combat Engineer Battalion 8 who had not deployed one. Such was the case for a 9 majority of the junior NCOs and below from 1st CEB, 10 deploying with inadequate armor. During the initial 11 invasion, in fact, my Humvee had plastic doors. We 12 never found evidence of weapons of mass destruction 13 while on patrol with a Nuclear Biological Chemical 14 Warfare Chief Warrant Officer and fellow members of 15 my recognizance team. 16 Early May, while trying to win the hearts and 17 minds of the Iraqi people, we were surrounded by a 18 crowd of non-hostile Iraqis. I witnessed my First 19 Sergeant for H & S Company as he exited the Humvee 20 without any backup or support. He ran down a male 21 Iraqi child who was maybe seven to eight years old 22 and lifted him in the air, hand-choking the boy. 92 1 With his pistol already drawn, he pointed it into 2 the child's head and neck area, threatening and