Why?
While (I was) deployed as a sniper in the US Army 1st Infantry Division in the Diyala River Valley in Iraq I authored a mil-blog with a group of soldiers that started to turn against the mission. The blog was called “Fight to Survive” or “FTS”. It was a vent to rant about our distaste for the brutality and oppression we were (a) part of. The blog highlighted the absurdity of modern warfare and our ongoing attempts to live through a year in the bloodiest times of the US occupation of Iraq. It was about making it through while holding on to some semblance of humanity while “Fucking The System” with the entire military chain of command opposing us. With paper clips attached to our uniforms we conspired, expressed and made it home alive. What I didn’t realize was the real fight to survive (had) just begun. I felt the Bush administration tried to kill me for one long year, so I dedicated myself to the fellowship of Iraq Veterans Against the War and fought back. I put down the M4 and picked up banners. I was angry. It felt great to take to the streets, to yell and scream and march with a group of veterans that shared my spite. We had creative resistance, direct action, and guerrilla street theater. We were arrested, spit on and rejected as traitors, and it was fun. What did it accomplish? Maybe we helped slide the country away from support for the conflicts in the middle east, or maybe the growing casualty count and the economic impact did that alone. One thing it did do was save my life.
I sit through boring VA circles listening to horror stories about pain and guilt, fear and shame. Bathed in sanitary white light sitting on folding chairs are my brothers and sisters, they are in my dreams and memories wearing browns and tans and dirt. They are all there because a loved one gave them an ultimatum, get help or get out. They look tired, annoyed, hopeless. When it is my turn to talk I explain the illegal nature of the occupation and how the causes were fraudulent, the conduct despicable and the consequences critical. I get the look. The “you know you aren’t allowed to go there” look. I have nothing else to say. I can’t bring up the child that exploded because she unknowingly carried a bomb in her school bag and how her foot landed next to me on the other side of the Humvee. I can’t talk about how we murdered off duty Iraqi Army guys working on the side as deputy governor body guards because they looked like insurgents. I can’t talk about blowing the head off an old man changing his tire because he might have been planting a roadside bomb. I can’t talk about those things without talking about why we did it.
When I ask the guys in Walter Reed about their experience I can see the question in the back of their thousand yard stare. Back there behind the noble cause, the mission first, the pride they receive from their uncles. Behind the cowboy up, behind the American flag, behind the GI Joe is the question looming. If given voice the fragile shroud of sanity they have left might wash away and it will strip everything except the one thing left, the question why. Why did I lose my limb? Why did I lose my faith? Why did I lose my friends? Why did I lose my innocence? Why did I lose my soul? The reasons behind going to war and living through hell is fundamental in how a warrior processes the trauma they experienced, especially the trauma (that) was inflicted by them. SO when you can’t ask the question in a professional mental health scenario you say it in the bar and at the dinner table and when some asshole questions why you aren’t standing during the National Anthem. When you have hundreds of veterans just like you joined with thousands of civilians that want a goddamned answer you say it in the streets. Maybe the New York Times never hears it, but for the first time you hear yourself say it and You don’t just say (it) a twenty foot long banner says it. You don’t just say it you sing it and you scream it. “WHY?”
Garett Reppenhagen OIF Veteran US Army 1st Infantry reppenhagen@gmail.com
