John Hauer

Even before I joined the army, I thought that invading the Middle East was a bad idea. I didn't buy the presence of WMD's, and I believe that the controlled demolition of the WTC on 9/11 was either directly linked to our own government or that they covered for it, so I have nothing against the Middle East or Islam as far as revenge for that sad day goes. When I deployed to Iraq for the first time and saw what a shambles we had put the country in I knew that what we were doing was doing much more harm than good, no matter how evil Saddam was. But what really turned my stomach against the war happened during my second deployment, during which I was stop-lossed for 18 months. An army lawyer gave our unit a brief on ROE and PID and as part of it, told us that over 95 percent of Iraqis killed in the war so far were innocent, but that no one had got in trouble for this. He used this to encourage us not to be afraid to pull the trigger, because as long we followed the ROE we wouldn't get in trouble even if we shot someone who was innocent. I had never seen such a cold disregard for human life.