by Larry Minear
Family military traditions often played a key role not only in the decision to enlist, but also in assessing the experience of military service. “I come from a family of warriors,” Jay Czarga wrote in his blog. “I am a product of their collective service to the nation.” Czarga, who did three tours of duty with a helicopter unit in Iraq, explained, “This isn’t about adventure or money or some death wish. It’s about doing the right thing.”25 Marine Brig. Gen. Joseph V. Medina, who commanded a seven-ship unit in the Persian Gulf as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom, traces his family involvement in the military to fifteenth century Spain and later Mexico.26 Army Spec. Eric James March “felt the call of duty” to enlist in June 2001 despite the fact that none of his immediate family had served in the military. On his first day of basic training—it happened to be on September 11, 2001, he recalled—“I remember the drill sergeants saying that we were getting ready to go to war. I had that on my mind and heart.”27
Given that numerous soldiers who served in Afghanistan and Iraq had enlisted well in advance of September 11, 2001, it is not surprising that many do not identify terrorism or the global war against it as a major motivation. They often present themselves, along with Army Capt. Michael Fortenberry, as simply doing their duty, meeting the obligations they assumed when they enlisted. “I’m not a war monger—I’d rather be home with my family,” he said, “but someone has to do it.”28
Recruits for the National Guard in particular, with its traditionally domestic focus, often reflected a desire specifically not to serve in overseas theaters. When she enlisted in the National Guard, recalled Spec. Jennifer Schwab, “I had no expectation of overseas service.” A year later, when her unit shipped out to Afghanistan following the events of 9/11, she confessed with some amusement, “the joke was on me.”29 Some of her cohorts were less amused. “The only reason I joined the Guard,” commented one, “was not to be deployed anymore.” He and others were bitter at the diversion of Guard troops from domestic to international tasks: in effect, moving the goalposts while the game was in progress.
For Capt. Christopher Buser, a social worker in a Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) medical center who worked with veterans back from Afghanistan and Iraq, enlisting in the Army Reserves was a matter of self-respect. He wanted to avoid having to regret later on that he failed to serve. Responding to his wife’s complaint that she didn’t want to be a military spouse, he said that the Reserves were unlikely to be called up. “Don’t make it a career,” she cautioned. Assurances to the contrary notwithstanding, Buser’s mental health unit was activated on short notice. He worked on contingency planning for responses to terrorism attacks within the United States and expected thereafter to be deployed to Afghanistan.30
Although a sense of duty at a time of international duress led some to enlist, many veterans downplayed their involvement in any sort of global antiterrorism effort. In interviews and writings, they used the term global war on terror surprisingly infrequently. Even the terms “terror” and “terrorism” were rarely invoked. Spec. Mario Raymundo, a Salvadoran national who joined the New Hampshire National Guard in order to protect his adopted country “for my family and for everybody else’s family,” believes that the idea of terrorism “doesn’t fit” the circumstances. He would have preferred, he said, the concept of “a war against extremism.”31 Such a formulation, chimed in one of his New Hampshire cohorts, would leave room for including homegrown American terrorists such as the Unabomber and the Oklahoma City bomber as threats to U.S. national security.
New Hampshire Guardsman Sgt. Benjamin J. Flanders, who served in Iraq in 2004, also had his doubts. “How does it feel to have been a participant in the Global War on Terror?” he was asked. “The ‘global war on terror’ nomenclature didn’t really fit the situation on the ground,” he replied. “Nobody stands around and wonders, ‘Is what I’m doing part of the Global War on Terror?’” In fact, the link between the terrorism banner and the boots on the ground in Iraq seemed something of a stretch. “Are the troops in Iraq fighting terrorists,” he asked, “or are we babysitting a civil war?”32
Terrorism is undoubtedly a real threat to the country, noted one Vermont Guardswoman, but U.S. policy related to the Global War on Terror is “not serious” and has no bearing whatsoever on her interest in being in the Guard. Second Lt. Eric Giles, who served in a military police company in Iraq, viewed the war there as “very complicated.” Based on his law enforcement and intelligence background, he viewed the war as an organized crime operation. Yet because it was overlaid with tribal and religious elements, he said, it’s a “multi-level conflict, with [the] U.S. in the middle of it all.”33 Is the conflict in Iraq even a war? Some troops wondered. “We thought of this as war,” countered Marine Sgt. Travis Fisher, even though it is somewhat unlike wars in the past.34
While there was a widespread belief that a citizen’s duty requires service at a time of national duress, the fact that the duress was the result of a terrorist attack from abroad was for many of distinctly secondary importance. Most veterans would have responded to the call, they said, no matter what specific event had triggered it. The prevailing attitude is captured in an Army widow’s description of the involvement of her husband, Sgt. Charles M. King, in Iraq. “For Charles,” wrote Dana Canedy, “the war was not about ‘weapons of mass destruction’ or an ‘axis of evil’; I never heard him speak those words. It was about leading the soldiers he had trained by example, about honor and dignity, and about protecting a country he loved from enemies real or imagined.”35
“You don’t sign up for the global war,” observed Maj. Gen. Kenneth Clark, adjutant general of the New Hampshire Guard. Terrorism, he said, is a vague and nondescript term. “Even the militias who fought and won America’s independence from the British would be considered terrorists.” What September 11 and its aftermath has enabled the Guard to do, he believes, is to assemble a group of people, “now with their eyes wide open,” who are expressing “some level of patriotism in the sense of placing service above self.” It would be a mistake, he implied, to read the enlistment numbers in the Guard as some sort of referendum on the global war.36 A similar conclusion could be drawn for the experience of active-duty ranks as well.
As noted in Chapter 1, U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq contain a surprising number of non-U.S. nationals, like the Salvadoran, Spec. Mario Raymundo. Sgt. Terrell Spencer was impressed by the presence in his Chemical Company unit of a Nigerian who was studying molecular biology and a Bosnian who spoke five languages.37 In the Iraq theater, one New York National Guard contingent included eight non-citizens, who as a result of their mobilization were put on a fast track to citizenship. A Nigerian in the same group who had sought out a recruiter in New York City following 9/11 was killed in an ambush in Iraq but died a U.S. citizen. On Independence Day 2007, “325 foreign-born soldiers who are fighting in the United States military took the oath of allegiance in two ceremonies in Iraq.”38
As with full-fledged Americans, the enlistment of non-nationals involved a mixture of motivations, only one of which was the promise of an expedited path to citizenship. Army Spec. Nicole Ferretti, a Brazilian national who lived in Texas, enlisted in 2002 at age twenty-one to advance her educational goals following ROTC training in high school.39 Sgt. Camilo Mejía, whose parents had played lead roles in the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua in the 1980s, explained, “I needed a radical change. I needed to do whatever it took to be a part of [American] society. Instead of becoming a political icon, like my parents, I decided to find my own path and joined the U.S. Army.” Mejía served in the Florida National Guard in Iraq for seven months beginning in March 2003.40
The lack of resonance of the Global War on Terror for many of those fighting in it echoed a certain confusion among policymakers. “In 2005, the Pentagon argued that the phrase ‘war on terror’ should be replaced by ‘global struggle against violent extremism.’ The shift, advocated by Donald H. Rumsfeld who was the defense secretary at the
time, was overruled by President Bush.”41 The Pentagon itself devised the Global War on Terror Expeditionary Medal and the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, but these were given out liberally and caused some confusion among the troops about the specific contributions they recognized. A February 2007 audit by the Inspector General’s office of the Justice Department found a lack of clarity and consistency in the department’s reporting on terrorist activity.42 There was also discomfort on Capitol Hill where, beginning in 2007, the House Armed Services Committee no longer used the term “Global War on Terror” in its reports.43
In sum, a sense of obligation to country emerges as one of several motivations in the decision of soldiers to enlist and, having enlisted, to serve, if required, in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, the concept of participation in a clearly defined and widely understood global war on terror does not emerge as a broadly mobilizing or animating force from the soldiers’ accounts of their experiences.
THREE
Politics and Professionalism
The ground rules are clear: members of the U.S. armed forces must remain apolitical at all times. By and large, U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq have respected that dictum, operating in theater with a high level of professionalism. At the same time, many held—and hold—strong personal views, often sharpened during their overseas postings, regarding the rationale for U.S. engagement, the strategies and tactics employed, and a host of operational matters including training, equipment, and the duration and frequency of deployments. Such concerns have generated an upsurge of political activism on the home front among veterans’ families and organizations. As a result, veterans have emerged as a political force increasingly to be reckoned with.
PERSONAL VIEWS
Most veterans of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq are reticent to make their political views public. In introducing “War Stories,” the Concord Monitor’s five-day 2007 series of investigative articles based on interviews with numerous members of the New Hampshire National Guard, editor Mike Pride observed, “As in all wars, most combat veterans are reticent in public. Many have had extreme experiences or witnessed frightful scenes, and they think ‘rightly’ that there is no way civilians can understand what they went through. Or when they do want to talk, they find that even their friends don’t really want to hear it.”1 Soliciting the views of returned soldiers, a global war on terror study conducted by the New Hampshire Guard found most returnees unwilling to join such issues in public. “There has been considerable and heated debate over many aspects of the Iraq war,” the Guard’s report concluded, “and most veterans would rather not participate in the debate in a public forum.”2
Interviews with veterans confirm that reticence. “Expressing professional views to civilians is part of the military’s responsibility,” concluded one series of discussions among senior military officials. “But once decisions have been made, continued expressions of disagreement undercut civilian authority.”3
Soldiers throughout the ranks themselves underscore the importance of strict non-partisanship. “As far as I could see,” recalled Capt. Josh Bradley of his time as a field artillery captain during Operation Iraqi Freedom, “the focus in my unit was entirely on completing the assigned mission and bringing everyone back home safely. I never heard anyone publicly express his or her opinion about the rightness or wrongness of the overall effort.”4 At the same time, there is ample evidence to conclude, as does the Concord Monitor series itself, “for some soldiers, their experiences on the ground shaped their political views about the war.”5 Veterans History Project interviews also contain ample evidence that veterans hold strong views on matters political.
Capt. Ralan Hill, who made his way into the Army officer corps from a ROTC program at Tufts University, noted how essential it was for officers to separate professional responsibilities and personal political opinions. “You can’t be in charge of 500 people,” he noted, “and be bad-mouthing the policies in general.” Discipline and morale would be a casualty.6 Army Sgt. Craig Keys, a Nebraskan who served in Iraq, described himself as “not high enough on the food chain” to worry about political questions. Yet irrespective of his personal view that President Bush is “full of shit,” he was committed to playing his part in the war effort. “If they give me a mission, I do it, with no questions asked.”7 Criticism about the war, observed Petty Officer Matthew S. Smith, who served in Desert Shield and Desert Storm as well as in Operation Iraqi Freedom, should be directed at the administration and Congress and not at veterans. After all, it is not as if veterans on their own say, “‘Hey, let’s go over there and fight this war.’ They go where they are told to go,” Smith points out.8
“Politics?” asked New Hampshire MSgt. Michael Pascalis, who deployed to Afghanistan. “No time for politics. I can’t sit here and think if this is the right thing or the wrong thing for me to do. Every man or woman decides that among themselves. However I feel about the situation, I still have a job to do.”9 Others, too, steered away from discussions of the rights and wrongs of U.S. policy. Sgt. Jeremy Feldbusch, blind and brain-damaged following an artillery attack on his position, commented, “I don’t have any regrets. I had some fun over there. I don’t want to talk about the military anymore.” He said he has no political opinions.10
“I am quite happy to leave the politics to others,” said a Vermont Guardsman. “Mine it is not to reason why,” he said earnestly. “Mine is but to do or die.” Mississippi National Guardsman Lt. Col. Ralph Riley observed, “President Bush is my commander in chief. As long as I’m in the Army, whatever he says goes.”11 Lt. Ron Maloney of the New York National Guard expressed much the same view. “I’m part of the military, and I believe in its ways. When the military says you go, I go, and I believe in it. It’s the teamwork, the values, the ethics, the morals, the camaraderie. Where else do you get a job that constantly enforces those types of values: personal integrity, personal courage, selflessness? Not too many bosses out there say, hey, these are the key requirements for you to be in this job.”12
Notwithstanding such expressions of political aloofness, soldiers in letters and blogs described political debates that heat up billets and bunk-houses. “I always find it amusing when people talk about ‘the military’ vote, perspective, or whatever,” wrote Sgt. Sharon Allen, a driver of diesel fuel tankers with the Ohio National Guard in Iraq in 2004. “My company has 170-some soldiers, and 170-some opinions. We might have more invested in foreign policy than people back home, but that doesn’t mean we all agree on exactly what those policies should be.” She went on to say that “tempers can get heated, and on some days it probably isn’t a good idea that we are all armed.”13 The expression of political views among the boots on the ground could interfere with the chain of command, undercut morale, and perhaps even impair military operations.
On the fundamental question of whether the United States should be conducting military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, interviews suggest a higher comfort level with the former than the latter. “When the American government invaded Afghanistan in response to the September 11 attacks, soldiers said they were ready to go,” confirmed the Concord Monitor reporter. “But when Bush and his administration stretched the war on terror to include Iraq, some troops had reservations.”14 Soldiers from other states as well expressed greater personal support for Operation Enduring Freedom than for Operation Iraqi Freedom.
National Guard personnel, reflecting the Guard’s long-standing citizen-soldier tradition, tend to be more outspoken in expressing their views than are active-duty military personnel. Of course, once Guard personnel are called up and attached to active-duty units, the more stringent apolitical ground rules apply. However, upon returning to the United States, members of the Guard are often more outspoken in the public arena than their active-duty counterparts. Such engagement reflects the return of citizen-soldiers to their lives as citizens, the active and varied professional and personal roles they play in their local communities, and the acknowledged
right they exercise first and foremost as citizens to express their views.
Political issues surfaced regularly in the banter of New Hampshire National Guard soldiers in The War Tapes, a documentary filmed by three Guardsmen and aired back home after their unit had returned from the field.15 “I think that five guys out of the whole company didn’t vote for Bush,” speculated New Hampshire’s Sgt. Zack Bazzi, “and they probably kept it low. If you’re a guy, you know the whole Bush macho ‘let’s kick ass’ thing sounds pretty good.”16 “I support George Bush and everything,” his cohort, Spec. Mike Moriarty, chimed in, “but for him to say that ‘major combat missions are over’ kind of conflicts with what we are seeing and dealing with every day.”17 Asked by an interviewer to recall any humorous events from his own time in the military, Army Sgt. E-5 Eric Cox left no doubt about his view: “Clinton’s term in office.”18
With respect to Iraq in particular, veterans make eloquent and impassioned statements both for and against the presence of U.S. troops. “I’m not in favor of this war,” said Army Spec. Tina Garnanez, who served as an emergency medical technician in Iraq. “I believe it’s illegal and immoral, a bunch of lies from start to finish. It’s nothing but the greedy agenda of a few who speak for the many. Now that I’m out of the service, I’ve made it my mission to speak out. This war is not about what they say it’s about. It’s not about terrorism or spreading freedom or democracy. If it were, I’d be all for it. Honestly, I feel it’s about oil.”19 Even if the president conceded tomorrow that it is about oil, countered Army 1st Lt. Derek Sutton, “you are still there and you do what you have to do.”20