http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/04/EDKGVVDTM.DTL
by Gerald Nicosia
Friday, April 4, 2008
"The reason I am doing this," said former Marine Jon Turner, "is not
only for myself and for the rest of society to hear, but it's for all
those who can't be here ... . Until people hear what is going on with
this war, it will continue to happen, and people will continue to
die. I'm sorry for the things that I did. I am no longer the monster
that I once was."
A former Marine who had served two tours in Iraq, Jon Turner did not
look like a monster. He was a little above average height,
good-looking, with a thick thatch of blond hair, and gentle manners.
If not for the small blue-dot earring in his left ear - and the
tattoos he later exposed - he could easily pass for the all-American boy.
But the stories he related, and the videos and slides he showed
during four days of hearings called "Winter Soldier Iraq and
Afghanistan," were a million miles away from Norman Rockwell America.
During last month's hearings, held just outside Washington, D.C., a
group called Iraq Veterans Against the War presented 55 veterans,
including Turner, who gave personal testimony of what they had seen
and done in Iraq. It was one horror story after another.
Turner, whose unit had lost 18 soldiers in Iraq, reported routinely
firing rounds into mosques just out of anger; "kicking in doors and
terrorizing families"; the mistaken firing of rounds into cars filled
with civilians whose drivers were simply confused or didn't
understand the English commands to stop; and dozens of other
brutalities carried out daily against the population of Iraq.
Other veterans testified to similar incidents, but two of Turner's
stories were among the heaviest we heard in those four days.
The first was of Turner's "first kill" - a "fat man" on foot whom he
shot for refusing a command to halt. The "fat man" did not die from
the first bullet that Turner put in his neck, so while he screamed
and looked pleadingly into Turner's eyes, Turner deliberately
dispatched him with a shot at close range.
The second story was even worse. Turner and his men were having a bad
day - and bad days are apparently not hard to have in Iraq - so
Turner and two fellow soldiers "took out some individuals" who were
doing them no harm. Turner shot a man going by on a bike, then threw
the body behind a wall and tossed his bike on top of it.
At the hearings, my friend Anthony Swofford, author of "Jarhead" and
a former Marine himself, leaned over to me and said, "I think Turner
just confessed to murder." But putting that remark in perspective,
Swofford would also tell me later, "I know that for every guy up
there testifying today, there are probably a thousand others out
there keeping silent."
Some of the protesters outside, including the group Eagles Up!,
claimed these testifiers weren't real vets, but they had all been
thoroughly checked out by a verification team from Iraq Veterans
Against the War. Moreover, nobody - unless they'd done a few years at
the Actors Studio - could have faked the emotions these vets were
displaying as they testified: voices choking up and cracking, tears
spontaneously welling.
Although the horror stories kept coming for four days, not all of
them involved personal malice. Marine gunner James Gilligan sobbed as
he recounted how in Afghanistan in 2004, he placed an unfamiliar
compass too close to a machine-gun barrel, causing it to give a false
enemy position. Instead of taking out the Taliban artillery, the
troops caused extensive civilian casualties in a nearby Afghan village.
The name Winter Soldier was taken from a similar series of hearings
held by Vietnam Veterans Against the War in Detroit in 1971. The term
originally derived from Revolutionary War patriot Thomas Paine's
description of Washington's soldiers at Valley Forge, who withstood a
terrible winter on starvation rations in order to come back and fight
for their nation one more time - and eventually win. Clearly these
Iraq vets, just like their Vietnam vet counterparts, saw themselves
as still fighting for their country in trying to bring the truth they
experienced into a public forum.
They spoke with no discernible hostility or partisan bias, and less
anger than one would have expected. Most expressed their reason for
being there along the same lines as former Marine scout Sergio
Kochergin, who said he was expecting his testimony to be heard by
Congress and to help bring a rapid end to the war.
One thing is certain: The issues and problems that were talked of at
Winter Soldier Iraq and Afghanistan were all things that should have
been discussed and debated by the Congress, the press, and the
American people long before we entered this war.
--
Gerald Nicosia is author of "Home to War: A History of the Vietnam
Veterans' Movement."
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