"From a Veteran to the Freedom Fighter Who Shot Me"

[kas125]

Dear Freedom Fighter Who Shot Me,
Today is April 14, 2010. Six years ago today I was occupying your land and your communities near Karabillah, Iraq. That particular day I was in a four vehicle convoy travelling from Al Qa'im to Husaybah. I was the gunner standing in the turret of the final vehicle facing the rear, and we ran into the guerilla ambush.

The US Government and the US corporate media would say that you are a terrorist, but you are not a terrorist. I was a terrorist. For that I must offer my deepest apologies and ask your forgiveness. I must also thank you. The bullet that you used to protect yourself from me changed my life. That day, you shot holes through everything I had grown up believing about America fighting for freedom and liberty. Your bullet, like a seed, penetrated far beyond skin and muscle, and sank deep into something in the core of my being where, over time it grew to be something much greater. It grew into a world view that included people outside of the United States of America as human beings and equals. It grew into an understanding of my place in the world and my part in the suffering of other people and the part that the United States Empire plays in the world as one of the greatest enemies of freedom and justice that exists.

We were told that we would be going to Iraq to liberate people. I now see this as an absolute lie. It is you, who was there that day fighting for the liberation of the Iraqi people. The United States Empire is a weapon of oppression, not a force for justice. Occupation will never be liberation.

I oppose all ruling class wars, but this war is particularly unfair. The United States Empire is a military super power and many of the countries in the Middle East that the United States Empire attacks exist in third world conditions as a results of US foreign policy, neo-liberal globalization, free market economics, sanctions, and US military attacks. Since the United States disbanded the Iraqi military, this is nothing but military super power attacking civilians. I can say with full confidence, with no hesitation that you had every right to be a part of that attack and to shoot me that day. I am thankful that I was wearing a canteen full of water that slowed the impact and possibly spared my life, but even had that round lain me silent forever, you would be free of guilt. You have a right to resist. You have a right to protect your family, your community, and your way of life.

I know an apology seems so small and meaningless at this point, but I hope it can be a start.

You are brave and courageous. Thank you for opening my eyes. Thank you for allowing me to see that I am just like you, and you are just like me. Thank you for telling me that I was on the wrong side. I will probably never know who you are, but I hope you and your family are safe somewhere. I know there can never truly be justice for what has been done to the people of the Middle East, but I hope that we do all we can to get as close as possible, to stop the killing, and reduce suffering and as we have bled together, we can begin to heal together and together we can put an end to these wars. Power to the resistance! Solidarity! Salaam!


Peace, Love, and Anarchy,
Bobby Whittenberg

http://veteranarchy.blogspot.com/2010/04/to-freedom-fighter-who-shot-me.html

[mindwalker_i]

1. I half expected the body of the message to be

OW!

But this is a lot better.

[kas125]

3. Yep, it sure is! I just had to share it when I read it because

it made me cry and made me very proud of my young IVAW friends. They are wise beyond their years...

[opiate69]

2. Wow.....

powerful...

[pinboy3niner]

4. Another perspective on men at war

I fought in a different war--in Vietnam. I was a draftee at the age of 18. I was gung-ho, but I called up my draft board and asked them to take me, rather than enlisting, because being drafted meant serving only two years in case I didn't like the military. I was, admittedly, naive. I believed what my government told me about why it was necessary to fight this war. And I had my own ideas about how resisting communist wars of liberation, about making them unprofitable, would lead to a more peaceful world.

I volunteered for infantry, OCS, Vietnam, and combat assignment. I fought in the jungles of I Corps, in northern South Vietnam, with the 101st Airborne Division, until I was wounded by AK fire to the face and shoulder. I spent 18 months in the hospital before being retired from the army for partial disability.

I knew more than 60 guys who died in Vietnam. Two were my roommates, and one of them was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously. But the death that affected me most was a guy named Joe Rufty. Joe was an infantry platoon leader from Salisbury, NC. I'd met him but we didn't spend any time together until Christmas day, 1969. There was a Christmas truce, so we spent the day on an unknown hill out in the jungle (dubbed "Christmas Hill" by us), playing cards. When the re-supply chopper came in, Joe got a package from home with a bottle of whiskey, chocolate chip cookies, and a laugh box--a novelty item that played taped laughter when its button was pressed.

Joe shared the cookies, and the whiskey--making sure everybody got a taste, but only a taste--in case we got some action. As we played cards, every so often someone would hit the button on the laugh box, and we'd all crack up.

Christmas was otherwise uneventful, though we had numerous engagements in the following weeks. During that time, Joe and I had to coordinate by radio, and he would often activate the laugh box over the radio, giving all of us a laugh and a brief respite from the war.

We hit nothing really heavy until January 29, when Joe and his platoon were operating not far from me. I got a radio call that Joe's platoon was in heavy contact, and they had a WIA who had taken machine gun fire to the chest and needed immediate Medevac. But the Medevac chopper could not get in due to heavy enemy fire. The WIA was identified with Joe's callsign.

I never volunteered my platoon, so I relayed the information. My platoon sergeant came back and told me he'd canvassed the platoon, and the 36 men we had in the field at that time voted unanimously to combat assault by chopper into the firefight to suppress enemy fire so the Medevac could get in. HQ approved that plan, but just when the choppers came into view, we saw them turn back (HQ said there was no effective landing zone). My platoon sergeant came back to tell me the men took another vote, again unanimous, to rappel from choppers into the firefight so the Medevac could get in. HQ considered the plan and turned it down, because we would take too many casualties. A short time later we heard the radio report changing the reported casualty status from "WIA to "KIA". Joe had not survived.

I'm aware that Joe's death affected me profoundly not because he was so unique or special (though he was), but because of the laugh box, and the circumstances the day he died (being so close-by and not being able to save him, wwhen I knew Joe would have been there for me), and the actions of my men, who were willing to risk their lives to save a wounded man--an officer yet!

It was some years later, at a party, when suddenly, from behind me, I heard a laugh box. Tears started pouring down my face, and I had no idea why. It scared the hell out of me. When I slipped into the bathroom, it all came back to me.

A couple years ago, I met a VN vet who'd been at My Lai. He was one who gunned down civilians, though he never says that outright. When he refused to participate in the shooting, he was told that if he didn't shoot, he would be shot and reported as a KIA from enemy fire. So this kid (and he was a kid at the time) made the wrong choice, and when I met him it was obvious that he'd been paying the price ever since (when we met, it was the first time he'd ever talked about it). Today, he's doing what might be called "good works," perhaps in an attempt to redeem himself. I doubt he will ever feel "redeemed," but he continues in his work.

I returned to Vietnam three times in the 90's. On one occasion, I was invited to a coffee plantation where I had lunch with with a group that included former Viet Cong, North Vietnamese Army vets, and ARVN (South Vietnamese Army) vets. We also had one guy whom the others laughingly referred to as "the monk." To avoid being grabbed (drafted) by by the NVA/Viet Cong or the ARVN's, he had hid out at a Buddhist monastery during the war, pretending to be a monk. At he end of the meal, I expressed the wish that all those years ago, we could have been sharing a meal together, and conversation, and laughter, instead of killing each other. Everyone agreed, and at that point we were all in tears.

Pardon my rambling account here. There are, understandably, many emotions involved. As I said, I'm writing to offer a different perspective. Not so much to disagree with the narrator in the OP, as he's entitled to his own feelings, and you can't argue with feelings.

Mine was another ill-begotten war, but I don't feel like a terrorist, nor would I refer to my brothers-in-arms that way. Those who committed war crimes deserve to be prosecuted--including my friend from My Lai (who, like countless others, escaped prosecution). But to think of all the troops as murderous villains is, I think, a big mistake.

Governments and their leaders convince people (especially the young) to go to fight in their wars for their grand causes. Those who do the "grunt-work" of war don't do it for evil purposes. They suffer and sacrifice for others, whether or not the cause may be regarded as "just."

It's not a mistake to "Support the Troops"--(God knows, they need the support). If you want to point the fingers of blame, that's the last place to focus.

As for the "Anarchy" salutation, that's ridiculous on its face. At a time when we're having a great national debate about the role of government,, anarchy seems to me the worst possible answer.

In Memory of Joe Rufty

[Hekate]

5. Thanks for your service, and thanks for returning to tell your story. It's important.

I'm probably your age. I know most youngsters go to serve in good faith, and it's a crime that the politicians back home don't always have the same sense of honor. I don't have anything else to say this night except I'm glad you made it back. :hug:

Hekate

[sabrina 1]

6. Your post is very moving ~

I appreciate your taking the time to write about your friend, Joe Rufty. Picturing him sharing his laugh box and cookies, made me cry. You are a good writer and a good friend.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. And yet from another war

Wilfred Owen

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

----------------

The sweet lie: So sweet to die
For one's country

And thanks for your service. While at Pearl Harbor I remember watching a Japanese vet and an American Vet hugging each other at the Arizona Memorial. Over fifty years ago they'd kill each other. These days they'd rather share a glass of sake.

[EFerrari]

10. Are we having a great national debate about the role of government?

It looks more like a few wealthy organizations are funding a small group of white people to feel injured in public.

That's not a great debate. It's a sideshow.

And, while I admit that I was shocked when Howard Zinn expressed admiration for the anarchists of his generation, as the days go by I understand more fully the freedom from the Official Story that anarchists seek. It's a natural reaction at this point, the same kind of reaction a body has when it detects poison and tries to expel it.

ETA: Thom Hartmann's rerun just ran down the big three groups sponsoring this "debate": Americans for Prosperity, the Koch Brothers and Freedom Works.

[Son Of Wendigo]

7. Thank you for Your Post

It brought tears to my eyes as I read it aloud to my wife.

Around the time you were shot, we had a peace blog. One of the things I did every day was to look up the names of Americans and Iraqis (and occasionally others) who had been killed. I would list these names, and, if American, the units they were assigned to. I would try to find out how they had died, Americans and Iraqis alike I spent hours going behind the terse and often inaccurate information provided by the Defense Department. For Americans, home town newspapers were often a good source. For Iraqis, it was much harder. I used Al Jazeera and other middle east sources. There were no Iraqi news sources in English. I could get only an occasional name, usually if the person who had been killed had been some sort of VIP, but mostly I was forced to refer to numbers of Iraqis killed in a bomb attack or shot on the street or the number of bodies found in a river or a field.

We kept the blog going for a little over a year, but eventually our health problems forced us to give it up. There were, by the time we quit, several sites dedicated to listing Americans who had been killed and a couple that also showed Americans who had been wounded as well. But no one that I was aware of tried to do the same for Iraqis.

I agree with you entirely that the Iraqis who fought against us viewed us as invaders and occupiers. They were defending their land just like we would defend ours against a foreign invader. When we finally leave there, which I understand is supposed to begin later this year, we will leave owing them so much. We wrecked their country. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died because of us, either directly or indirectly. Millions are refugees. Reparations will help repair the damage to the country, but nothing can repair the vast human cost they incurred because Bush and his gang of neo-cons thought it was America's new manifest destiny to conquer and occupy Iraq forever because of its oil reserves and its geographical location in the center of the middle east.

When I was eighteen, in 1971, I enlisted in the Air Force. I did this because I had no real idea what the military was doing in Vietnam and because my father, an ex-marine, more or less insisted on it. The war in Vietnam was winding down at that point, so I was not sent there. I was a personnel specialist, and my job was processing reassignments of personnel. My base, which had B-52s, participated in the massive strategic bombings of North Vietnam during the summer and fall of 1972, which was called Operation Linebacker. I was one of several personnel specialists who processed the orders and other paperwork for the aircrews for the planes we sent. Not all of them returned.

As time went by, I began to feel very guilty about my admittedly small role in this operation. A year later, I left active service and became a reservist. I did a lot of reading about the war, to try and understand how it began and how the United States took it over. From that time to now I have opposed all wars. If you dig deep enough into the supposed justification for any war, you will find a foundation of lies, or that someone in the military industrial complex has big moneymaking opportunity in another country.

Thank you so much for your letter. I feel, in my soul, that somehow the person to whom you wrote it will become aware of it. The Iraqi press does publish letter like yours when they become aware of them.

Good luck to you.

[TexasObserver]

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