'Please listen,' say veterans of Iraq war Shawn Doherty — 9/29/2008 12:36 pm
Nearly a dozen Iraqi war veterans gathered in Madison Saturday to tell war stories. These were not tales of honor and glory.
There were descriptions of a macho military culture that cracked jokes about gays and called Iraqis "rag heads" and "towel heads." There were accounts of an army that sent soldiers into battle with broken equipment and insufficient training. They told of trucks that ran over young children and soldiers who played cruel games with prisoners and panicked and shot civilians. There were stories of commanders indifferent to their troops' medical and mental suffering.
"I joined an institution that I thought stood for honor, but instead it stood for intolerance," recalled Martin Smith, who told how his comrades would cheer as they watched Iraqis eviscerated during violent training videos. Smith, an Illinois resident, served in the Marine Corps from 1997 to 2002, when he was discharged with a Navy Achievement medal.
A sparse audience of only 200 attended the Memorial Union Theater event, which was coordinated by the Iraq Veterans Against the War. IVAW is a national organization with 1,200 members in 48 states. Over the past year, IVAW has held a handful of similar panels across the country in an effort to mobilize opposition to the war. Several of the veterans on the panels said that they hoped their stories about the reality of war and the difficulties of coming home again would correct the official accounts of events overseas.
Eric Hughes was in college in January 2003 when he got a call that he needed to report to duty in 72 hours with the Illinois National Guard. It took his caravan 48 hours to get up to Fort McCoy in Wisconsin, he said, partly because 12 trucks broke down on the way.
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http://www.madison.com/tct/news/306861
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