Protesting the War They Waged

As the Iraq war has dragged on, growing numbers of American servicemen and women and veterans have begun mobilizing against it. They have quickly become a vital part of the anti-war effort, invigorating the movement with their firsthand accounts of life on the ground. Many anti-war veterans are members of groups like Iraq Veterans Against the War, which was founded in 2004. Recently, three servicemen helped organize students at the Campus Progress Iraq Action Camp and joined them on Capitol Hill to help lobby congressional leaders. Campus Progress sat down with the vets to discuss their anti-war efforts.

Alex Cornell Du Houx joined the Marine Reserves after high school and is currently a senior at Bowdoin College. He recently returned from a deployment in Fallujah. Still an active member of the Marine Reserves, he has become outspoken against the war. Active on his campus and in his community, Du Houx also serves on the New Media Team for the College Democrats of America. Du Houx participated in the Iraq Action Camp.

“When you’re [in Iraq] you get first-hand experience and knowledge of what is happening. Unfortunately, I went from being able to protect the Iraqis in a meaningful manner to only protecting the guys next to me and myself. And as a result the Iraqi population doesn’t support us at all anymore. As a result the mission there—if there was one at the beginning—is not being accomplished.

When you’re in Iraq, everyone pretty much dislikes being there because the conditions are horrible. You live in a plywood shack with sandbags and one hot meal a day or so. The sentiment within the Marine Corps and my fellow Marines was quite a bit gung ho at first, but, as the deployment went on and we saw the reality of what was happening, it turned into frustration. We saw that lots of what we did didn’t advance our objectives, and it essentially became a daily fight to keep your buddies safe and yourself safe.”

Jared Hood, 24, Specialist in the Colorado Army National Guard, has served in Vilseck, Germany, and stateside in Hurricane Katrina relief and at a number of bases. A member of IVAW since January 2006, he founded the group’s Denver chapter in March 2007 and became its Mountain Regional Coordinator in April. Spec. Hood has two years remaining on his National Guard contract, but has submitted an application for an honorable discharge as a conscientious objector. Currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in political science and public administration at Metro State College of Denver, Spec. Hood joined other students at the Iraq Action Camp earlier this month.

“We’re seeing the effects of the war on the military when we’re stationed stateside and over there. When they decided to occupy Iraq and use all their troops, spend all their resources on that, they had to take these positions and fill them with someone, so they’re filling them with civilian contracts. Not only in Iraq do we have corporate pillaging, but we have civilian contractors taking over so many military positions here at home. They’re doing a horrible job because they’re not in the military. They don’t know what it’s like to be a soldier and deal with all these pay problems. If it were a soldier doing the pay stub rather than a civilian they would know what it’s like to not get paid as a soldier and to not have your wife and children receive those benefits that you’re receiving.

You go through this confliction. You don’t want to betray your brothers in arms. You struggle with the line of speaking out against an illegal and immoral war and taking the risk of your close friends who protected you betraying you. You approach it from a careful position of truth. If anything you want to end it because you want to protect your brothers. You don’t want them to be exploited by our government and used for the wrong purpose. We’re supposed to be used as a tool to protect democracy, not as a tool to force a country to adopt a policy that they don’t want to adopt.

I think politicians on both sides of the party lines are holding our troops hostage, metaphorically, because they are using them for political things. You had Bush saying, ‘Well, if you don’t fund this war you’re not supporting our troops,’ and then you had Democrats sitting there thinking, ‘This will ruin us politically if we don’t.’ And it’s like, screw politics for a second, throw that shit out the window, and just be moral about it. Just be moral, you know?”

Sergeant Geoff Millard, 26, enlisted in the New York Army National Guard at the age of 17. After the attacks on the World Trade Center, Sgt. Millard was activated with the 42nd Infantry Division and helped with security at ground zero. In 2004 he was sent to Iraq, where he served for 13 months. Sgt. Millard has also served in Germany, Kuwait, and Qatar. He traveled with a peace delegation to meet with members of the Iraqi parliament about their 26-point peace plan, becoming the first (and only) Iraq war veteran to do so. In addition, he has met with Iraqi refugees in Jordan and Syria. Now president of the Washington, D.C. chapter of IVAW, Sgt. Millard was a featured speaker at the Iraq Action Camp and also spent time with the students during their Lobby Day.

“We’re a weapon of the democracy and we depend on our democracy to never send us in harm’s way unless it is in the defense of that democracy. The first line in the oath of enlistment is, ‘I swear that I will protect the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic.’ That means protecting the Constitution, not protecting American interests, whether they’re oil interests or strategic interests. It’s protecting the Constitution that matters, and I think that people in this country have forgotten that. That’s a betrayal of our service members who have raised our hands and taken that oath.

The decisions I made deeply affected the Iraqi people. I went to Iraq knowing the war was wrong, and they were hurt by my going. That was my decision, and it was a bad decision, but because I did that I have a debt to pay. I meet with these Iraqi refugees and parliamentarians to hear the Iraqi story and to give them hope. These Iraqi refuges can know that all Americans don’t feel the way George Bush does and that I am sorry and I am going to make up for this if it takes my entire life.”

[Correction: This article originally stated that Jared Hood “spent a year serving in Iraq’s Anbar province from March 2003 to March 2004.” This was based on what a Campus Progress reporter understood Hood to have said in a phone interview. Hood has since said that he did not serve in Anbar, and has posted a comment below.]

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