Pfc. Jessica Lynch & Sgt. Robert Ferriol

Posted on November 9, 2003 in Courage & Activism War

To those troops who have fought with their eyes open and their hearts against the Iraq Occupation, I tender my apologies for blanketing remarks that I made last spring.

I owe none to those who blindly capitulated under the onslaught of propaganda to become supporters of the war under the guise of “supporting our troops” or those who made the switch merely to position themselves for the 2004 election campaign as “loyal Americans”.

These words put a fine tune on my feelings about the war, the people who fight it, and the people who won’t fight it but speak out for it all the same:

Sometimes, the act of an individual throws you out of the darkness and into a clearer, more accurately critical position.

Jessica Lynch is not a pacifist. Yet I stand up and call on my fellow Americans to join with her as she protests against the way that the Bush Administration has manipulated her rescue for its own purposes.

“Dramatic video of U.S. commandos whisking the former Army supply clerk from a Nasiriyah hospital to a waiting chopper April 1 helped cement Lynch’s image as a hero. But the 20-year-old private told ABC’s Diane Sawyer there was no reason for her rescue to be filmed.

“They used me as a way to symbolize all this stuff,” Lynch told [Diane] Sawyer in a “Primetime” interview to air Tuesday. “It’s wrong.”

Yes, I have opposed the War in Iraq from the beginning. Yes, I made comments to the effect that our “boys” and “girls” are men and women who made choices to be a part of the military and, consequently stated that there was no reason to feel sorry for them. My faith in human truth failed me. Now I must point to the Primetime excerpts and say that Jessica Lynch has shown me to be wrong.

Jessica Lynch did her duty. I never held this against the soldiers who held me at gun point in former Yugoslavia. There was no call, I now realize, for doing it to our own troops.

When I think deeper, I realize that my anger was with the turnarounds who suddenly pulled out the flags and supported the war. I still will not donate any gift items to the soldiers who are sent to foreign theaters. I would gladly give blood for them and for Iraqi soldiers (except I am diabetic and depressive — blood must not have chemicals mixed in it). I stand by what I said earlier in this way: while I oppose the war, I will not blame the soldiers for it except when they openly advocate it and brag about kills that they made. In other words, I extend to soldiers what I extend to every American citizen: the right to be an individual. I reserve for myself the right to speak up against the war and acts of atrocity. I refuse to accept that being a soldier somehow releases one from responsibility for one’s actions in the time and place of war. Soldiers who follow orders to commit acts of atrocity must always be held accountable. That is what bothered me, the unquestioning jingoism, the belief that this war would be pure.

I stand by that and against Jessica Lynch or any soldier being used as a symbol for a false cause.

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It is clear that to join the military in “defense of freedom” is to give up one’s rights as a citizen. This should not be so.

Andrew bytes back with a link to this letter from a former Marine who was hounded out of the military for his liberal political philosophy:

I honorably served my country for eight years in the United States Marine Corps; providing honest intelligence analysis and collecting countless awards and promotions throughout my career. I was also a leader and mentor to scores of young men and women. In those eight years, I sacrificed more of myself for this country than most men and women ever will in their lifetime. But, thanks to the zeal and quick judgment of this individual, I am no longer serving our beloved country. His forecast was correct. Following his letter to DoD, I was brought up on charges of “Disloyal Statements” under Article 134 of the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice). Not because anything I wrote was disloyal, but because of my political views and how they differ from Mr. Simpson and others like him….

I am not alone in this situation. We now live in a climate of political correctness and false patriotism where anyone who goes against our president is immediately labeled as disloyal; unpatriotic; a traitor; a liberal.

….if I had it to do all over again, nothing would change. I would still write that letter and I would still complete my service standing tall and proud. I don’t have a disloyal bone in my body and most likely never will. Having said that, it’s a shame that because of my political views this country lost one more honest service member protecting its borders.

I am humbled in the face of such courage.

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I owe a debt of thanks to Deborama and Byte Back for fueling the spirit behind these remarks.