from Bandon, OR (by Josh)

Our time staying with my old army friend, Corky, was nearing an end. I was very encouraged by our visit with him; when we returned from our deployment, Corky went to mental health to ask for help as was told to come back in a couple weeks, projecting him down a path of frustration, inner turmoil, and a strong distrust of the authority that had so blatantly betrayed him after demanding so much for 14 months in Iraq. Now out of such a system, he had redirected his life and was positively influencing the people around him.

reunited

Taking a little break to do some reading of the book about mine and Corky’s unit’s deployment to Iraq–The Good Soldiers–I could hardly contain my frustration about the words I was reading. It described how the very leaders who promoted the notion that people who have psychological stress from war and the expectations and attitudes it stirs are crazy, lazy, or weak, also confessed to the embedded journalist who wrote the book that they were struggling with these issues also. The imfamous Col. Kauzlarich–our battalion commander– dismissed any kind of psychological trauma behind one of our soldiers who snapped, climbed up on the roof of a building in the middle of Baghdad, stripped naked, and began masturbating, instead diagnosed this soldier as “lazy”. But as the stress began getting to Kauzlarich, another leader in the unit had a psychologist set up a meeting with him informally and Kauzlarich said that the interaction had a very positive effect. But what was said behind closed doors stayed there and the egos of the “strong” attacked those who publicly admitted that the contradictions, injustices, and inhumanity of war was having a psychological effect on them. In tragic irony, their strength is found in hiding what they actually feel, in not speaking up but rather humiliating those who do. Not only does this pride betray their own inner voices and often, their sanity; but it also betrays and destroys people I know and care about and was close to propelling me on a much more negative path as well.

The Good Soldiers

I struggled to know what to say to guys I knew who in combat ignored or criticized me for being a “Haji-lover” (aka a traitor for breaking from the mob mentality and treating Iraqis like humans) and back in the states said they wish they hadn’t done and acted as they had. When I applied as a conscientious objector, my commander pulled me aside and said that he was struggling through the same moral dilema, but that he wasn’t going to do anything about it because he “had a contract to live up to”. There is so much agony and confusion going on beyond the tough-guy surface level, but our pride and our fear of expressing ourselves, of questioning our assumptions traps us, sucking others away from sharing how they really feel as well!

But it’s not just the military. On Sunday morning we all went to watch Corky’s son’s football game. Kids not even in their teens yet were on teams with starting line-ups, intensely competing not only against the other teams, but amongst each other for playing time: competition and no cooperation. We reinforce these ideas amongst our kids that self-expression is wrong and that success is to struggle to be the toughest, most popular, most celebrated; the military did not invent this, it just thrives off of it, but it is reenforced in our culture every day.

But that’s not to say that there is any kind of a monopoly on listening and understanding either. Corky, Conor, and I went to a protest outside Ft. Lewis to bring attention to the treatment of two soldiers imprisoned there. Opposed to the war and going AWOL rather than do something they knew was wrong, Travis Bishop and Leo Church were both in the Ft. Lewis prison where they had been denied legal representation, forced to strip in front of cameras, and watched in the showers and bathroom by female guards. http://blog.thenewstribune.com/military/2009/10/13/lawyer-rights-violated-in-brig/#

supporting the troops

Military spokespeople dismissed the accusations, claiming they were either not a big deal or that they’d been fixed; an ironic twist that the forces that claim to fight for freedom and justice are so unconcerned with it when the tables are turned…

“Fort Lewis spokesman Joseph Piek denied wrongdoing by prison guards, who are active-duty military policemen. He acknowledged that strip-searches could have been caught on camera but said that situation has been corrected.” (from the News Tribune); isn’t correcting a situation admitting you made a mistake? Instead it’s swept under the rug and “supporting the troops” proves to be a job the military is unethusiastic about. Also quote in the News Tribune: “‘When female correctional specialists walk through the facility, it is possible that they could see a male prisoner in the restroom or shower,” he said, “but that is not a violation.’” Imagine the outcry if male guards watched females shower… not a violation?

The nearby community disagreed with the flippant dismissals from the military officials and a decent outpouring of people concerned about these mistreatments gathered on a bridge with signs and banners in hopes that more people would be aware of what was going on and that justice and humanity would be increased. And I am completely grateful that these folks went to the bridge to stand up for those in need of help. But it struck me as odd that while the bridge filled with support for the imprisoned soldiers, a man with a hunched-over back and bow-legs stood at the side of the bridge with a sign that said “VIETNAM VETERAN UNABLE TO FIND WORK” with the verse Matthew 25 written on the side… and nobody was talking to him. It’s admirable that people want to help soldiers in jail, but a man in need of help also was standing right beside them, ignored.

Robert and I

Talking with Robert, the panhandler, I learned that he had serious back problems and was unable to continue doing the carpentry work he had once done. He also talked about how Vietnam had affected him and some of the horrible things he was commanded to do. Robert also had lost his savings when the economy went down and as I asked him how people treated “the least of these” (as his Matthew 25 sign referenced), he said that the people who stopped to help him understood that they were no better, that they could also be a bad decision or two from ending up on a street corner and would not want to judge, lest they be judged. Conversely he said “none of the folks who drive by at yell at me to get a job or that I’m lazy have ever taken the time to ask me why I’m here. Sometimes I’ll hear people say something that really sets me off and I met give them the finger or something, but then I catch myself and think “man! what am I doing? I’m letting them mess with my mind and act how I don’t want to act’”.

And those words of wisdom–of not returning evil for evil, of not letting other people’s actions dictate his own–coming from a beggar with missing teeth glimmered in contrast to all the single-mindedness I had been encountering. Whether it’s a Colonel in the army who is afraid of his men thinking he’s weak if he were to admit his psychological limitations, a kid on a football team who is filled with frustration because he’s doesn’t have the starting position, a military spokesman who is more worried about an institution that what that institution allegedly stands for, or a peace activist who is too wrapped up in an event to help a person who really needs it, the cultures and causes we are surrounded by rob us of true selves.

In Iraq, on the sideline of a football game, on a bridge outside a military base, there is so much that stirs within us, longing to be spoken. These truths rumble beneath our feet and we hope that if we walk fast enough, the earthquake will not rip apart the well decorated memorials built above the fault line. We are too busy looking over our shoulder to see who is watching us, we can’t stand squarly and say what we’re really thinking, what is really brewing beneath the surface. And we can continue to pretend that suffering and need aren’t rumbling beneath us; the idols are built and painted with flags and crosses and symbols. Or we can accept and embrace the fact each of us is longing for the opportunity to shatter the surface and all the idols we have built on it and do something truly revolutionary: be honest and truly listen.

what are we hiding?