"1st Cav soldier discusses "the real deal" in Iraq - calls for an end to

[Pirate Smile]

the occupation."

I just read this over on Daily Kos.

This was just posted on the website of Veterans against the Iraq War, www.vaiw.org (Please forgive the wholesale cut and paste I'm about to do, but this soldier deserves to have his words disseminated as widely as possible).

My Experience In Baghdad 2004-2005
"A Baghdad MP shares his experiences in Iraq and his thoughts about the Iraq War."
By Bill
August 7, 2005

Hello, my name is Bill. I'm 24 years old and live in NJ. I fought in Sadr City, Baghdad Iraq from Feb. 2004 to Feb. 2005. I served in C. Co 759th MP Bn 89th MP Brigade. I still wholeheartedly support the decision to remove Saddam from power, however I am completely against the continued occupation of Iraq.

When I landed in Baghdad, the US had roughly 350 deaths. When I left the number was close to 1300. I had 4 of my friends killed and another 27 in my company wounded, which gave us a 1 in 3 rate of being a casualty. I saw a good friend of mine have half of his face blown off when a RPG blew up on our windshield. Another friend of my was wounded twice in separate IED attacks and still wasnt allowed home. I killed 4 people during an 18 hour firefight, one of whom was a little girl that got caught by the burst of a 203 round.

I think about Iraq every day even though I've been home 6 months. And I still cannot figure out why I was there or why americans died over there. I'm all for war, but only "right" wars. I was decorated for valor and congratulated by Colonels, and it's all hollow because it is for nothing. That's why I'm against the war in Iraq.

I can definetly say nothing in suburban America ever EVER prepared me for anything I saw over there. Besides the actual combat, the simple fact that instead of just watching one of those UNICEF commercials with the babies with flies all over them, I was actually in one.

I can't tell you how dirty and malnourished the small children were. Begging for food and eating whatever we threw out of our MRE's. I'll never forget this girl probably like 8 years old came up to me with probably a 2 month old asking me to help the baby because it had some sort of nasty looking scabby rash. I told here I didn't have anything. It's not like I was a medic or like we even had one with us, but she was so insistent and so upset, and the baby was just motionless, flies all over her face. It was probably the most heartwrenching thing I ever saw over there. So just to make here feel better I gave her some alchohol pads, just so she thought she had something. When i went back to base I hit the medics for some sort of antibacterial cream which they gave me, but I never ended up going back to that area.

There was also this family of 3 girls that lived next to a police station, which their father happened to work at. All the guys in my unit would give them candy when they stopped by on their way home from school. We knew these kids for like 3 months. Then we left and about 2 weeks later a car bomb blew up their father when he was at a checkpoint. A mother and 3 girls dont have much to look forward to in Iraq when they are alone. That bothered me and the guys alot.

It just amazes me now that I'm home that for the most part (except families affected by the war), people don't even pay attention to it anymore. It's like we come home get a pat on the back and a smile and then poof, that's it. You're just supposed to get on with your life.

I just don't understand America anymore. People spending $100 on shoes, that's what the average Iraqi makes a month. People worrying about stupid stuff like their clothes or cars. They need to see a woman throw out a chamber pot into the street at 6am and then 2 hours later her kids are playing in it naked. Or for example the inordinate amount of birth defects I saw in Sadr City. I have never seen more physical deformities, not even on television in my entire life, than I saw in Iraq. There were people with chicken wing arms, people that were basically just a torso and a head. It amazed me.

I dont know, America just isn't what I wanted to come home to.

=====

I was stationed at Camp Cuervo (was Camp Muleskinner when I first arrived) in Baghdad Iraq. My primary area of patrol was Sadr City, which is North of the green zone. Basically a square shaped set of a couple hundred blocks in which Saddam shoved roughly 2 million Shiites, in a sort of modern ghetto.

We arrived when the invasion was at its ending point, and we were starting to build up the Iraqi police force. (I was an MP) At first my friends and I were all full of &*@!# and vinegar to go out and kill haji's (comparable to charlie in the Vietnam war). It was about 3 weeks before we got in our first firefight.

It was an odd thing because when someone shoots at you for the first time you can't really believe that you just go "Oh Sh*t!!" and return fire. My first firefight consisted of roughly 15 other MP's at a police station in Sadr City under seige by approximately 50 Iraqis of Muqtada Al Sadr Mahdi army milita. It lasted 3 hours and was ended by the arrival of bradleys from the 1st Cav division. During the course of the firefight, I killed a man shooting at me from an apartment window with an AK47, and 3 other of my friends saw that they had hit and killed people, although with all the rounds we expended, between regular 5.56, .50 cal and MK19 grenades, I'm sure the Iraqi toll was much higher.

Our only casualty was one of the gunners in a humvee was shot in the arm. We had 11 RPG's shot at us and 3 mortars, none really came to close. The Iraqi police we were protecting (the ones that didn't leave minutes before the firefight, thus obviously knowing something was up) refused to go out and fight. That was my first glimpse of how ruined Iraq was.

For the next 3 months other platoons had firefights. We were mortared almost every night, and had suffered some wounded through IED attacks. That all changed in June when we were at the same police station I had previously been in a firefight at. Roughly 2 hours after we arrived all hell broke loose. I was driving an ASV when a RPG exploded on the passenger side window horribly wounding my friend in the passenger seat. In addition to the vehicle being on fire, he was unconcious with blood pouring from his face from the shrapnel he recieved (I later found out his left lung was deflated from shrapnel going through it, and he had a broken collar bone.) My gunner was hit in the rear by shrapnel. I miraculously wasn't injured at all, even though it exploded only 6 inches to the right of my head.

After what seemed like 15 minutes (I was later told it was nearly instant) I reversed the vehicle back to our perimeter, My gunner jumped out the side hatch and ran to our lines. I popped out the top hatch and yelled for a medic and then dragged my friend out of the still burning vehicle and started administering first aid into what I then realized was a raging firefight. The medics arrived soon after I got my friend out and bandaged him up all around his head and evac'd him.

I then stayed there for another 16 hours getting shot at. During the course of the firefight 20 MP's were attacked by over100 Mahdi army soldiers. More RPGs were fired than I could count. One of my friends who was previously wounded in an IED attack was hit by shrapnel when an RPG exploded on the side of his Hummvee. Another soldier was shot in the foot.

We were basically leveling buildings shooting back. One store exploded when the propane in side caught fire. I killed 3 people during that fire fight. 2 men with an RPG with a M203 grenade and a little girl that was in the area of the blast. Because whenever the Iraqis attacked, they made sure they had plenty of women and children around them in order to discourage us from firing back. I could care less about the men I killed, but I almost daily think about the girl. I received the Army Commendation Medal with Valor device for my actions that day, although I could care less. ( I found out I did not receive the bronze star because I was only an E-4 Specialist)

2 of our men were killed transporting supplies to us by an IED on the 2nd day of the battle and another 2 were killed the 3rd day (by which time I was relieved and back on base). The total of that firefight was 4 dead, 12 wounded from my company. It really struck me during the firefight though was when 2 apaches were circling overhead and left. I later found out that they couldnt receive permission to fire because it would cause too many civilian casualties.

For the most part the Iraqi's are glad america is there, but they are the silent majority. They are too scared that if they speak out for us they would be kidnapped or murdered. One Iraqi asked me why America doesn't build schools or donate cars like the Japanese did. I told him it's because every time we try to build something either the workers get scared and don't show up because they are working for Americans and scared of retribution or because it is constantly attacked by one of the various militias.

I was never once in my entire year in iraq, attacked by Saddam loyalists or Al Qaeda, I was attacked by shiite milita that was sick of the American military bullying its way through traffic, never delivering on any promises it said it would keep, and just generally sick of a foreign military presence. Yes they were also religious extremists, but most were just disillusioned with America's presence.

Just imagine if George W. was a dictator and all of a sudden Canada invaded. We would be happy at first, but after almost 2 years of them still hanging around and nothing getting done, I'm fairly certain we would rise up against them too.

Another thing is that Iraq has been ruled by a dictatorship for basically its entire history, from Hammurabi to King Faisal to Saddam Hussein. All they know is ruling by fear, that is why either someone in the the new government is going to become another Saddam only with US backing, or some Iraqi General will stage a coup. It will take at least 2 generations for any sort of democracy to come to iraq, and it won't help when they direct all their energy into killing Americans.

I'm glad we ousted Saddam, but we should not still be in Iraq. I, to this day, have no clue why I fought over there, have no clue what I fought for, and am upset because my friends were maimed and killed for nothing.

=======

The one of the biggest problems I deal with is the fact that even though we fought a three day battle to secure an IP station and we won. We abandoned it the next day and within a week the Mahdi army bullied all the Iraqi police out of it, placed demo charges and blew it up. And our leadership didn't even bat an eye. Can't figure out why we would fight so hard for something that had 4 guys killed and 12 wounded just so we can let it get blown up.

And it happened all the time, we'd go somewhere, hang out long enough for stuff to quiet down, move on and then the place we left would be just the same as before we showed up. I think the only people that had any sort of morale were the officers and higher NCO's (E-8 and up) that didn't have to go out and face the possiblity of getting blown up every day. We had guys breaking down left and right and had to go see psychiatrists because they couldn't deal with being out in the city for 7 days straight in a shot with 12 hours up and 4 hours down. Towards the end of our deployment if we didn't go home in about another month or two there would have been a rebellion.

I tried to explain it to people at work and they pretty much nod and say well that sucked and then when i showed them pictures of what was done over there and then they realize its not just some little 3 minute spot on the nightly news.

That's another thing that I think most americans dont understand, when you hear about a bombing or attack in Iraq on the news, there are about 20 other bombings or firefights that you don't hear about. I would call or email home about a carbombing or shooting to see if they heard anything about it on the news and until our 4 guys were killed the answer was always no. So it astounds me as to how little information really filters down to the american people. There is sometimes days that go by now that I'm home that I wont hear anything about Iraq, and I can promise you something happens every day. My camp was mortared so frequently during one week it was as if we were underseige, like 20 mortars a day for 5 days straight, and when your camp is only about 1square mile those booms sound awfullly close.

And you never hear about how many Iraqi civilians are killed just because they work for Americans and are trying to provide for their families. We had a restaurant on our FOB run by haji's that we used to go to whenever we were either sick of the chow hall food or if we came in too late to get dinner. One night a bunch of us went there to get dinner and we ordered french fries. The guy that took the order, who was also the owner said he didnt have any french fries, so we started ribbing him about how we could give some kid that lives under a bridge $2 to get us fries but yet here he is with a restaurant without a fairly basic item, so after about 2 minutes of busting this guy a little he gets red and says, " I will tell you why we have no fries, man that delivers fries was killed because he works with americans". When he said that it just floored us. We couldnt imagine some one who delivers french fries would be killed just because he delivers food to a guy that works for americans.

We had interpretors' relatives killed, let alone interpretors themselves for working with us. Our interpretor whom i still talk to through email on occasion (badly wants to come to the US) only told his immediate family who he works for, his neighbors all think that he does construction work.

Whatever you do, don't take what you have here for granted.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/8/20/231558/693

[understandinglife]

1. We each know what we must do. Bush and Cheney and the neoconsters ...

... must be removed.

We must bring the Nation to a halt until that happens.

We owe it to this soldier and all those who have died in Bush's illegal war of aggression and occupation of Iraq.

Nothing else matters now.

We must remove them and bring them to justice.

Nothing else matters until that is done.


Peace.

[Karenina]

6. Nothing else matters until that is done.

:kick:

[Dynasty_At_Passes]

2. I'll tell you what must be done....

We must shut down the streets and the workforce until those idiots, bring this screeching war to a halt permanently and arrest all the Likuds, all the Paul Wolfowitz's that are responsible.

This is OUR duty, this is OUR mission alone. Bring this to a grinding halt and arrest those responsible including terrorists.

[madmax]

3. Heartbreaking - all of it.

Since bush refuses to meet with Cindy and answer her questions perhaps these guys should. If they did the press would be all over this. What a fucking mess these neo-cons have gotten us into, AGAIN!

"The one of the biggest problems I deal with is the fact that even though we fought a three day battle to secure an IP station and we won. We abandoned it the next day and within a week the Mahdi army bullied all the Iraqi police out of it, placed demo charges and blew it up. And our leadership didn't even bat an eye. Can't figure out why we would fight so hard for something that had 4 guys killed and 12 wounded just so we can let it get blown up.

And it happened all the time, we'd go somewhere, hang out long enough for stuff to quiet down, move on and then the place we left would be just the same as before we showed up. I think the only people that had any sort of morale were the officers and higher NCO's (E-8 and up) that didn't have to go out and face the possiblity of getting blown up every day. We had guys breaking down left and right and had to go see psychiatrists because they couldn't deal with being out in the city for 7 days straight in a shot with 12 hours up and 4 hours down. Towards the end of our deployment if we didn't go home in about another month or two there would have been a rebellion."

[SammyWinstonJack]

20. Way to Support the Troops.

"We had guys breaking down left and right and had to go see psychiatrists because they couldn't deal with being out in the city for 7 days straight in a shot with 12 hours up and 4 hours down. Towards the end of our deployment if we didn't go home in about another month or two there would have been a rebellion." And troop morale is down because of Cindy and the anti-war protesters. Sure thing. :eyes: I bet these troops think differently.

[oasis]

4. Deep in their hearts they know that the Iraqis are victims of Bush's war.

Our troops who served in Iraq will gradually come to realize that they are Bush's victims as well.

[knitter4democracy]

5. How is this not like Vietnam?

That poor man, losing friends and all like that, under attack in a foreign country--first time out of the States from the sound of it--and it's all for a lie so the rich can get richer and the poor can get killed.

My God, we need to start fighting harder somehow.

[Imagevision]

7. Pentagon has its own embedded reporters- is why we're clueless

as to what's really going on in Iraq, is it a coincidence as to why 47 journalists have been killed?

[crispini]

8. Tough read.

wow. :kick:

[kath]

9. He killed a little girl. How incrediblly awful that he will have to live

with that for the rest of his life.

When he says "I think about Iraq every day", you know that it's the absolute truth, and that those thoughts must be nightmarish. When Chimpyshit says the same thing, you know it's total fokkin' bullshit and it makes you want to hurl.

[yodermon]

10. This quote stood out for me:

There's a lot in this post to process, but this is what caught my eye:

I was never once in my entire year in iraq, attacked by Saddam loyalists or Al Qaeda, I was attacked by shiite milita that was sick of the American military bullying its way through traffic, never delivering on any promises it said it would keep, and just generally sick of a foreign military presence. Yes they were also religious extremists, but most were just disillusioned with America's presence.

[FreedomAngel82]

11. All of this is so horrible and disgusting

I never in my life imagined I would hate someone the way I hate George Bush, his father and all his oil buddies and his administration. They're all disgusting pigs who don't care. I wonder what will happen with the men/women who come back who have PTSD or some other forum of brain damage and aren't getting any help? Bush has cut VA benefits so much. :cry: These are the guys and girls who give up their lives to help either themselves survive or their family and this is how we repay them. :cry:

[Swamp Rat]

14. I HATE BUSH!

Let all the Freeptards read this, for if they support Bushler at this point, I hate them too! :mad:

[CrazyForKucinich]

12. Nominated

Good shit.

This gives me a little more reasoning to why a buddy of mine in HS(about 7 years ago) committed suicide after his 2nd tour of duty with the Marines...and before he was supposed to go back for a 3rd trip to Iraq.

He was in the JROTC in High School(I however knew him from the Swim Team and had 1 class with him my sophomore year) and loved what he did and went on to join the Marines. I sure believe he thought he would only be called upon to fight noble wars that he could be proud of..."the few the proud"...but yeah I guess his action speak for itself...he wasn't fighting for anything and probably hated the person he had become.

I bet it has got to be strange as hell for the public to be so quiet, even now it is fairly quiet...even with Cindy Sheehan, on the issue of Iraq.

He does a good job of pointing out who's to blame...the government and the media...and sadly those aren't going to be changing anytime soon.

I sure hope he gets the hell out and can live with the destruction he was apart of, especially since he himself says it was for nothing.

Too sad.

[PatriotGames]

13. Wow. That was a pretty powerful story.

[Sgent]

15. Everyone needs to read this

bump

[julialnyc]

16. another story

"Fallen Philly soldier revealed the ugly truth about Iraq."
http://tinyurl.com/b5gph
By Attytood
Philly Daily News, August 20, 2005

Last week, we wrote about the unspeakably sad story of Gennaro Pellegrini Jr. -- Philly cop, welterweight boxer, and National Guardsman. The 31-year-old's life was hitting full stride when he received a fateful phone call ordering him to serve in Iraq, just two weeks before his hitch was supposed to end. Pellegrini was quite unhappy, but he went -- and he paid with his life, along with three of his Pennsylvania National Guard colleagues who were killed in a ruthless ambush near the Iraqi town of Beiji.

Also slain in that Aug. 9 attack was one of Pellegrini's brothers-in-arms, a Whitpain Township firefighter named John Kulick. Kulick -- a 35-year-old from the suburbs, an avid fisherman who loved too much mustard on bologna sandwiches and was called "Johnny K" -- had become had become fast friends with Pellegrini, the tough, tatooed city cop from a rowhouse block of Port Richmond. But the road that these two salt-of-the-earth guys had taken to Beiji could not have been more different.

As a professional firefighter, Kulick was devastated by the loss of so many colleagues at the World Trade Center in the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. That sense of duty is what prompted him to joined the Pennsylvania National Guard, even though he was already on the far side of 30 and the devoted and involved divorced dad to his daughter, Amanda, who is in grade school. And when his Guard unit from Northeast Philly was called up last December, he told his worried family that he wanted to go, to fight terrorists "over there."

In fact, Kulick's brother Jim -- in a radio interview this morning -- said they watched the movie "Blackhawk Down" just days before his departure for Iraq. After the end of the movie (which depicts the 1993 Somali insurgent attack that killed 18 U.S. troops), John Kulick declared, echoing his commander-in-chief and without irony, "Bring 'em on."

We heard Jim Kulick this morning on the Michael Smerconish show on WPHT-1210. The reason Smerconish invited him on was to talk about the emails that John Kulick had sent home from northern Iraq in the months before he was killed. Over the eight months that the Philly-area firefighter served in Iraq, his opinion of the mission changed radically.

As described by his brother, John Kulick's emails tell the story of a patriotic American who was betrayed -- by his own government. Because it was John Kulick's government that -- after spending more than $100 billion on Iraq -- sent him into hostile territory without the proper armor. And it was John Kulick's government that sent him into a war that lacked a strategy, and that, as a result, not only eliminated the enemy but was waged in a way that created new enemies every day.

Jim Kulick said his brother's emails showed a man who was becoming more and more worried. John Kulick said the insurgents were using increasingly sophisticated IEDs -- improvised explosive devices -- and were firing rocket-propelled grenades, or RPGs, into their camp. "They had to hide under their cots -- there was nothing they could do," Kulick's brother said. "The Humvees weren't armored, or lightly armored -- they were basically useless. At first they were sending them out in pickup trucks. They weren't really equipped to fight this war."

Kulick told his family that troops were taking police vests that had been donated to them and putting them on the floor of the Humvees instead of wearing them. Jim Kulick noted that at the same time his brother was reporting this, two of his friends who are area police officers serving in Iraq told him they had needed to bring their own sidearms. In his emails, John Kulick had begun to describe the war as "a quagmire."

As disturbing as those reports were, what Kulick had to say about the conduct of the war was even more troubling. He told his family that the Iraqi police "were corrupt and inept and there was no way they could ever train them to the degree where they could keep order." And when his unit went out after insurgents, far too many innocent iraqis were killed in the crossfire. And, Kulick reported home, "the more hate that created." When the Americans left an area, the insurgents came back the next day.

Eventually, when Kulick saw Iraqi citizens kneeling in the street in prayer, his interpreter would tell him they were praying for the Americans to leave. "They would rather live with evil they knew rather than live with us," Kulick said in his emails. "We were killing them as much as the insurgents were."

Kulick and his fellow Guardsmen were riding in a Humvee, reportedly armored, on night patrol on Aug. 9 when a large bomb -- containing as much as 25 to 30 pounds of explosives -- that was hidden in a drainage culvert under the roadway exploded and killed them. Just hours earlier, Kulick had called his father to tell him where his will was located and that he would want a full military funeral.

It's too early to say whether the tumultuous events of the last few weeks -- the deaths of so many Guardsmen from Pennsylvania and Ohio, the groundswell of support for grieving anti-war mom Cindy Sheehan -- will be remember as a turning point. Jim Kulick said this morning that the U.S. needs to set a timetable for getting out, and host Smerconish -- a political conservative who supported the war from early on -- was surprisingly sympathetic. Said Smerconish: "We're adrift."

Yesterday, John Kulick received the type of funeral he had asked for. His flag-draped funeral procession along York Road in Montgomery County drew firefighters from 61 local departments, and featured all the pomp and circumstance that is appropriate for a true hero like John Kulick.

But today, the cameras are gone, and flags are folded up -- and Kulick's family will continue to live with the loss. Jim Kulick said his family is "devastated" by what happened in Iraq.

None worse than his 9-year-old daughter. "Amanda is in denial," Jim Kulick said. "She said her father promised her he would come back from the war, and she still believes that."

Amanda Kulick doesn't understand what happened to her father.

Neither do we.

[leftchick]

17. and CNN with a Wounded Pro_war/shrub Marine on this AM

it was sickening. He said he met with bush and he had tears in his eyes and was an amazing CIC! :puke:

He also said all of the Iraqis love us over there and want us to stay. He complained you never get to see those people and the ggod things on TV. :puke:

He also said we need to stay until the job is done so our country stays free. :crazy: :puke:

He should read this letter if he hasn't already ODed on the kool-aid.

[julialnyc]

18. but the other guy was great

The iraq war veteran against the war was great this morning.He was smart and articulate.

When the pro-war guy was saying the Iraqis loved us, the anti-war soldier said that he spoke some arabic and could say that they don't want us there. He also said that according to Iraqi polls over 3/4 of the people want us gone.

[leftchick]

19. yes indeed he was...

did you notice he got half the airtime to speak? :eyes:

[julialnyc]

21. yeah... he had to rush to everything in

I think it was partially because the other guy had a problem with his ear piece (or he was just slow). She was waiting for him to make a point (which he couldn't really make other than saying Freedom duh Freedom)