Veterans Speak Out
Next Entries »Atrocities in Iraq: ‘I killed innocent people for our government’
Friday, February 15th, 2008By Paul Rockwell, May 16, 2004
“We forget what war is about, what it does to those who wage it and those who suffer from it. Those who hate war the most, I have often found, are veterans who know it.”- Chris Hedges, New York Times reporter and author of “War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning”
For nearly 12 years, Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey was a hard-core, some say gung-ho, Marine. For three years he trained fellow Marines in one of the most grueling indoctrination rituals in military life – Marine boot camp.
The Iraq war changed Massey. The brutality, the sheer carnage of the U.S. invasion, touched his conscience and transformed him forever. He was honorably discharged with full severance last Dec. 31 and is now back in his hometown, Waynsville, N.C.
When I talked with Massey last week, he expressed his remorse at the civilian loss of life in incidents in which he himself was involved.
Iraq Veteran Jimmy Massey Tells of Combat’s Horrors
Friday, February 15th, 2008Former Marine Offers Cautionary War Story
Published on Wednesday, March 9, 2005 by the Times Union / Albany, New York by Robert Lopez
COLONIE — Jimmy Massey spent 12 years in the Marine Corps, including a two-month stint in Iraq. On Tuesday at Siena College, he talked about his transformation from a gung-ho staff sergeant to an anti-war activist. Massey, who was a Marine recruiter and boot camp drill instructor before going to war, recalled that he always had misgivings about the military, especially the way recruits were “dehumanized” in basic training. But it was a red Kia at a Baghdad checkpoint in 2003 that caused a real change of heart.
“We discharged our weapons into the Kia,” he said. “There were four occupants in the vehicle. Three were severely wounded and expiring fast. The driver was unscathed. While we were trying to medevac these individuals out, this young man that was unscathed came up to me and asked, ‘Why did you do this? Why did you kill my brother? We’re not terrorists.’ ”
Marine Recruiter reveals judicial string-pulling
Friday, February 15th, 2008By Mike Ferner
Nov. 18 — He trolled for teenagers in North Carolina high schools, barked orders at recruits in boot camp, and pulled charred civilian corpses out of cars in Iraq. Now Jimmy Massey is making good on his promise to tell the whole world what he learned as a Marine.
For the first 10 years, Massey loved being in the USMC. With a quick mind and an easy manner, he and his superiors knew he’d make a great recruiter. And by the luck of the draw, he was assigned to the area around Asheville, NC, not far from where he grew up.
That’s me, a Marine, a murderer of civilians’
Friday, February 15th, 2008Italian reporter shot by US military writes for newspaper that tells the raw truth about the US role in Iraq.
by Tom WhitneyOn March 4, in Baghdad, U.S. soldiers shot the Italian reporter Giuliana Sgrena, who had just been released by hostage-takers. She believes the soldiers shot to kill, and they succeeded in killing Italian Secret Service official Nicola Calipara, who had secured her release from hostage takers and who was with her.
Witnesses accompanying the pair, who also were wounded, told reporters March 5 that, contrary to U.S. allegations, the car in which the four persons were riding was not speeding and that it had already stopped at several checkpoints on its way to the airport.
Il Manifesto (www.ilmanifesto.it), the paper Giuliana Sgrena works for, is described as a “communist paper.” The titles of Sgrena’s recent articles for Il Manifesto, including “Ten thousand Iraqis in US and British prisons” (Dec. 29, 2004); “Two thousand victims in Fallujah” (Nov. 26, 2004); “Napalm raid on Fallujah?” (Nov. 23, 2004); “The death throes of Fallujah” (Nov. 13, 2004); “Stop the massacre” (Nov. 12, 2004); and “Interview with Iraqi Women tortured at Abu Graib,” show that neither she nor the paper pulls any punches when it comes to criticism of U.S. policy and conduct.
Recruiter-turned-peacenik hits nerve in N.C.
Thursday, February 14th, 2008WAYNESVILLE, N.C. — If you were young and tough and wanted a challenge, Jimmy Massey was the man to see. He was gung ho. He was Semper Fi. He was the strutting, cussing, tobacco-chewing Marine recruiter.
The staff sergeant won scores of recruits in this and other patriotic mountain towns by talking courage, honor, commitment. Then, following his own adage — “you gotta walk the walk” — he went to Iraq.
Jimmy Massey, Veteran
Tuesday, February 12th, 2008Jimmy Massey talks on video about civilian killings in Iraq. Jimmy Massey is a former Marine Staff Sargent, Recruiter and Boot Camp Instructor. He participated in the invasion of Iraq while in charge of a platoon.
Racism in the military
Sunday, February 10th, 2008
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has received hundreds of complaints of racism in the military. Their report says discrimination haunts African-Americans, Latinos and women in the military. In 2000, 37.5% of the enlisted personnel were people of color, but only 16.2% of the officers were. Latinos in the Marine Corps, for example, made up 13.5% of the enlisted ranks, but only 5.8% of the officers. When the Los Angeles Times investigated the Ft. Leavenworth military prison in 1994, it found that 50% of all the inmates, and 83% of those under a military death sentence, were people of color.From an interview with a veteran, Aiden Delgado, published by blackcommentator.com
We Can’t Kill Them All
Sunday, February 10th, 2008Officers Say Arms Can’t End Iraq War
By Tom Lasseter
Knight Ridder Newspapers Monday 13 June 2005
Shiites, Sunnis must find solution to insurgency, US commanders warn.
Baghdad – A growing number of senior American military officers in Iraq have concluded that there is no long-term military solution to an insurgency that has killed thousands of Iraqis and more than 1,700 U.S. military personnel during the past two years.
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