by Carol Dudek and Stephanie Rugoff

In early May 2016, We Are Not Your Soldiers hosted a series of talks in high schools and colleges by veterans opposed to the ongoing wars. The article that follows describes one day spent in a New York City high school.

“Have you killed any one?” a wide-eyed student asks.   In reply, the young veteran tells that although he never pulled the trigger, he does regret every day, every hour, the role he played in death and suffering.

We’re at a small inner-city alternative high school in New York City. The demographic of the student body is primarily African-American and Latino. This is the third time We Are Not Your Soldiers has been at the school in the 2015-2016 academic year. The first two visits were linked to a study of the Vietnam War, which included reading The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. A young Army veteran of the “war on terror” talked with them about his experiences and was asked by at least one student in each group that day what he carried with him during his time in the military. The following week, the students interacted with an Air Force veteran of the war in Vietnam who explained how his worldview changed and developed based on his horrific experiences.

Today, the speaker is Jeremy, a blue-eyed ex-Marine officer. His life had been very good; his Connecticut town wealthy, educated. On his way to a college class in 2001, he saw everyone crying. A large screen showed the second World Trade Center tower falling. At that moment, he felt a powerful surge of US patriotism. His grandfather was an Iwo Jima veteran. After 9/11, Jeremy experienced national pride and, in 2006, he signed up.

Now, we are addressing students who have just completed a study of World War I. They will finish the year studying World War II. The teacher has prepared graphic organizers for the students to fill in as they listen to Jeremy speak. They take notes on the oral history that they are integrating into their prior knowledge of US war history. On the back of the sheet, they will reflect and record any lessons learned that deepen their understanding of war and its aftermath.

Most of the students know someone in the military, some come from military families and some want to join up. One student asks, “How did your family react?” Jeremy says relatives were shocked and did not want him to go, terrified when he signed the contract. His grandfather had been shot in the head during World War II and still lives with a plate in his skull. He tried to discourage Jeremy from enlisting, and warned him war is not what he thought it was – yet, his grandfather, like so many veterans, did not go into any details in explaining why. When Jeremy is asked how his own experience differs from the common conceptions of their age group, he tells them that in their generation the US has always been at war: “The war-making of this country haunts me. It should haunt our politicians too. I was part of operations that led to death and severe injuries. I feel tremendous guilt.” This perspective doesn’t appear in the typical high school history text.

People die, limbs are blown off, some have half their faces blown away. He’ll live with these images the rest of his life – but there are other vets who can’t live with it. There are lots of suicides, homeless vets. While in Afghanistan, he saw lots of kids crying for water, food. He saw one Marine stop another Marine from throwing rocks at one of these kids. The Marine was angry that his friends had died. It was all a shock, every day. The enemy in World War II was clear – there were two sides to the conflict with empty fields between them. But in Afghanistan, Marines patrol streets where people are trying to go about their everyday routines. Or, they are in the countryside, going through small farms. The same was true in Vietnam, same farmers with small green plots, walking through chaos, every one was civilian.

Jeremy draws parallels with police violence in communities of color here in the US. He noticed, for example, how police departments used the same weapons in Ferguson that were used in Afghanistan – surplus vehicles, weapons, rifles, ammo. In fact, the policing in Ferguson looked much like our military operations in occupied countries.

Jeremy was a Signals Intelligence Officer in the Marine Corps and trained at the National Security Agency (NSA). His job was to intercept, analyze and exploit communications, particularly of those involved in attacks on US forces. He asks if students know of Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower. Some had heard of him: “Now the government is spying on us.”

Jeremy spent six months with frontline infantry, getting real-time intelligence and seeing the disasters of war. He went on foot patrols with squads through villages. They’d give the children candy, food or water, yet that same day they might blow up their homes. It will stay with Jeremy forever. It has little to do with what we read or see on TV. “We’re told random people are the enemy,” Jeremy says. Through training and the very nature of war, the troops come to believe all villagers are the enemy. There can be an explosion at any given moment and the US troops have to assume everyone is involved – everyone becomes the enemy. It’s not trench warfare like in World War I. In Afghanistan, the Marines constantly patrol through villages and backyards, seeing little kids begging for water. They don’t know who the ‘enemy’ is. These villagers are not evil people who are planning terrorism against New York City, just families who want to put food on the table. After being asked about how poverty in Afghanistan compares to poverty in the United States, Jeremy responded, “The poorer parts of Baltimore suffer a higher infant mortality than many developing countries, but I never saw kids in Baltimore thirsting for a mere drop of water.”

Combat units, particularly intelligence units, are required to field-test new gear before it can be sold. Jeremy quotes President Eisenhower, a former General during World War II, as he forewarned of the military-industrial complex. Jeremy then tells a story that he thinks of often, that has burdened him with tremendous guilt. He was involved in an attack on a village that involved a vast array of powerful weaponry and in which civilians were killed. The following day, a man showed up at the base with his dead wife in his car asking for reparations. He was given a couple of hundred dollars from the reparation fund.

A student in the back of the room raises his hand. “You’re saying that the base has funds on hand to pay civilians when a family member is killed? You mean that it is expected that civilians will be killed on a regular basis?” That is as shocking to him as the story itself.

Another student asks if war is like gaming. Jeremy says more soldiers are willing to pull the trigger because of gaming – the dehumanization, the winning of points. Recruiters focus on gamers. Our culture glorifies war as heroic and romantic.

Others have questions about the benefits promised by recruiters such as job training and college tuition. Jeremy encourages the students to read the fine print: you don’t get a free education if you smoke marijuana, disobey, get a less than honorable or dishonorable discharge. It stays for life, you can‘t get a job. He also warns that if they do get the education benefits, they could end up in a for-profit school that’s exploiting the GI Bill so they’ll end up with a worthless degree and a whole lot of debt.

Jeremy describes how most of the officers are white. He doesn’t remember serving with any officers of color on the front lines. The military goes after people without options who need help to obtain an education and a career. In an unequal society such as ours, the top will always figure out ways to exploit the bottom, get them to fight the wars. Throughout history, the officer class – wealthy and/or educated – gives orders; the enlisted – mostly poor or working class – executes orders, does the killing and gets killed.

For those curious about boot camp, Jeremy describes a system that cultivates aggression, a chaotic, brutal and violent experience designed to create killers, to make guys want to pull the trigger. When he first arrived in boot camp, there was an investigation concerning a recruit who died during pool training. Marines addressed each other as “killer,” greeted each other, “How’s it going, killer?” They said “kill” as they did pull-ups and push-ups: “kill.” They marched with cadences or chants. One cadence referenced the Vietnam War and the gel that stuck to people’s bodies as it burned their skin off: “napalm sticks to kids.” Other cadences were about raping grandmothers and raping babies.

He tells some more stories, how he had observed detainees in cages, blindfolded, handcuffed – “kids your age” who lost fathers, mothers, sons, sisters from US operations. That’s why they volunteered – innocent people who lost relatives got caught up fighting against the US, defending their villages – in a never-ending vicious cycle of fighting that gets worse and worse. He tells of escorting one shivering young detainee, whose hands were tied together, from one base to another. The detainee’s shawl was falling down – Jeremy was instructed not to let him touch it but seeing how cold he was, Jeremy helped cover his forearms.

A young woman who had initially raised her hand at the start of the presentation to indicate she was considering enlistment speaks out. “I better not go in because I’d get thrown out or brought up on charges. I would have freed that prisoner.”

Another says, “I know a lot of people who have been in the military. None of them talk about it though. I’m beginning to understand why.”

Jeremy knows he’s lucky because he came back physically unscathed, but he feels guilty for coming back when others didn’t. Like so many veterans he has his ups and downs, including unbelievable anger and rage. He has panic attacks that feel like heart attacks. He came back to a country where people are always playing on their cell phones or worshipping this or that celebrity. He saw people here enjoying themselves while to him it looked like they were dancing on graves. He is always aware that the wars continue and that people continue to die in them.

Jeremy points out that the official US purpose in Afghanistan was to apprehend or kill Osama Bin Laden, destroy Al Qaeda and bring freedom and democracy. But the US did not bring democracy at all. The economy is devastated, infrastructure – water, plumbing, medical, hospitals – gone. Lots of fathers gone. While he may disagree with some of his veteran friends politically, they all know that the US didn’t bring democracy. There are kids left without parents, women without husbands. He survived with his face, no physical injuries but he still took part in unnecessary death that has left internal scars.

Another student asks what his advice is for someone wanting to join. Jeremy says there are other ways to get an education, secure a job and raise a family. Going in is a risk physically and morally. A lot of strings are attached. He advises students to study the government’s track record – there have been at least 40 known and significant military actions by the US since World War II, and many more unknown or less significant interventions. He says students have to be skeptical. Students do have some power. Students can challenge the government’s militarism.

At the end of the session, in her written reflection, one student opined, “History is very different from what you learn out of a history book.”

Carol Dudek, a long-time New York City activist, was a member of the Center for Constitutional Rights’ GI rights project in Okinawa during the Vietnam war.

Stephanie Rugoff works in the national office of World Can’t Wait where she serves as coordinator of the We Are Not Your Soldiers project. She taught in the NYC public schools for over 30 years and has also been a consultant on literacy professional development.