Staff Sergeant Jimmy Massey may be the most unlikely of the soldiers who have come out against the war. A Marine since 1992, he has been a recruiter, infantry instructor, and combat platoon leader. He went to Iraq primed to fight. “9/11 pissed me off,” he says. “I was ready to go kill a raghead.”
hortly after Massey arrived in Iraq, his unit was ordered to man roadblocks. To stop cars, the Marines would raise their hands. If the drivers kept going, Massey says, “we would just light ’em up. I didn’t find out until later on, after talking to an Iraqi, that when you put your hand up in the air, it means ‘Hello.’” He estimates that his men killed 30 civilians in one 48-hour period
One day, he recalls, “there was this red Kia Spectra. We told it to stop, and it didn’t. There were four occupants. We fatally wounded three of them. We started pulling out the bodies, but they were dying pretty fast. The guy that was driving was just frickin’ bawling, sitting on the highway. He looked at me and asked, ‘Why did you kill my brother? He wasn’t a terrorist. He didn’t do anything to you.’”
Massey searched the car. “It was completely clean. Nothing there. Meanwhile the driver just ran around saying, ‘Why? Why?’ That’s when I started to question.”
The doubts led to nightmares, depression, and a talk with his commanding officer. “I feel what we are doing here is wrong. We are committing genocide,” Massey told him. He was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and given a medical discharge.
Back in his hometown of Waynesville, North Carolina, Massey got a job as a furniture salesman, then lost it after speaking at an antiwar rally. Two or three times a week, he puts on his Marine uniform and takes a long walk around the nearby town of Asheville carrying a sign that reads: “I killed innocent civilians for our government.” The local police now keep an eye out for him, he says, because people have tried to run him over.
"On June 15, 2002" - is that right?
Sounds like the US is now "disappearing" its own troops. Amazing.
You guys need to pay more careful attention to the military during peacetime or better yet use that Google search function on your computer. The forced and frequently assaultive psychiatric hospitalizations of military members, usually military medical professionals, are widely documented. Try googling Semmelweiss society, John Glenn, Alan Cranston, forced psychiatric hospitalization, and the military. This incident represents actions command authority routinely excercises in light of bad news delivered by the proverbial, uwelcomed messenger except unlike in this case, military medicine, namely psychiatry, happily participates in the assault. Afterall the logic goes, in combat you must be crazy to turn evidence against fellow soldiers and your commanding officer who commit crimes. Go watch Michael J. Fox and Sean Penn in "Casualties of War" (it's a true story) or Tom Cruise in "A Few Good Men" to see how it works. The marginalized individual never recovers financially or professionally as the federal courts sympathetic to institutional integrity see to that. At one time Senator Glenn and Senator Cranston tried to help mililtary members and veterans harmed in similar actions. Again the federal courts lost the stomach for it as society through militarization increasingly reflects the values of the military, simplisit awful values. Way down the rabbit hole we go.
The sad thing about the coverup article is that the person in question is in fact crazy and delussional.
For example: if you look closely at the photograph of Mr. Ford, you will see that there is an insignia on top of his left breast pocket. It is the insignia of the Navy Seals, or the budweiser badge as it is commonly refered to.
It might not be important to everybody, but wearing insignias and badges you have not earned is a crime. Pretending to be a person you are not shows inmaturity and shame on who you are.
Mr. Ford is wearing the uniform while on active duty displaying a badge he did not earn, insulting the men who have rightfully earned and died while serving their country in some of the most daring and dangerous missions anybody could ask for. It degrades the lost lives and the sacrifice made by every single Seal in the community.
Also, Mr. Ford was known as Doctor Ford. He even used to sign with the M.D. Suffix on his name. Never mind that Mr. Ford is not a doctor.
So, taking into consideration that this person makes allegations of torture, while pretending to be a Navy Seal and a Doctor, makes you kind of wonder the veracity of his statements.
Also, it is nice to note that Mr. DeBatto, describes events in his article that never actually happened.
For example. In trying to show what a poor leader Col. Pappas is, he mentions the fact that 3 soldiers died while in transit to his Change Of Command Ceremony. That never took place.
In reality, the soldiers died while travelling to LTC Griffin's Change Of Command Ceremony, one of COL. Pappas' subordinate commanders.
Mr. DeBatto mentioned the fact that the 223rd was one of the first divisions to enter Iraq after the "Shock and Awe" aerial bombardment.
Well. The fact that the 223rd was one of the first "UNITS" to enter the war is almost true. Elements of the 223rd MI Bn entered Iraq early in the war. But those elements were attached and/or assigned to the 519th MI Bn (ABN TE). The HQ Section was safely in Kuwait awaiting movement orders (including DeBatto and Ford).
DeBatto calls the 223rd a "division". Anybody who knows military doctrine can tell you that a Division is a military unit composed of many brigades and battalions. For an "intelligence expert" to call a battalion "a division" makes you kind of wonder if he is truly that familiar with simple military structure. Is the trying to make it sound like the 223rd is a huge unit? Or is he just showing his ignorance in simple military doctrine and terminology.
Ford mentions the fact that "no medevac order" was written. That is not cover up material. That is just a sign of the fact that the headquarters section of the 223rd did not know how to operate in that environment. The 223rd MI Bn (L) (prior to the OIF I deployment) had never been to war. Many rules and regulations were broken or omitted not due to "conspiracy", but just plain ignorance and lack of knowledge. No person be it civilian or military is authorized into a military aircraft without being entered into the aircraft' Manifest. That is a matter of procedure. Mr. Ford's departure from the theater is a known fact. Everybody in the unit knew about it, and most were glad about it.
To finish this of, I would like to say that I personally know two of the soldiers Mr. Ford is accusing of "torture". He could have not picked two nicer people to make wild accusations against. These two are professionals, who have ethics and respect for human life and dignity. It pains me to hear that Mr. Ford is tarnishing their names and their military careers. To accuse somebody of war crimes is a tall order and it must be done with a clear head and appropiate evidence.
And even though a lot of people did not enjoy working for LTC Ryan or CPT Artiga, these two officers are hardly the types to try to cover up anything of this magnitude. LTC Ryan was media-savy and would have jumped at the chance to get his name in the news.
Mr. Ford might be trying to clear his name, but we in the 223rd know him for who he is: a wannabe navy seal who falsely claimed to be a doctor, and is now claiming that his team-mates are torturers. He shames the military intelligence community, he shames his THT team who did outstanding work in the field, but worse of all, he shames himself.
Out
By the way,
if you go to www.veriSEAL.org, a group dedicated to exposing phonies (in the special warfare community), you may see:
http://sec-global.com/services/ctp/vsg/profiles/fordfg/fordfg002-ftlewis.jpg
By the way, that is in fact the photopraph supplied by Salon.com
Maybe a person who has no regard for the UCMJ and Federal Law, might not have a problem making up stories about abuse. Maybe in fact, he is delusional and/or suffering from PTSD.
Wow. Thanks, John. Of course, I don't know you from Adam, but I assume that you are who you say you are, and know what you say you know. If Ford is a phony, thanks for letting us know. I'll update the post.
Of course, that torture is being used is a fact, and we don't depend on Ford's story to know it. But I'd love to hear your take on the issue, viz. why it's happening, who you hold responsible, what you think should be done.
Thanks for dropping in.
Fascinating. They also list outgoing Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage as a SEAL impostor.
Regarding torture.
I truly think is all about who you are as a person. Me? I thought I would be the one doing the abusing. I am in my mid-thirties, and took my job in the desert seriously. Getting the information from the prisoner/detainee will eventually save lives on your side, and kill and/or deny the enemy, thus making the coalition work much easier. I thought that maybe I would be the one who would do the "bad thing", extract information by use of cohersion or by intimidation or even by pain.
But luckily, I was raised differently. I think I owe it to my grandfather, who taught me to think for myself and gave me the choice to do the right things.
My code of conduct was a very simple one:
"treat the prisoners/detainees as you would like your family and friends to be treated in a similar situation". I know it sounds kind of corny, but it worked for me, and I held my team to that simple standard.
So honesly, I don't know why they are doing these things. Statistically, you do not get information that is accurate by torture or abuse. You get the prisoner talking, but that is it. The person being tortured, will say anything and everything to make you stop.
We train our people properly. Every person who deals with detainees has a rudimentary understanding of the Geneva Conventions. Shoot, even if you were asleep during the class, you still have common decency and ethics that guide you through life.
These torturers are just inmature little pieces of sh*t that will continue to demoralize the country and make it so that nobody will turst a soldier anymore.
As who is responsible for the deeds?
Simple. Everybody fries. From the little a**hole who did the torture, to the ones who witnessed it and did nothing about it, to the leaders who are supposed to know what their troops are doing, but turn the other way, to the leaders' leaders who are ultimately responsible for their subordinates.
Torture is no excuse. I think that maybe there is only one time in collection of information were torture is semi-admissible: the ticking bomb scenario. And even then, there is no guarantee of success.
Thanks for listening, and for being fair,
John.
John, thanks very much. I've posted about our exchange here.
