Covering Iraq - Pt1

George W. Bush: There's some people who are now suggesting that if you don't want to use the military to maintain the peace, to do the civil thing, is it time to consider a civil force of some kind that comes in after the military that builds nations or all of that? Is that on your radar screen? I don't think so. I think what we need to do is convince people who live in the lands they live in to build the nations. Maybe I'm missing something here. I mean, we're going to have kind of a nation-building corps from America?

Speaker 2: Absolutely not.

George W. Bush: Our military is meant to fight and win war. That's what it's meant to do. And when it gets overextended, morale drops. But I'm going to be judicious as to how to use the military. It needs to be in our vital interest. The mission needs to be clear and the exit strategy obvious. I think what we need to do is convince people who live in the lands they live in to build the nation. At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq Iraq, to free its people, and to defend the world from grave danger. On my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Saddam Hussein's ability to wage war. These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign.

Jason Hurd: My name is Jason Hurd.

John Michael Turner: My name is John Michael Turner.

Mike Preissner: My name is Mike Preissner.

Speaker 6: My name is Sergeant Christopher Sean Goldsmith.

Hart Viges: My name is Hart Viges.

Speaker 6: My name is Jason Wayne Lemieux. Do you think that U.S. or U.N. forces should have moved into Baghdad?

Speaker 8: No.

Speaker 9: Why not?

Speaker 8: Because if we'd gone to Baghdad, we would have been all alone. There wouldn't have been anybody else with us. It would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq. Once you got to Iraq and took it over and took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place?

Jason Hurd: I served in central Baghdad from November From November of '04 to November of '05.

John Michael Turner: I served with Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines.

Mike Preissner: I was attached to the 173rd Airborne Brigade and deployed to northern Iraq.

Speaker 6: I was 19 years old when I was deployed to Iraq. I served 3 deployments to Iraq.

Hart Viges: I was deployed to Kuwait in February 2003.

Speaker 8: That's a very volatile part of the world. And if you take down the central government of Iraq, you can easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off. Part of it the Syrians would like to have, the west. Part of eastern Iraq, the Iranians would like to plant and fought over for 8 years. In the north, you've got the Kurds. And if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey.

Speaker 6: It's a quagmire.

George W. Bush: The Armed Forces of the United States are engaged in a struggle that will determine the direction of the global war on terror and our safety here at home. The new strategy I outline tonight will change America's course in Iraq and help us succeed in the fight against terror. It is clear that we need to change our strategy in Iraq. In our discussions, we We all agreed that there is no magic formula for success in Iraq. So I've committed more than 20,000 additional American troops to Iraq. Coalition forces will make every effort to spare innocent civilians from harm.

Jason Hurd: Individuals from my unit indiscriminately and unnecessarily opened fire on innocent civilians as they're driving down the road on their own streets.

John Michael Turner: On April 18th, 2006, I had my first confirmed kill.

Speaker 10: This man was innocent.

John Michael Turner: I don't know his name. I call him the fat man.

Speaker 6: When we came around a corner and an unarmed Iraqi man stepped out of a doorway, I remember the Marine directly in front of me raising his rifle and aiming at the unarmed man.

John Michael Turner: He was walking back to his house, and I shot him in front of his friend and his father.

Speaker 6: The next thing I remember is stepping over the dead man's body to clear the room that he came out of.

John Michael Turner: The first round didn't kill him after I hit him up here in his neck area. And afterwards, he started screaming. It looked right into my eyes.

Speaker 6: There weren't any weapons in the area except for ours.

John Michael Turner: So I looked at my friend, who I was on post with, and I took another shot and took him out.

Speaker 6: He watched the commander, who had given us the order to shoot anyone on the street, shoot 2 old ladies that were walking and carrying vegetables.

Jason Hurd: We were walking by a woman's house. She was outside in her garden doing some work.

Speaker 11: We had our interpreter with us, and our interpreter threw up his hand and said, Salam alaykum.

Jason Hurd: It means peace of God be with you. And he translated back to us what she said. She said, no, no peace of God be with you. She was angry and she was frustrated. And so we stopped and our interpreter said, well, what's the matter? What's— why are you so angry? We're here protecting you. We're here to ensure your safety. And that woman began to tell us a story.

Hart Viges: We were outside of Baghdad. This water treatment plant, it seemed like a pretty nice area.

Jason Hurd: Her husband had been shot and killed by a United States convoy because he got too close to their convoy.

Hart Viges: As we were leaving, 2 men with RPGs run out in front of us in the road.

Speaker 6: The rules also explicitly stated that carrying a shovel, standing on a rooftop while speaking on a cell phone, or holding binoculars Or being out after curfew were automatically considered hostile intent, and we were authorized to use deadly force.

Jason Hurd: He was not an insurgent. He was not a terrorist. He was merely a working man trying to make a living for his family. To make matters worse—

Hart Viges: Screaming, drop your weapon! Drop your weapons! They had RPGs slung on their backs.

Speaker 6: The standing rules of engagement for my unit were changed so that Marines didn't need to identify a hostile action anymore in order to use deadly force. They just had to identify hostile intent.

Jason Hurd: The Special Forces team got some intelligence that this woman was supporting the insurgency. And so they conducted a raid on her home, zip-tied her and her 2 children, threw them on the floor. And I guess her son was old enough to be perceived as a possible threat, so they detained him and took him away.

Hart Viges: I swung my rifle around, had my sight on the dude in the doorway.

Jason Hurd: For the next 2 weeks, For 2 years, this woman had no idea whether her son was alive, dead, or worse.

Hart Viges: When I looked at his face, he wasn't a boogeyman. He wasn't the enemy. He was scared and confused, probably the same expression I had on my face during the same time. He was probably fed the same BS I was fed. I put myself in that situation.

George W. Bush: The enemies you confront will come to know your skill and bravery.

Speaker 6: The people you live After going to Iraq, I quickly learned that it wasn't at all like I thought it was going to be. The people of Iraq were not grateful for us liberating them. They were angry because we were oppressing them.

Hart Viges: And then, with raids, we never went on a raid where we got the right house.

Speaker 6: And my commander told me that our mission was, and I quote, to kill those who need to be killed and save those who need to be saved. And that was it. It was a little boy.

Mike Preissner: I oversaw and participated in hundreds of interrogations.

Speaker 6: And he was holding up a stick, as if to mock having an AK-47, and he was pointing it at me, pretending to shoot.

Mike Preissner: This particular detainee, when I was sent And to interrogate him, he was stripped down to his underwear, hands behind his back, sandbag on his head.

Speaker 6: I trained my weapon on him. I positively identified my target.

Mike Preissner: My job was to take this metal folding chair and just smash it against the wall next to his head. He was faced against the wall with his nose touching the wall, while a fellow soldier screamed the same question over and over again. No matter what his answer, my job was to slam the chair against the wall.

Speaker 6: And thought, for a couple minutes, I hate these Iraqis. I hate these kids who throw rocks and bricks at me. This is my chance. I can kill this kid.

Mike Preissner: He kept going down. I just have to keep pulling him up and putting him against the wall. And my sergeant came along, and he picked him up and slammed him against the wall several times.

Speaker 6: It took me 4 or 5 minutes. It took me a lot of thinking to not pull that trigger that day. I could have killed a 6-year-old boy. I could have killed someone's son.

Mike Preissner: So I let him sit. And when I noticed my sergeant coming again, I would tell him quickly to stand up. And then I realized that I was supposed to be guarding my unit from this detainee. And at that point, I realized I was guarding the detainee from my unit.

George W. Bush: Helping Iraqis achieve a united, stable and free country will require our sustained commitment.

Mike Preissner: These were people These were human beings. I've since been plagued by guilt anytime I see an elderly man.

Jason Hurd: I have an image that is burned into my mind to this very day.

Mike Preissner: Like the one who couldn't walk, who he rolled onto a stretcher and told the Iraqi police to take him away.

Jason Hurd: And I remember a man running towards me at the front of the checkpoint carrying a young 17- or 18-year-old Iraqi guy.

Mike Preissner: I feel guilt anytime I see a mother with her children.

Jason Hurd: I looked down at him, and the guy was missing From here to here of his arm, and his forearm was only held on by a small flap of skin.

Mike Preissner: Like the one who cried hysterically and screamed that we are worse than Saddam as we forced her from her home. I feel guilt anytime I see a young girl like the one I grabbed by the arm and dragged into the street.

Jason Hurd: If a foreign occupying force came here to the United States, and regardless of what they told us, do you not think that every person that owns a shotgun would not come out of the hills and fight for their We were told we were fighting terrorists.

Mike Preissner: The real terrorist was me, and the real terrorism is this occupation.

Speaker 8: But for the 146 Americans killed in action and for their families, it wasn't a cheap war. And the question for the president, in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad and took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein, was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth? And our judgment was not very many.

Speaker 12: It was one of those things that's like recommended to you on the side, where it's like, you know, if I were a smart Marine, I would, I'd have an AK or something in my vehicle, just in case, you know, somebody accidentally gets killed, you know.

Speaker 10: I'm sorry.

Speaker 12: I wouldn't get in trouble for it, because, oh, well, it's obviously an insurgent. He has a weapon. So you're in the clear, because you killed an insurgent.

Speaker 13: When we arrived there, they gave us quite a few AKs, and they said, keep them in case something happens.

John Michael Turner: And that was about it.

Speaker 10: Who said that?

Speaker 13: It just— it just went from chain of command down to us, and actually it was pretty much everybody on the base.

John Michael Turner: When mistakes were made, we carried drop weapons. These weapons right here were taken from the Iraqi police, uh, back during our first deployment, and this is just an example that we would take their weapons and carry them around with us in case we did mess up and shot the wrong person.

Speaker 9: I've heard numerous circumstances of, uh, Of civilians getting killed, and then, you know, soldiers and Marines subsequently placing weapons on their bodies or placing wire on them.

Speaker 11: We would photograph all the people we had killed, and in the photographs there would be the object, either the shovel or the AK-47, and that was proof enough to protect the individual soldiers from getting tried for any sort of crimes.

Speaker 14: We hear of very few of the prosecutions that actually occur in Iraq and Afghanistan, but of those that have made the newspapers, I can think of 3 off the top of my head which involved a dropped weapon. So, yes, it does happen, and it happens more frequently than we would like to believe. And certainly more frequently than we know.

Speaker 11: You got a crew of 3 guys that use the same truck every single day. You know, you throw an AK-47 that you confiscated at a house in your truck, And you don't turn it in, you just keep it on that truck, that the AK-47 is always there. It's not something that you have to be reminded of. It's just always in the truck. So if it happens, it's like, more like, oh yeah, we got that AK-47.

Speaker 12: It goes down through the ranks. That stuff spreads real quick. And there was definitely no discouragement from doing it. So, you know, it got done. I carried drop weapons.

Speaker 14: I'm sorry?

Speaker 12: I carried dropped weapons myself, so—

Speaker 8: Where would you carry them?

Speaker 9: In our truck.

Speaker 12: I was actually in a, in a 7-ton truck, so there was plenty of space there. And we had so much gear and stuff crammed in there already, you know, it's not hard to stick it in there.

Speaker 9: How serious of an offense is it? I assume that it's essentially a criminal cover-up.

Speaker 14: Premeditated murder is a possible charge. Obstruction of justice is another. Conspiracy, if there's more than one individual. Conspiracy to murder, conspiracy to obstruct justice. If you lie to the NCIS or whoever the investigator is, Army CID, then you have a false official statement, as well. So there's a cascade effect from the single act of dropping that weapon.

Speaker 12: It almost made sense, like it was common sense, like you have to carry a drop weapon unless you want to go to prison for killing an Iraqi. You know, it's not that we wanted to go out there and kill a bunch of innocent Iraqis, but because of the nature of what was going on, it was almost guaranteed that it was going to happen. You know, so like it was a natural step to hear drop weapons and all that. Like it made sense.

Speaker 11: You take a commander, he's in charge of all these young men, and it's his responsibility to get them home safe. You know, what's going to look worse on him, losing a soldier and having to go tell his mother that he just died, or having some Iraqi that you can just throw in a dumpster or throw over a wall or hide under some brush or throw a dropped weapon on and say he was an enemy combatant, let's move, move out?

Speaker 12: I absolutely heard superior officers and higher-ranking officials talking about this stuff. You know? I'm not talking about like Sergeant, you know, so-and-so, or, you know, Lieutenant so-and-so. I'm talking like majors. And, you know, you got a lieutenant colonel talking to, you know, the sergeant major of the battalion, and it's like they're talking about this stuff openly. They're like, yeah, it's against the rules, but You've got to cover your ass somehow.

Speaker 14: Individuals don't want to have to deal with a wrongful death, don't want to have to deal with a murder. I mean, if the troops go out and kill somebody and CID has to be brought in, and suddenly you're being investigated for your performance in training your troops and then in reporting or not reporting What you knew or should have known, then this presents serious problems for the commander. And commanders may— some weaker commanders may be willing to even encourage this.

Speaker 12: The whole point of the drop weapons is to You don't tell anyone, because the second that word is even mentioned, you're going to get burned. You're going to get fried for it, you know? And that's well known. But it's also encouraged that you do carry them, just in case. It's just one of those ugly little things that they like to keep on the down-low, you know? I'm sorry.

Speaker 9: Isn't it something that they should be speaking out actively against?

Speaker 14: I think there's no question that seniors in the chain of command, they know about dropped weapons. They know that it goes on. When you're talking about platoon commanders and company commanders who are closest to the actual troops, of course they know about it in detail. As you go up the chain of command all the way to a 4-star general, I have no doubt that the most senior officers in Iraq and Afghanistan, all the way up to General Petraeus, Are aware of it. But what are they to do? You're— as long as you put high-powered weapons in the hands of 18- and 19-year-olds, bad stuff's going to happen once in a while. And the best we can do is aggressively prosecute those cases that we become aware of.

Speaker 13: Everything we did there, when we were there, it didn't seem wrong. Everything was right, because people that were in charge was people that we trust and people that we They have to take care of us. They tell us it's fine because they give us the rules of engagement and they do it. And we just— unfortunately, we're young and our brains are innocent and they control it. And when you tell a 19, 20-year-old kid that just, you know, sees his friends get killed and things blow up all the time, he don't care. If you tell him this, he'll do it.

Speaker 12: And you know something is wrong, but you feel like you have to do it if you want to survive and you want to go home to your family. It's almost like you're being put in a place where you have no choice except to be dishonest. And I think that's a difficult burden to place on people. I don't think it should be placed on people. I don't think that's right.

Speaker 14: The American public just doesn't know what's going on, and the American public doesn't care unless they've got a son, brother, husband, wife, sister over there. They just don't care. It doesn't touch them. And that's not necessarily their fault. I think it's our leadership's fault.

Speaker 12: I am certain that drop weapons are still getting used today. Things are still going on the way they were then. It's still getting used. I guarantee it.

John Michael Turner: Good afternoon. My name is John Michael Turner. I currently reside in Burlington, Vermont. I served with Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines, as an automatic machine gunner. There's a term, once a Marine, always a Marine. But there's also the term, eat the apple, F the Corps. I don't work for you no more. That was John Michael Turner stripping his medals and ribbons from his chest and throwing them into the audience, to the applause of attendees at Winter Soldier. Turner then went on to describe some of his time in Iraq. On April 18th, 2006, I had my first confirmed kill. This man was innocent. I don't know his name. I called him the fat man. He was walking back to his house, and I shot him in front of his friend and his father. The first round didn't kill him after I had hit him up here in his neck area. And afterwards, he started screaming and looked right into my eyes.

Speaker 10: Oh, my God.

John Michael Turner: So, I looked at my friend. who I was on post with. And I said, well, I can't let that happen. So I took another shot and took him out. He was then carried away by the rest of his family. It took 7 people to carry his body away. We were all congratulated after we had our first kills, and that happened to have been mine. My company commander personally congratulated me. As he did everyone else in our company. This is the same individual who had stated that whoever gets their first kill by stabbing them to death will get a 4-day pass when we return from Iraq. There was one incident where we got into a firefight just south of the government center, about 2,000 meters. We had no idea where the fire was coming from. And the way our rules of engagement were, pinpoint where the fire is coming from and throw a rocket at it. So, with that being said, we still didn't know where the fire was coming from. And an 84-millimeter rocket was shot into a house. I do not know if there was anyone in it. We do not know if that's where the fire was coming from. I think it was a house. But that's what was done. Please go to the next image. This man right here was my 3rd confirmed kill. As you can see, he was riding his bicycle.

Speaker 14: This—

John Michael Turner: later on in the day, we went ahead and we had CBS' Laura Logan with us, but she was with the other squad. And so she wasn't with us. So myself and 2 other people went ahead and took out some individuals because we were excited about the firefight we had just gotten into, and we didn't have a cameraman or woman with us. With that being said, anytime we did have embedded reporters with us, our actions would change drastically. We never acted the same. We are always On key with everything, did everything by the books. The man on the bicycle, he was left in the street for about 10 minutes until we realized that we needed to leave where we were. And his body was dragged about 10 feet to the right of him, where his body was thrown behind a rock wall, and his bicycle was thrown on top of him. Another thing that we used to do a lot was recon by fire, where we would go ahead and try to start a firefight if we felt threatened in any way, shape, or form. There's one particular incident where we were working with the Iraqi Army and the Iraqi Special Forces in downtown Ramadi, and with our squad and the Iraqi Army, there was also lieutenant colonels, majors, First sergeants and sergeant majors— sorry, sergeants major. With that being said, the Iraqi Army would go into the house, kick in the doors, and then go ahead and shoot. And there were loud bursts of machine gun fire. We thought we were taking fire, but then we later found out that it was them. House raids. Because we were a grunt battalion, we were responsible for going on several patrols. A lot of the raids and patrols we did were at night, around 3 o'clock in the morning, around there. And what we would do is just kick in the doors and terrorize the families. That was an image taken around 3 o'clock in the morning through night vision goggles.

Speaker 8: Wow.

John Michael Turner: And that is the segregation of the women and children and the men. If the men of the household were giving us problems, we'd go ahead and take care of them any way we felt necessary, whether it be choking them or slamming their head against the walls. If you go back to that one picture, that was one man that wasn't taken— that was taken care of. In a very bad way, because of all the wiring that he had. It would be considered IED-making material. On my wrist, there is Arabic for F you. I got that put on my wrist just 2 weeks before we went to Iraq, because that was my choking hand. And anytime I felt the need to take out aggression, I would go ahead and use it. Please go to the next picture. Next. There's an instance of detainees and how they were treated, in a nice manner.

Speaker 10: Next.

John Michael Turner: That is the Fatimat Mosque minaret. As you can see, it is ridden with bullet holes and holes in the top of it. Those were from mortars. And the next video that I'm going to show you is a tank round that went into that minaret. Where we weren't sure if we were taking fire or not.

Mike Preissner: Oh, no.

John Michael Turner: I'll actually— I'll talk about this one. This is after one of the guys in Weapons Company had gotten shot. This is a way that we would take out our aggression. For those of you who don't know, it is illegal to shoot into a mosque unless you are taking fire from it. There was no fire that was taken from that mosque. It was shot into because we were angry. Can you please play the next video?

Speaker 11: We are on Ice Cream trying to— Suppressed the blue and white minaret named Bani Maqawzara.

Speaker 10: Hello, Rizzo.

Jason Hurd: Hello, Rizzo.

Mike Preissner: Go ahead and take another tape around that building over at that mosque door.

John Michael Turner: Another round, Tito.

Speaker 10: Next image. That—

Speaker 8: OK.

John Michael Turner: With that being said, there's many more stories and incidents for me to talk about, although we don't have the time to. But this just goes to show you that— that was the aftereffect of the tank round. This just goes to show you that everyone sitting up here has these stories, and there's been over a million troops Yeah. So, the possibilities are endless. Next image, please. The reason I am doing this today is not only for myself and for the rest of society to hear, but it's for all those who can't be here to talk about the things that we went through, talk about the things that we did. Next image. Those four crosses and this memorial service were for the five guys in Kilo Company, Third Battalion, Eighth Marines that we lost throughout our our unit. We had eighteen that got killed. With that being said, that is my testimony. I just want to say that I am sorry for the hate and destruction that I have inflicted on innocent people, and I'm sorry for the hate and destruction that others have inflicted on innocent people. At one point, it was okay, but reality has shown that it is not, and that this is happening, and that until people hear about what is going on with this war, it will continue. I am sorry for the things that I did. I am no longer the monster that I once was. Thank you. Former Marine John Michael Turner fought with the 3rd—

Grant Collins: My name's Grant Collins. I'm a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War. I was a corporal in the 1st Battalion, 23rd Marines. I was in Iraq from August of '04 to May of '05. A few months after I was there, I mean, a lot of things weren't sitting right with me. The command structure, the missions that we were getting didn't make any sense. We're going after people, mujahideen, or muj, and they didn't have any idea which ones were the right ones. We're kicking in the wrong doors, terrifying children. I was in Iraq. Helicopters screaming over their heads at night, and I'm trying to calm the women and children while the men were dragged and separated out and completely humiliated in front of their families. In that culture, it's a very big deal to be treated with respect in front of your family, just as it is in ours. But in this, I mean, it can mean a lot of shame. And you were there for 2 years. When I really, really, really came to the point where I knew that what we were doing was absolutely morally wrong was when— well, a few days— everybody knows, a few days after Bush was reelected, we— or allegedly reelected— we—

Speaker 11: Boo!

Grant Collins: We began— we had already cordoned off Fallujah. And Cloy was in the first incursion in, in April, where we took heavy casualties and then decided maybe it wasn't the right time to go in. Maybe there's too many of them in there.

Speaker 12: So we—

Grant Collins: I was a part of the cordon, where we cordoned it off, and then we made operations to move in. And 2 o'clock in the morning, we went across the berm and instantly started taking casualties. But it started lighting up the city like you wouldn't believe, artillery strikes going in and planes flying in and dropping 500-pound JDAM bombs into, obviously, civilian areas. I mean, my platoon was tasked with moving down a certain sector from the north side of the city. And, of course, we had to take every building block that we went through. We had already come up to a, like a four-story apartment building, and we had encountered heavy resistance from there. And there was no way that we were going to be able to clear it with using people. So we called an airstrike on it. Well, a helicopter strike with it. And after a couple of them, the building just completely collapsed in. And I was thinking at the time when. How many civilians could have been inside there? I mean, just like any kind of conflict, there's people that are hiding inside of places that are unable to come out of these buildings out of fear that they're going to be killed by the enemy, or our enemy, for leaving, or out of fear that they're going to get shot in the streets, because when they do, they come out and they do get shot in the streets trying to get away.

Speaker 10: I'm sorry.

Grant Collins: We moved down another block, and we came up to a smaller building. And my squad was tasked with taking this building. And the doorway— there was fire coming out of the doorway, machine gun fire, and from the windows. So, I had an attachment of SMAWs, which are rockets, like a 2-man team of rockets. And you can use these rockets to blow holes.

John Michael Turner: Right.

Grant Collins: make another doorway, if you will, in the side of the building to— so, I gave the order for them to use the missiles on the building. So, we hit it. And then we stormed into the building. And there was— there was 214— well, I looked at about a 14-year-old kid, a 6-year-old kid, and a young— maybe it could have been her husband. I couldn't tell because he was so messed up. And a woman that was bleeding, but not severely. And all she was— she was screaming, why? Laish! Laish!

Speaker 6: And, um—

Grant Collins: And I broke down. I leaned up against the wall, and I— as the rest of my Marines cleared through the building, and I sat there with the corpsman trying to do something about it. But I started to cry. I started to cry. I wanted to rip my hair out, what hair I did have, and go nuts. And the woman, seeing my reaction, came up to me and put her hand on my cheek. Oh, my God. And said, inshallah, which is God's will. Because these people over there, it doesn't matter what bad things happen to them, that they will— they'll— they can accept it right away as God's will because they're deeply religious. But no, it wasn't God's will. It was my fucking order. I gave the order to fire those rockets into that building, and I killed her family.

Darrell Anderson: I'm sorry.

Speaker 10: Zero tolerance.

Grant Collins: And that's when I knew that I was put in a situation where I had to do that. I thought I had to do that to keep myself and my Marines alive, thinking that, well, that was the best thing I could do at the time. Well, I have to live with that decision. The from then on, I well of course we had the rest of that battle to go through, and I saw more more more more casualties, more civilians being killed. Well, I don't know. I've been I've been here a couple times. I've had to go back. I went back to Grand Rapids, Michigan to start school. But when Lauren told me that she wanted to come back, I I had to come back. On the 26th of August, I lost another friend. He was on his 3rd tour. And the thing is that just makes me really upset is now I'm starting to— their names are all blending together now. And she asked what his name was. And I gave her a name, a wrong first name and a wrong last name. And then I had a dream after all this, and I saw him in my dream, and he, in his typical joking attitude, said that I was fresh out of friends, that I needed to make some new ones. He's joking around, like he used to always say stupid shit like that.

Speaker 10: And then you met him?

Grant Collins: And, uh, anyway, it's, uh, it's my duty now. It is my duty, uh, to stand up and speak. And I will do this until this war is over.

Speaker 10: So, uh, that's all I have.

Speaker 14: A veteran of the Iraq War is Returning his medals and calling the war an illegal invasion.

Mike Preissner: Fox 4's Leslie Caro is back from the local office of Kansas Congressman Dennis Moore, where the veteran made his dramatic statement.

George W. Bush: Leslie?

Speaker 17: Phil, Specialist Mike Sanger returned his medals to Dennis Moore's office, he says, because Moore supported the war but doesn't support his needs as a veteran. Sanger walked into Moore's Overland Park office surrounded by media. Sanger served in Iraq for about a year as an Army military police officer. Now he believes the war is illegal. Saying countless Iraqis are dying for several corporations to make lots of money. Among his medals, Sanger returned the National Defense Medal, the War on Terror Medal, and a combat medal. Now, Moore was not in his office this afternoon. An aide listened as Sanger read the names of soldiers from Kansas who died in Iraq.

Mike Preissner: I don't think I'll have regrets.

Darrell Anderson: I have 2 young sons. One is 1 and a half and one is 3 years old, and I don't want them to be involved in any type of illegal occupation like this.

Speaker 17: Staffers from Moore's office issued a written statement saying, quote, it is not only our right but our obligation as citizens to ask questions of our government. While it goes on to say we appreciate Mr. Sanger's service, the statement says the staff respectfully disagrees with claims it did not try—

Darrell Anderson: My name is Darrell Anderson. I served in Baghdad, Iraq, from January '04 to July '04. But I'll start it off with my progression in Iraq. It started with 9/11, because that's what led to the war. Like Dennis was saying, that's what fueled the fire. That's the big part of the lie that led to the lies I witnessed in Iraq. So, I didn't join because of 9/11, because, to me, growing up as a kid in Kentucky, I was working 50 hours a week. I was selling drugs to pay my child support. I was broke. I was a hood rat. And I was growing up like you probably see a bunch of kids running around the ghettos around here.

Speaker 11: Right.

Darrell Anderson: When 9/11 happened, it didn't affect me. I didn't think about it, because I didn't have healthcare. I was working a job that paid me $5-something an hour. What do I care about these 3,000 people that died, when my friends are dying every day in the street? I didn't know it would come to affect me one day. But I also knew about the Desert Storm guys who became terrorists. But all of a sudden, in Kentucky, because it was some brown people—

Grant Collins: Right.

Darrell Anderson: People in Kentucky were looking at me like I was a terrorist, because I'm dark, I can grow a beard, you know, and I'm not as white as many as you people in the room. I'm white, but I'm not— like, I'm not that light. So I started to feel a lot of that, like, man, people are— you know, they're worried about— they're going to hit Fort Knox in Kentucky. And I'm thinking, this is racism. This is what feeds the fuel that Iraqis are beneath us and we can go kill them, because look it, they killed 3,000 innocent people. They don't care about innocent lives.

John Michael Turner: Right.

Darrell Anderson: In Desert Storm, we couldn't get into Baghdad because the people heard about the innocent people we killed in the bombings. Now, 3,000 Americans are dead. We don't care how many Iraqis you got to kill. Killing the civilians is part of war. And that's what they sent us into Baghdad with. I joined in '03 because I was broke. I needed money. But I was a young American kid. I wanted to fight in a war. I joined up. A month out of training, I arrive in Baghdad, Iraq, January '04. Saddam's been captured. And I get there, and the guys that I'm serving with have been there for 6 months already. They were there in '03. And I go, well, you know, I think it's come out that, you know, these people had nothing to do with 9/11. There was no Iraqi on those planes. We can see around here there's no al-Qaeda. There's no terrorist syndicates in Baghdad or Iraq.

Hart Viges: Right.

Darrell Anderson: Saddam had stamped them out. And I asked my buddies, well, you know, we're here to find weapons of mass destruction. And they laughed at me. And I said, well, you know, we're here to help the people. And they laughed at me. And I said, well, what's our mission? What's our goal?

Speaker 10: I really—

Darrell Anderson: you know, I thought we were going to find the people that did 9/11. I thought we were going to get these weapons of mass destruction. I thought we were going to help the people. And they're like, all we're trying to do Is make it home alive. And then I'm going to lead you in now to the other lies, because you guys know the lies, but I bled for these lies. I watched my brothers die for these lies. People had lost people on 9/11— one, two, family. I lost many of my friends and brothers, and I lost part of me for the stuff I did in Iraq. And then we go to January, February, March. You know, nothing's happening. And then Bush gives his speech about, uh, bring it on. And in April of '04, we lost 135 soldiers for this lie, for his lies, for his swagger as being from Texas or whatever. And the more soldiers we lost, the more our procedures changed, which leads into escalation. 9/11, we can go kill people now. We lost 135 guys.

Speaker 10: Yeah.

Grant Collins: Yes.

Darrell Anderson: We can kill people now. We were ordered, if fired upon, you know, hunker down, radio, wait for orders to return fire. In April, they told us, in a crowded area, if one person shoots at you, kill everybody, 'cause they're letting you— they're letting them attack you. They are no longer innocent if they're there at the time of the crime. Sounds like American rules. If your buddy commits a crime and you're there, you can get caught up on charges on it. But these aren't charges. These are death. We're killing people because they're there when someone else attacked us, because we believe that if we kill enough innocent people, they'll stop the people from attacking us. But what they don't realize is the innocent people we killed, it was their brother, it was their uncle that was trying to kill us, because we already killed his 3 children.

Speaker 14: Thanks.

Darrell Anderson: You roll into Baghdad, every single big apartment building is blown up. Every single apartment building in Baghdad has been broken to the ground by artillery and airplanes bombing. You cannot meet someone in Iraq who has not lost a family member. Could you imagine what we had done in America if on 9/11 everybody in America lost a family member? What would we be doing? Would we be talking about war? No, we'd be in the streets with weapons. And so people talk about, oh, these people killing American soldiers in Iraq, they're terrorists. They're not terrorists. They're wearing sandals and they got an AK.

Speaker 17: I'm sorry?

Darrell Anderson: And they got 14-year-old boys building bombs to kill these American soldiers, because we killed their family. So, we're done in Baghdad. We killed enough people. I was ordered to kill innocent people. We killed innocent people. When they shot at us, we shot everybody. We were done, you know. Every guy I served with was against the war. We believed 9/11 was a lie. This is in '04. Every soldier I served with believed 9/11 was a lie. We thought the people would expose the lie, know the war's a lie, and bring us home. I got friends that are there in Baghdad in '07 on their 3rd tour, 3 years in Iraq. And we're talking about it still when people are dying. We go down to Najaf on the way out, because we get extended. You did a year, you can't go home yet, you've got to go to Najaf. And we shoot hundreds of artillery rounds into downtown Najaf, areas that we couldn't shoot at before because they were religious places. But just like 9/11, the more soldiers they killed, The more we could do. It's all escalation. They've been escalating this war since 1990. And now they're finally— now, with this troop surge, they're going to put soldiers on every street like they're cops, because we've escalated. We've let them do it. We've let them do it because we stood by and we've talked about it. We've got to hit the streets. You've got to stop paying your taxes. You've got to stop feeding this fuel. Because if we believe 9/11 is a lie, then why are you paying your taxes still? Why are we still letting these soldiers die? And me, as now, I won't even talk to politicians about the war, because there ain't no point in it. Democrat, Republican, they're all profiteers of war. Even lots of antiwar organizations are profiting off my brother's pain. You know, no Iraq veterans are getting paid off this war.

Speaker 10: No.

Darrell Anderson: We're all just sitting in the street homeless. I've helped 5 AWOL soldiers in the US since I've been back. Well, I spent 2 years in Canada because I refused to go on my second deployment. I came back. I got kicked out of the military. So that was my— that's why I'm here. I'm a resistor. Because we're tired of waiting. We're tired of waiting for the politicians to stop the war. We're not going back for that third tour. I've been helping 5 AWOL soldiers in the United States, and no one's helping me help them. No antiwar organization, no— no one has helped me help these people. I'm digging money out of my broke pockets to help these people get off the street. And that's why I'm here today, is because You know, if you believe 9/11 is a lie, like I do, and all these soldiers going AWOL, you've got to help the GI resistance, 'cause we're going to stop the war. No one else is going to stop it. You could have a million protests, talk to a million politicians, expose 9/11, which you've got to keep doing. You've got to keep exposing 9/11. But that's not going to stop the war, 'cause everybody in America pretty much knows it. Everyone in the antiwar movement knows it. They won't talk about it, 'cause they're scared of the bad publicity that comes with it. But I don't care. I'm a resistor.

Speaker 10: Thank you.

Darrell Anderson: You know, I don't— the movement wouldn't even touch me because I was AWOL. So I'll say how it is. 9/11 was a lie. I know it. We're soldiers. We know it. So now I'm helping GI resistance. And that's what you've got to do. You've got to focus on 9/11, but like Dennis is saying, you've got to keep hurling, pushing stuff. There's 10,000 AWOL soldiers in the U.S. right now. There's a couple hundred in Canada, and they're starving. And we're dying because we believe what you people are telling us.

Speaker 10: No.

Darrell Anderson: You, you owe it to us to help us. All these Iraq veterans are dying because no one's helping us deal with this PTSD. No one's helping the soldiers. No one's supporting us. They just keep sending us back to war.

Mike Preissner: And I tried hard to be proud of my service, but all I could feel was shame. And racism could no longer mask the reality of the occupation. These were people. These were human beings. I've since been plagued by guilt anytime I see an elderly man, like the one who couldn't walk, who we rolled onto a stretcher and told the Iraqi police to take him away. I feel guilt anytime I see a mother with her children, like the one who cried hysterically I feel guilt anytime I see a young girl like the one I grabbed by the arm and dragged into the street. We were told we were fighting terrorists. The real terrorist was me, and the real terrorism is this occupation. Racism within the military has long been an important tool to justify the destruction and occupation of another country. It has long been used to justify the killing, subjugation, and torture of another people. Racism is a vital weapon employed by this government. It is a more important weapon than a rifle, a tank, a bomber, or a battleship. It is more destructive than an artillery shell, or a bunker buster, or a Tomahawk missile. While all those weapons are created and owned by this government, they are harmless without people willing to use them. Those who send us to war do not have to pull a trigger or lob a mortar round. They do not have to fight the war. They merely have to send us.

Speaker 9: Thank you.

Mike Preissner: They need a public who is willing to send their soldiers into harm's way. They need soldiers who are willing to kill and be killed without question. They can spend millions on a single bomb, but that bomb only becomes a weapon when the ranks in the military are willing to follow orders to use it. They can send every last soldier anywhere on Earth, but there will only be a war if soldiers are willing to fight. And the ruling class, the billionaires who profit from human suffering, care only about expanding their wealth, controlling the world economy, understand that their power lies only in their ability to convince us that war, oppression, and exploitation is in our interest. They understand that their wealth is dependent on their ability to convince the working class to die to control the market of another country. And convincing us to kill and die is based on their ability to make us think that we are somehow superior. Soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen have nothing to gain from this occupation. The vast majority of people living in the U.S. have nothing to gain from this occupation. In fact, not only do we have nothing to gain, but we suffer more because of it. We lose limbs, endure trauma, and give our lives. Our families have to watch flag-draped coffins lowered into the earth. Millions in this country without healthcare, Jobs or access to education, let's watch this government squander over $450 million a day on this occupation. Poor and working people in this country are sent to kill poor and working people in another country to make the rich richer. And without racism, soldiers would realize that they have more in common with the Iraqi people than they do with the billionaires who send us to war. I threw families onto the street in Iraq, only to come home and find families thrown onto the street in this country, in this tragic, tragic and unnecessary foreclosure crisis. We need to wake up and realize that our real enemies are not in some distant land. They're not people whose names we don't know and cultures we don't understand. The enemy is people we know very well and people we can identify. The enemy is a system that wages war when it's profitable. The enemy is the CEOs who lay us off from our jobs when it's profitable. It's the insurance companies who deny us healthcare when it's profitable. It's the banks who take away our homes when it's profitable. Our enemy is not 5,000 miles away. They are right here at home. If we organize and fight with our sisters and brothers, we can stop this war, we can stop this government, and we can create a better world.

Speaker 17: The Pentagon is refusing to comment on a once-secret sniper program being used in Iraq. It involves baiting suspected insurgents and then gunning them down at long range.

Speaker 11: CBS's David Martin reports.

Speaker 2: Snipers on all sides are a fixture of this war. Iraqi snipers pick off any American soldier they can draw a bead on. U.S. snipers lie in wait to catch insurgents in the act of planting roadside bombs. But some American snipers have taken it a step further, setting out pieces of bait such as detonating cords or rounds of ammunition and killing Iraqis who picked them up. Basically, we would put an item out there and watch it, the leader of a sniper team said in a sworn statement given in a case in which one of his men is charged with murder. If someone found the item, picked it up, and attempted to leave with the item, we would engage the individual, as I saw this as a sign they would use the item against U.S. forces. Gary Solis, who teaches the law of war, calls it illegal.

Speaker 14: It doesn't take a lawyer to know that you can't kill civilians merely because they stopped to pick up something that you've planted there.

Speaker 2: Army officials insist bait is only used against genuine threats. It's set out at night in areas where insurgents are likely to operate.

Speaker 14: Who knows for what purpose the individual is stopping to pick it up? They may be scavengers. They may want it for who knows what reason. That does not make them a lawful target.

Speaker 2: Baiting was developed by a little-known Army unit called the Asymmetric Warfare Group, created last year to come up with better equipment and tactics, particularly against roadside bombs. The details remain secret, but it seems like a low-tech solution with a high risk for error. David Martin, CBS News.

Speaker 11: Yeah, when, uh, one time our patrol So, many a times we would swerve to actually try to hit people or kids. And one of our drivers missed, and he opened his door, and he hit this child with his door. And these doors are plated with a lot of armor. They're really heavy. Just to pick up the door by itself, it almost takes 2 men to do it, to put the door onto the hinge. And these doors are just really heavy. And a moving vehicle opening his door and swinging it out and hitting this kid. Um, I'm, I'm sure the kid must have died.

Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.

Speaker 11: And, uh, I was in the truck. I was on the gun in the truck behind the truck that did it. And we finally pulled up to the base that we were headed to. We were on an escort mission. And, uh, you know, the, the TC came around and was screaming and yelling at the kid that did it. And I was like, thank God, you know, something is being done. And, uh, you know, the kid was left alone, and he's pissed off that he got Yeah. And, you know, I was asking him about it, and he said that he got in trouble because he endangered himself and his crew by opening the door. There could have been a possible IED. And it was at a time where we had to start rolling up our windows and make sure our windows were up, because the windows were bulletproof and blastproof from IEDs. We couldn't ride with our windows down, even though it was 140 degrees out. And, you know, I was just sad to see that that was the reason why this soldier was getting in trouble. And we set up these Geneva Conventions and these rules of engagement, but really it's just a liability. The truth is, once you're on the ground, there's unspoken rules of engagement, unspoken Geneva Conventions that we start to abide by. And we stick to the book, and we say that we're following the book, but you're with all these guys And something might happen. And, you know, it's very difficult to blame the soldier that's to the left of you after he does this atrocity, because you're all there. You're all dealing with this crap. And, you know, fundamentally, it's not this kid's fault that he's there and doing these horrible things. You know that it's the policy and the fact that you're there altogether that's what's wrong with this thing. And you wish you could take all of you and, you know, take them back home, but you're just stuck there. And, you know, I remember this one time we were at JCC, is a joint command center. It's kind of where they put all the mayor's office and the courthouse and the police station, all kind of in this one conglomerated area that's easily defended by the Iraqi army. We always used to go up there and check on things, or we used to pull in there to rest because it's semi-secure. And on one end, at the JCC in Calice, one of the little towns that we used to always go through, there was an elementary school. And the elementary school was completely overcrowded. Almost all the kids just played soccer all day in the field. And it was like 50 against 60, you know, in this little dirt soccer field with cut-off palm trees as the goalposts. And they used to let the kids Yeah. And all the kids go through the JCC to get to school because they thought it was safer than them going around on the outside. And there was some Christian organization that gave this entire town, all the kids, backpacks. So they had these stupid squarish blue backpacks that no American kid would have like the courage to wear. But every single Iraqi kid had these backpacks. And, you know, I used to— I used to actually inspect some of their schoolbooks and look at them. And, you know, some of them didn't have schoolbooks. I asked them why, and they said their father burnt them for fire or for heat or for cooking or whatever, or they just didn't have them. And we used to look at the pictures or whatever and talk about it. And I'd just try to engage the kids. And one day I was on the other side of the JCC, and the kids were coming through. I remember feeling kind of sad that I didn't get to interact with them.

Speaker 14: I remember seeing you.

Speaker 11: with the kids that day, because I was on their side on guard. And one of the kids exploded. I guess somebody put a bomb in one of these squarish black packs, and they detonated the kid when he got up to our Humvees. And everybody hit the ground, and, you know, kids scattered. I think 5 of the little kids were killed in the blast, and just one of our soldiers were injured. And I ran up to the Humvee, and I was just on the other side of the Humvee that got hit. And I ran up to it, and one of the kids' arms was on the opposite side of the Humvee. It must have just blown over the Humvee and landed. And I don't know— I don't know why. I must have felt a little guilty about it, or just something was going through my mind, and I kicked it under the Humvee, just to kind of get rid of it. Maybe I didn't want anybody else to see it. And I kicked it underneath the Humvee when I got there.

John Michael Turner: And you picked it up?

Speaker 11: And I was checking out our guys, and then we started doing triage on the little kids, and the medics finally came in. I kind of backed up. And it took almost hours to just clean all this crap up. And, you know, a lot of the guys were just laughing about it, about the way the kids blew up and whatever. I mean, you just learn to laugh at some horrible stuff when you're at war. It must be just a psychological way of dealing with something so horrific that you learn to laugh at it. But they cleaned all this up. They got the bodies gone and put them in bags and stuff. And after they left, it was about 15 minutes later, I remembered the arm underneath the Humvee. And I was like, oh shit. You know, they just took these kids away and all— they cleaned it all up and this arm was still there. And I looked under and I got the arm out and I showed it to my sergeant. And he pointed over at the trash pile. And I was like, I'm not going We're not going to throw this kid's arm away. We should figure out who it belongs to. And the guy took the arm, walked it over to the trash pile, threw it on the trash pile. And, you know, that was that. So, you know, it's just a very skewed environment. People, you know, we just— you just lose your mind. You don't know how to deal with things properly. And I've been in firefights where, after it was over, you know, most of the firefights I've been in, You know, I was a sniper, but I did a lot of scout missions, so I was a gunner on a Humvee a lot of times. And usually we'd see a muzzle flash off in the distance. We didn't even see anybody. It was usually night. And we'd just see the muzzle flash and maybe some pinks on our Humvees, if they were lucky enough to even get close. And we would just stop the trucks. We'd have 4 Humvees, which was pretty much a minimum of what you could drive out with. On top of each Humvee is a heavy automatic weapon, Mark 19.

Speaker 10: Yeah.

Speaker 11: M119, possibly, which is a fully automatic, belt-fed grenade launcher, where you hold down the butterfly and grenades shoot out the other end, at an effective range of 2,000 meters, a .50-caliber machine gun, where the bullets leave the barrel and they actually swell to the size of salt shakers, and, you know, 240 Bravos, that are one of the most rapid-firing machine guns we have in the military, all trained on wherever this muzzle flash was coming from and just shooting and engaging.

Speaker 10: And—

Speaker 11: A lot of times these guys would just fire off a couple shots, get down and run. Before we even stopped, the guy's gone. And he must have hid behind, you know, usually a house that didn't belong to him. And we just lit up the entire house and just destroyed the house. And we kick off on, you know, after all the firing was done, you know, we kick off on little missions and just kind of raid the house. We kick in the front door, look through the area, just turn the place over. Usually we found innocent people inside, you know, mom and dad dead, little Johnny, little Mary dead, you know, and there's nothing you can really do about it. You know, it's all collateral damage in the scheme of things.

Speaker 8: Mm-hmm.

Speaker 11: Well, that's kind of shit that sticks with you. And you go through that, and I see guys laughing, I see guys crying, I see guys praying, I see guys cursing, you know, all have experienced the same exact thing, you know. But everybody's kind of reacting different to it. So it's just kind of a jumbled mess, and it's chaotic. And it's not like the movies, where everybody's moving in an organized way. Most of our combats were, you know, where we were in firefights, was basically we were all just shitting ourselves. And our training and our love for the men that we're fighting with is the only thing that keeps us in check from just turning around and running and just leaving it all behind. And you try to squeeze yourself into, you know, hiding behind cover. I You're think the most trying important thing to understand to is that find a signpost that you know you can't hide behind, but you're trying. You know, you're trying the best you can. And it's just a scary and chaotic mess. And the rules of engagement, they go out the window. Geneva Conventions, they go out the window. If I could drop a nuclear missile on some of these towns when I was in a firefight, just of pure fear of what was going on, I would have done it, just to end it all right there. And these commanders that have the these weapons available, like white phosphorus and MK-77, which is the modern-day napalm, you know, they use them, because they're responsible for getting these kids home alive. And often that becomes their sole mission in Iraq.

Speaker 10: Thank you.

Speaker 9: If this video disgusts you, it should. It happens daily in Iraq. The rules of engagement in Iraq are a joke. This needs to end, and we need to bring the soldiers home now.

John Michael Turner: There's some remarkably disturbing footage out today of a U.S. helicopter —engaging with some folks in Baghdad in 2007. Do you think that that sort of activity on its face appears to have been appropriate?

Speaker 14: Obviously, it is very graphic in nature, and it's— and extremely tragic.

Speaker 10: Once you get on, there's open line of fire.

Speaker 14: Our military will take every precaution necessary to ensure the safety and security of civilians, and particularly those That report in those dangerous places on behalf of news organizations. You're on three to engage over.

Speaker 10: All right, we'll be engaging. Roger, go ahead. Goddamn it! Coming around. Just fucking once you get on them, just open them up. You're clear. All right, firing. Let's stay lined up. Let me know when you have them. Watch it. Light them all up. Come on, fire!

Speaker 9: And the rules of engagement in 2007 when this happened was, if you feel threatened by anybody, you're able to engage that person. Many soldiers felt threatened just by the fact that you were looking at them, so they fired their weapons at anybody who was looking at them, because I felt threatened. We were told that if we were to fire our weapons at people and we were to be investigated, officers would take care of you. We were given orders for 360-degree rotational fire whenever we were hit with an IED. We were told by our battalion commander to kill every motherfucker on the street. Many soldiers would not do that. We decided that we were going to shoot into the rooftop of buildings, because if you didn't fire, Right. The NCOs in your platoon would make your life hell. This happens on a daily basis. I've watched it with Bradleys destroying vans full of children who were in the way when an IED went off. The destruction of the Iraqi people happens on a daily basis— people just going to the markets, people just going to work. This is my experiences that day. That day started out much like many days in Iraq. We were woken up about 2:30 a.m. to prepare for a mission, one of many that seemed pointless. Our battalion commander called them Ranger Dominance, but many of the soldiers, such as myself, dubbed them Ranger Dumbass. These missions consisted of 2 companies walking through New Baghdad, Unprotected from snipers and IEDs. We dreaded them and despised our battalion commander because of them. That morning, we gathered at the gate of the FOB Ras Samaya, preparing for our death march into town. It was now about 4:00 a.m. in the morning when we heard the sirens for incoming. Boom! First one, not very far away from us. Boom!

Speaker 2: This one a little bit closer.

Speaker 9: I was there. We were now used to this by now, and although afraid inside, we knew that if we ran for cover, we'd look like cowards in the eyes of some of our NCOs. So the majority of us just stood there, praying that a mortar wouldn't land on us. The bravado of trying to look hard was what we lived by. We were 1st Infantry, the toast of the Army, the favorite son. We were the 216th Rangers. We prided ourselves on being tougher than anyone else. Thank you. But looking into the eyes of these 18 and 19-year-old kids, you could see the fear, the uncertainty. Finally, the mortars stopped. They know we're coming, said one of the privates in my squad. I tried to reassure him that they didn't know we were coming that day. It was just a coincidence, although not believing my own statement myself. We began our march in the early morning hours. There was hardly anyone on the streets. It was quiet, almost peaceful. It was peaceful. You could get caught up in the silence if you weren't so afraid of being shot in the throat or in the thigh by a sniper. Snipers usually went for these areas because they were unprotected— the throat for obvious reasons and the thigh for your femoral artery. Many of us usually walked with the buttstock of our M4s close to our neck for an almost futile attempt at protecting ourselves. Our mission that day was to cordon off an area of New Baghdad and perform what is called knock-and-searches, which basically consists of us knocking on the doors of homes, asking to search the home for militia-related materials, weapons, or bomb-making materials. Although it was more of a demand, and if they refused, they gave us proper cause to destroy the home by searching more vigorously. The hours passed of doing this, and we were finding absolutely nothing, getting extremely hot and agitated. Some of us began messing around taking pictures, because there was nothing else to do. Finally, we were informed that we were closing up shop. I remember being thankful, because it was over 110 degrees that day, and the hot water we were drinking was providing no relief. We started funneling into an alleyway to leave the area, when some locals on rooftops above us started firing their AK-47s at us. We took cover along a wall, and we were returning fire. I'm sorry, I can't hear you. We could hear other fire coming from another platoon just a few blocks from us, as well. On the net, we could hear that they were taking small arms as well as RPG fire.

Speaker 10: You see all those people standing down there? Stand by, 152. Roger.

Speaker 8: Affirm.

Speaker 10: We have 5 to 6 individuals with AK-47s. Request permission to engage. Roger that. We have no personnel east of our position, so you are free to engage, over.

Speaker 6: You're clear.

Speaker 10: All right, clearing. Let me know when you get them. We'll shoot. Light them all up.

Darrell Anderson: Come on, fire!

Speaker 9: That's when I heard it, the very distinct fire of an Apache 30mm cannon. And again and again, over and over. It was very close. We need to move to that position now, came over the net.

Speaker 10: All right. We just engaged all 8 individuals.

Speaker 9: Myself and the team of soldiers I was with began running in the direction where we heard the Apache fire.

Speaker 10: Goddamn it, Kyle. Sorry. I hit him. I hit him. Got a bunch of bodies laying there. Oh, yeah, look at those dead bastards.

Hart Viges: Nice.

Speaker 10: Good shoot. Thank you.

Speaker 9: I was not even close to prepared for the carnage that I was about to walk onto. I saw what appeared to have been 3 men on a corner.

Speaker 10: Got that big pile of bodies to the right on the corner. We got dismounted infantry and vehicles. Over.

Speaker 9: It was an extreme shock to my system. They didn't look human. I know that they had to be at one time, but the destroyed carnage that I was looking at didn't appear to be. Then there was the smell. The smell was unlike anything I've smelled before. A mixture of feces, urine, blood, smoke, and something else indescribable. I saw an RPG next to one of the men and an AK-47.

Speaker 10: We also have one individual, uh, appears to be wounded, crawling, trying to crawl away. He's getting up. If he has a weapon in his hand— All I gotta do is pick up a weapon. Come on, buddy. If we see a weapon, we're going to engage. Now, Bushmaster, we have a van that's approaching and picking up the bodies. Where's that van at? Right down there by the body.

Speaker 2: Okay, yeah.

Speaker 10: Bushmaster, Crazy Horse, we have individuals going to the scene. Looks like possibly, uh, picking up bodies and weapons. Hey, we need to stop that so we can get down there. Roger. Break. Crazy Horse 1-8, request permission to, uh, engage. Picking up the wounded. Yeah, we're trying to get permission to engage. Come on, let us shoot. Bushmaster, Crazy Horse 1-8. They're taking him. Bushmaster, Crazy Horse 1-8. This is Bushmaster 7, go ahead. Roger, we have a black SUV or bongo truck picking up the bodies. Request permission to engage. This is Bookmaster 7, roger. This is Bookmaster 7, roger. Engage. 1-8, engage. Clear.

Speaker 8: Come on.

Speaker 10: Clear. Clear. Orange is clear. Defense disabled. Go ahead, shoot it.

Hart Viges: Bow left.

Speaker 8: Clear left.

Speaker 10: Oh yeah, look at that, right through the windshield. All right, 5 individuals in that truck, so I'm counting about 12 to 15. All right, bring the trucks in, cordon this area off. Viper 52, radio. Yes, Viper 52 departing zone 208 for show 4. We call frequency. I just drove over a body.

Hart Viges: Really?

Speaker 10: Maybe it was a visual illusion, but it looked like it. Oh, they're dead. So a van that was engaged, looks like a kid, over.

Speaker 9: Crying. I hear crying. Not cries of pain, but that of a small child who had just woken up from a horrible nightmare.

Speaker 10: Yeah, it looks like we got some, uh, slight movement from, uh, the van that was engaged. Looks like a kid. Over.

Speaker 9: I saw that there was a minivan, and the cries appeared to be coming from it. Myself and another soldier, a 20-year-old private, walked up to the passenger side van and looked inside. The private that I was with reeled back, began to vomit, and quickly ran away. What I saw when I looked in the van was a small girl, about 4 years old, on the passenger side of the bench seat. She had a severe belly wound and was covered in glass.

Speaker 10: Roger, we need— we need to evac this child. She's got a wound to the belly.

Speaker 9: The glass was in her hair and also in her eyes. Next to her, half on the floorboard, with his head resting on the seat, was a boy about 7 years old. He wasn't moving, and from the severe wound to the right side of his head, my first thought My first thought was that he was dead. In the driver's seat was who I immediately concluded must have been these children's father, by the way he was hunched over the children in a protective manner. There was no way that the father had survived. I immediately grabbed the little girl and screamed for a medic. The medic and myself went into a house behind the van. There was a local man hiding in fear in his kitchen of his home.

Speaker 2: Oh, my God.

Speaker 9: I yelled out to him to help me. He stood up and quickly grabbed a bucket of water, which the medic and I used to clean the girl off. I pulled as much glass from the little girl's eyes as I could so that she can blink, the whole time thinking, fuck, what the fuck, these are babies.

Speaker 10: Hey, I need to get the brass to drop ramps. I got a wounded girl. Will you take the rest of mine? Roger. I've got 11 Iraqi KIAs, 1 small child wounded, over. Ah, damn. Oh well. It's their fault for bringing their kids to a battle. That's right.

Speaker 9: See, my son was born May 31st, 2007. I had yet to see him. And I had a daughter who was barely older than this girl. The medic radioed in that the little girl needed to be evacuated because there was nothing else he can do here. I handed the child to the medic, who then ran the girl to a waiting Bradley armored vehicle. I walked back to the van. I don't know why or what told me to go back to the van. There was just something making me go back to the van. I looked inside the van again. Did the boy just move? Holy shit, the boy just moved. I grabbed the boy from the van and held him against my chest. I was screaming at this point, the boy's alive, the boy's alive. I started running to the Bradley in hopes that it wasn't leaving. At this point, the boy looked up at me. Then his eyes rolled back, and my heart sunk. It's okay, I have you. It's going to be okay. Don't die. Don't die. I squeezed him a little bit tighter. I put him into the Bradley as gently as I could.

Speaker 10: Can you tell the battalion that 2 civilian children casualties are coming back to rest in my— Roger. That's a negative on evac of the 2 civilian kids to Rusty. They're going to have the IPs take them up to a local hospital. Over.

Speaker 9: What the fuck are you doing, McCourt? It was my platoon leader. You need to quit worrying about these fucking kids and pull security, he screamed. At the time, the only thing I could think of was, roger that, sir. I said immediately and went to the rooftop to pull security. While on the roof, one of the soldiers took a picture of me. I didn't realize that the blood of the children was all over the front of me. Later that day, when we returned to the FOB— forward operating base— everyone pretty much ignored what had happened. I couldn't. I went to my room to try to clean the children's blood from my uniform, fighting back tears from what I had seen. My emotions were taking over. The very thing that the Army taught us not to do in war, I was doing. My humanity and love for the human race was overcoming everything they taught me. My mind was reeling, the thoughts controlling every ounce of me. It was then I decided I needed to go see a mental health counselor. I went to a staff sergeant who was in my line and asked to speak with him. When I told him my feelings and how I was unable to deal with properly, in the Army sense, with what I had just witnessed, his response was, you need to suck that shit up. Quit being a pussy and get the sand out of your vagina. If you go to mental health, there will be repercussions, like being charged with malingering. I couldn't believe that needing to talk to somebody could constitute a crime in the Army. But like a good little soldier, I said, roger that.

Speaker 10: I'm sorry.

Speaker 9: And went back to my room to cope the only way I knew how, which was by watching as many movies and listening to as much music as I could to escape the reality of what I was. I became extremely angry. I yelled at everyone. I yelled and was angry at my soldiers, my family, the civilians back home. But mostly I was angry with myself. I hated myself for what I was a part of. There were many days in Iraq that I dreamed for an IED or a sniper to take me out and end the pain I was feeling. Ever since that day, I live with this. It's burned into my head. I don't need to watch the movie. I see it every day. I hear the cries of the children when I close my eyes. I smell the smells. When it's quiet, I see the carnage like a slideshow.

Speaker 14: Oh, my God.

Speaker 9: I'm hoping one day I can sleep a full night without the memories coming back to haunt me, the innocence lost, my friends lost. Hopefully one day I won't be so angry. Hopefully one day I'll help others see that they're not alone in valuing life. Thank you.

Speaker 10: I'm hoping one day I can