October 20th, 2008
PORTLAND, Oregon — Veterans from the U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, along with Iraqis, Afghanis, Vietnam veterans, and family members of U.S. military personnel converged in this west coast city over the weekend to share stories of atrocities being committed daily in Iraq, in a continuation of the “Winter Soldier” hearings held in Silver Spring, Maryland in March.
At the Unitarian Church downtown, some 300 people gathered to hear the testimonies, which left many in tears. The five-hour event was comprised of three panels; Voices of Veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, The Human Costs of War, and Building Resistance to War.
The goal of the event is to give veterans a platform by which to disseminate information about their experiences abroad to the general public.
“War changes people. You do not come out of a combat zone the same,” Iraq war veteran Chanan Suarez Diaz told the audience while moderating the veteran’s panel. “War is very numbing…it comes to a point that you see so much destruction you become numb. This bullshit about bringing democracy or liberation is nonsense — we’ve killed over one million Iraqis.”
Jan Critchfield, an Army National guard specialist, discussed his job working in Iraq as an army “journalist”, that in his words, “I was a propagandist, pure and simple.”
A somber Critchfield said, “I’m not proud of any of what I did over there — it was inhumane and it changed me as a person. I didn’t do anything but yell at people, push people around, and aim my gun at people.”
Other vets spoke as photos taken by soldiers were shown on a large screen above the stage.
Josh Simpson explained his work as an army counterintelligence agent in Iraq. “We would go to houses without any evidence, arrest people, and pay our source hundreds of dollars. This was common, it was a crazy cycle.”
“We were raiding houses every night in Mosul,” he continued. “You ransack their stuff, then ask our officer who he wanted to detain.”
The number of people detained was a measure of success for a unit, Simpson explained. “People’s mothers would be grabbing me, asking me why I was taking their child away, and I never had an answer. It’s terrible to push an elderly Iraqi woman away so you can take her child and load her into your Stryker vehicle, when you don’t even believe they belong there.” more...
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