- "We forget what war is about, what it does to those
who wage it and those who suffer from it. Those who hate war the most,
I have often found, are veterans who know it." - Chris Hedges, New
York Times reporter and author of "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning"
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- For nearly 12 years, Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey was a hard-core,
some say gung-ho, Marine. For three years he trained fellow Marines in
one of the most grueling indoctrination rituals in military life - Marine
boot camp.
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- The Iraq war changed Massey. The brutality, the sheer
carnage of the U.S. invasion, touched his conscience and transformed him
forever. He was honorably discharged with full severance last Dec. 31 and
is now back in his hometown, Waynsville, N.C.
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- When I talked with Massey last week, he expressed his
remorse at the civilian loss of life in incidents in which he himself was
involved.
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- Q: You spent 12 years in the Marines. When were you sent
to Iraq?
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- A: I went to Kuwait around Jan. 17. I was in Iraq from
the get-go. And I was involved in the initial invasion.
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- Q: What does the public need to know about your experiences
as a Marine?
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- A: The cause of the Iraqi revolt against the American
occupation. What they need to know is we killed a lot of innocent people.
I think at first the Iraqis had the understanding that casualties are a
part of war. But over the course of time, the occupation hurt the Iraqis.
And I didn't see any humanitarian support.
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- Q: What experiences turned you against the war and made
you leave the Marines?
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- A: I was in charge of a platoon that consists of machine
gunners and missile men. Our job was to go into certain areas of the towns
and secure the roadways. There was this one particular incident - and there's
many more - the one that really pushed me over the edge. It involved a
car with Iraqi civilians. From all the intelligence reports we were getting,
the cars were loaded down with suicide bombs or material. That's the rhetoric
we received from intelligence. They came upon our checkpoint. We fired
some warning shots. They didn't slow down. So we lit them up.
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- Q: Lit up? You mean you fired machine guns?
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- A: Right. Every car that we lit up we were expecting
ammunition to go off. But we never heard any. Well, this particular vehicle
we didn't destroy completely, and one gentleman looked up at me and said:
"Why did you kill my brother? We didn't do anything wrong." That
hit me like a ton of bricks.
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- Q: He spoke English?
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- A: Oh, yeah.
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- Q: Baghdad was being bombed. The civilians were trying
to get out, right?
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- A: Yes. They received pamphlets, propaganda we dropped
on them. It said, "Just throw up your hands, lay down weapons."
That's what they were doing, but we were still lighting them up. They weren't
in uniform. We never found any weapons.
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- Q: You got to see the bodies and casualties?
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- A: Yeah, firsthand. I helped throw them in a ditch.
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- Q: Over what period did all this take place?
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- A: During the invasion of Baghdad.
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- 'We lit him up pretty good'
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- Q: How many times were you involved in checkpoint "light-ups"?
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- A: Five times. There was [the city of] Rekha. The gentleman
was driving a stolen work utility van. He didn't stop. With us being trigger
happy, we didn't really give this guy much of a chance. We lit him up pretty
good. Then we inspected the back of the van. We found nothing. No explosives.
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- Q: The reports said the cars were loaded with explosives.
In all the incidents did you find that to be the case?
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- A: Never. Not once. There were no secondary explosions.
As a matter of fact, we lit up a rally after we heard a stray gunshot.
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- Q: A demonstration? Where?
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- A: On the outskirts of Baghdad. Near a military compound.
There were demonstrators at the end of the street. They were young and
they had no weapons. And when we rolled onto the scene, there was already
a tank that was parked on the side of the road. If the Iraqis wanted to
do something, they could have blown up the tank. But they didn't. They
were only holding a demonstration. Down at the end of the road, we saw
some RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) lined up against the wall. That put
us at ease because we thought: "Wow, if they were going to blow us
up, they would have done it."
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- Q: Were the protest signs in English or Arabic?
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- A: Both.
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- Q: Who gave the order to wipe the demonstrators out?
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- A: Higher command. We were told to be on the lookout
for the civilians because a lot of the Fedayeen and the Republican Guards
had tossed away uniforms and put on civilian clothes and were mounting
terrorist attacks on American soldiers. The intelligence reports that were
given to us were basically known by every member of the chain of command.
The rank structure that was implemented in Iraq by the chain of command
was evident to every Marine in Iraq. The order to shoot the demonstrators,
I believe, came from senior government officials, including intelligence
communities within the military and the U.S. government.
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- Q: What kind of firepower was employed?
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- A: M-16s, 50-cal. machine guns.
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- Q: You fired into six or ten kids? Were they all taken
out?
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- A: Oh, yeah. Well, I had a "mercy" on one guy.
When we rolled up, he was hiding behind a concrete pillar. I saw him and
raised my weapon up, and he put up his hands. He ran off. I told everybody,
"Don't shoot." Half of his foot was trailing behind him. So he
was running with half of his foot cut off.
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- Q: After you lit up the demonstration, how long before
the next incident?
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- A: Probably about one or two hours. This is another thing,
too. I am so glad I am talking with you, because I suppressed all of this.
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- Q: Well, I appreciate you giving me the information,
as hard as it must be to recall the painful details.
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- A: That's all right. It's kind of therapy for me. Because
it's something that I had repressed for a long time.
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- Q: And the incident?
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- A: There was an incident with one of the cars. We shot
an individual with his hands up. He got out of the car. He was badly shot.
We lit him up. I don't know who started shooting first. One of the Marines
came running over to where we were and said: "You all just shot a
guy with his hands up." Man, I forgot about this.
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- Depleted uranium and cluster bombs Q: You mention machine
guns. What can you tell me about cluster bombs, or depleted uranium?
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- A: Depleted uranium. I know what it does. It's basically
like leaving plutonium rods around. I'm 32 years old. I have 80 percent
of my lung capacity. I ache all the time. I don't feel like a healthy 32-year-old.
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- Q: Were you in the vicinity of of depleted uranium?
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- A: Oh, yeah. It's everywhere. DU is everywhere on the
battlefield. If you hit a tank, there's dust.
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- Q: Did you breath any dust?
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- A: Yeah.
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- Q: And if DU is affecting you or our troops, it's impacting
Iraqi civilians.
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- A: Oh, yeah. They got a big wasteland problem.
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- Q: Do Marines have any precautions about dealing with
DU?
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- A: Not that I know of. Well, if a tank gets hit, crews
are detained for a little while to make sure there are no signs or symptoms.
American tanks have depleted uranium on the sides, and the projectiles
have DU in them. If an enemy vehicle gets hit, the area gets contaminated.
Dead rounds are in the ground. The civilian populace is just now starting
to learn about it. Hell, I didn't even know about DU until two years ago.
You know how I found out about it? I read an article in Rolling Stone magazine.
I just started inquiring about it, and I said "Holy s---!"
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- Q: Cluster bombs are also controversial. U.N. commissions
have called for a ban. Were you acquainted with cluster bombs?
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- A: I had one of my Marines in my battalion who lost his
leg from an ICBM.
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- Q: What's an ICBM?
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- A: A multi-purpose cluster bomb.
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- Q: What happened?
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- A: He stepped on it. We didn't get to training about
clusters until about a month before I left.
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- Q: What kind of training?
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- A: They told us what they looked like, and not to step
on them.
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- Q: Were you in any areas where they were dropped?
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- A: Oh, yeah. They were everywhere.
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- Q: Dropped from the air?
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- A: From the air as well as artillery.
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- Q: Are they dropped far away from cities, or inside the
cities?
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- A: They are used everywhere. Now if you talked to a Marine
artillery officer, he would give you the runaround, the politically correct
answer. But for an average grunt, they're everywhere.
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- Q: Including inside the towns and cities?
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- A: Yes, if you were going into a city, you knew there
were going to be ICBMs.
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- Q: Cluster bombs are anti-personnel weapons. They are
not precise. They don't injure buildings, or hurt tanks. Only people and
living things. There are a lot of undetonated duds and they go off after
the battles are over.
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- A: Once the round leaves the tube, the cluster bomb has
a mind of its own. There's always human error. I'm going to tell you: The
armed forces are in a tight spot over there. It's starting to leak out
about the civilian casualties that are taking place. The Iraqis know. I
keep hearing reports from my Marine buddies inside that there were 200-something
civilians killed in Fallujah. The military is scrambling right now to keep
the raps on that. My understanding is Fallujah is just littered with civilian
bodies.
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- Embedded reporters Q: How are the embedded reporters
responding?
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- A: I had embedded reporters in my unit, not my platoon.
One we had was a South African reporter. He was scared s---less. We had
an incident where one of them wanted to go home.
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- Q: Why?
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- A: It was when we started going into Baghdad. When he
started seeing the civilian casualties, he started wigging out a little
bit. It didn't start until we got on the outskirts of Baghdad and started
taking civilian casualties.
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- Q: I would like to go back to the first incident, when
the survivor asked why did you kill his brother. Was that the incident
that pushed you over the edge, as you put it?
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- A: Oh, yeah. Later on I found out that was a typical
day. I talked with my commanding officer after the incident. He came up
to me and says: "Are you OK?" I said: "No, today is not
a good day. We killed a bunch of civilians." He goes: "No, today
was a good day." And when he said that, I said "Oh, my goodness,
what the hell am I into?"
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- Q: Your feelings changed during the invasion. What was
your state of mind before the invasion?
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- A: I was like every other troop. My president told me
they got weapons of mass destruction, that Saddam threatened the free world,
that he had all this might and could reach us anywhere. I just bought into
the whole thing.
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- Q: What changed you?
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- A: The civilian casualties taking place. That was what
made the difference. That was when I changed.
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- Q: Did the revelations that the government fabricated
the evidence for war affect the troops?
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- A: Yes. I killed innocent people for our government.
For what? What did I do? Where is the good coming out of it? I feel like
I've had a hand in some sort of evil lie at the hands of our government.
I just feel embarrassed, ashamed about it.
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- Showdown with superiors Q: I understand that all the
incidents - killing civilians at checkpoints, itchy fingers at the rally
- weigh on you. What happened with your commanding officers? How did you
deal with them?
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- A: There was an incident. It was right after the fall
of Baghdad, when we went back down south. On the outskirts of Karbala,
we had a morning meeting on the battle plan. I was not in a good mindset.
All these things were going through my head - about what we were doing
over there. About some of the things my troops were asking. I was holding
it all inside. My lieutenant and I got into a conversation. The conversation
was striking me wrong. And I lashed out. I looked at him and told him:
"You know, I honestly feel that what we're doing is wrong over here.
We're committing genocide."
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- He asked me something and I said that with the killing
of civilians and the depleted uranium we're leaving over here, we're not
going to have to worry about terrorists. He didn't like that. He got up
and stormed off. And I knew right then and there that my career was over.
I was talking to my commanding officer.
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- Q: What happened then?
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- A: After I talked to the top commander, I was kind of
scurried away. I was basically put on house arrest. I didn't talk to other
troops. I didn't want to hurt them. I didn't want to jeopardize them.
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- I want to help people. I felt strongly about it. I had
to say something. When I was sent back to stateside, I went in front of
the sergeant major. He's in charge of 3,500-plus Marines. "Sir,"
I told him, "I don't want your money. I don't want your benefits.
What you did was wrong."
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- It was just a personal conviction with me. I've had an
impeccable career. I chose to get out. And you know who I blame? I blame
the president of the U.S. It's not the grunt. I blame the president because
he said they had weapons of mass destruction. It was a lie.
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