I put my hands up and I waited. I knew if I grabbed the crutches he would shoot me before he realized that they were crutches and not a weapon. An apology would have done nothing for me. So I decided to just sit there until he opened the door.
He continued shouting at me and when the other soldiers heard him shouting the translator came. There were about fifty soldiers and one translator. And translators in Iraq, they got paid about—about ten to fifteen dollars a day at a time. The rate is still less than forty dollars a month. So these translators are not the best. And who wants to work this kind of job anyway? You are a moving target for people who hate the Americans. After work, you go home to your family in a civilian neighborhood and the soldiers go home to their base. There is no way to do it.
So the translator came and he didn’t know the word for disabled. So he translated as best he could—he looked at the car and he looked at my crutches inside—and then he said, “Oh, he’s injured in his leg.”
When the soldiers heard that, they assumed I had been injured in a firefight. One of the soldiers threw open the door and grabbed me out of the car, put me on the ground, put the gun over me, and started swearing at me saying, “Where did you get injured?”
And then I decided, “I think it’s time to speak English.” So I spoke with them in English and he was like, “Man, why you didn’t say that from the beginning?”
After this event, I knew that any contact with U.S. soldiers could be deadly. I have seen it happen to many other people. Many of my friends have been shot accidentally. I began counting my friends—how many of them have died since the start of this occupation. But after I got to thirty-four I decided to stop because I could never catch up. There’s always another death, and then another.
I want to tell you about another incident. I was driving one night, around 9 p.m., which is very late in Iraq. I was on the highway just by myself driving really crazy because I wanted to get home before I ran into any soldiers or the people who were trying to kill them.
And there was a voice in my head saying “This is very dangerous.” There were no other cars around. Then I looked in my rearview mirror and there was another car—a white pickup truck behind me. And the guy who was driving it, he looked like a farmer or something. So I decided that I would let him go in front of me so if something happened to him, I would know there was danger ahead.
I felt bad about it afterward, but.…
So this farmer was driving about a hundred meters in front of me—and I saw these three tanks. They were in the middle of the empty highway. And these tanks had no lights, no sign—nothing.
And there were about thirty soldiers and they were lying on the ground in a shooting position. And I didn’t see them at first, I saw them after they saw our lights and the cars coming. They turned on one of the tank’s lights and I was wondering, “Is that a tank? Is it something else?”
So I decided to slow down. And then on the loudspeaker they said, in English, “Stop—deadly force is gonna be used.” I heard that and I understand English so I stopped right away. But the other car, he didn’t understand and went right through them. And then I heard—I heard them shoot him. They shot him and I felt like I killed him—I put him in front of me. That should have been me. Should be me.
I was just stopped there, watching them, just frozen there. And I saw them drag him out of the truck. I watched the American soldiers pull the canvas cover off the bed of his pickup. They looked inside the bed and it was just vegetables. It was lettuce—lots of lettuce. And I wondered to myself, “Wow—you could be killed for transporting lettuce in this country.”
In December 2004 my friend was killed in my car because the killers thought he was me. So I decided that was gonna be my last day in Iraq.
For all the people who talk about progress in Iraq, who think the American military should stay in Iraq, I have a simple question: “What about you going to Iraq?” I will buy your ticket. You go and enjoy your time in Iraq. If you think it’s great, go there—stay there. I will let you stay in the house I left behind. The Americans have a base right across the street from it. They have ten snipers just pointing at my house and my neighbors’ homes.
I don’t know how many of you have seen Iraqis except the soldiers. But actually Iraqis are human beings–they are like you. They have families. They have friends. And actually they have bigger families than you.
My family is five brothers and five sisters. We are eleven. I stopped counting how many nieces and nephews that I have. I think I have fifty-three. And all of this from one mother and one father.
I really respect those soldiers that are the ones that don’t want to deploy again, and the soldiers that left the military when they noticed what they were doing and what they should do. I really think they’re heroes.
Here at Winter Soldier, I have had the opportunity to speak with many veterans and have really enjoyed it. I wish I had met them back home in Iraq. But many of them told me, “No, you didn’t want to see us there.” Over there, it would have been combat, but now we are talking human to human.
Today, I think if these veterans saw me back over there in the same situation, they would never shoot me. They’re the same people, but they’ve realized that I’m a human just like them, and actually speak the same language. So I think if the language is a problem, today I’m gonna teach you all Arabic. That’s what I’m gonna do.
And I’m gonna start teaching you the words that we should all learn. The first word you should learn is my name. My name is Salam—it means “peace.” So this word—you should learn it. And if all Americans learned this word, I think they will never, ever go to other people and steal their peace.
Divide and Conquer: Gender and Sexuality in the Military
Introduction
Dehumanization bred through training and combat stress not only leads to brutality against the “enemy,” it also leads to discrimination and brutality within the ranks. Women, gays and lesbians, and heterosexual men perceived as “weak” are often targeted.
The large numbers of female soldiers on the battlefields is one of the key differences between the Iraq War and previous conflicts. More than 160,000 female soldiers have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, compared with the 7,500 women who served in Vietnam and the 41,000 who were dispatched to the Gulf War in the early ’90s.1 Today, women make up 15 percent of U.S. active-duty forces and 11 percent of soldiers deployed to the front.2 These women, who are already risking their lives in misguided occupations, must often fight a second battle against servicemembers wearing the same uniform. Nearly a third of female veterans say they were sexually assaulted or raped while in the military, and 71 percent to 90 percent say they were sexually harassed by the men with whom they served.3
In the testimony that follows, these soldiers describe how the chill and pain of sexual assault followed them through basic training and into the conflict zone. Comprehensive statistics on the sexual assault of female soldiers in Iraq have not been collected, but early numbers revealed a problem so bad that in 2004 former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered a task force to investigate.4 The investigation did not result in any prosecutions, but rather in a new website to clarify that sexual assault is illegal. Regular classes on sexual assault and harassment were also initiated, but many servicemembers do not take them seriously.
When a rape or sexual assault occurs within the military, reporting it is intrinsically difficult. Such incidents usually occur in a setting where the victim lives and works. In most cases, this means that victims must continue to live and work closely with their perpetrators, often leading to increased feelings of helplessness, powerlessness, and being at risk for further victimization. It is usually impossible to remain anonymous. Often the victim must rely on the perpetrator (or associates of the perpetrator) to approve or provide medical and psychological care. “Perpetrators are frequently peers or supervisors responsible for making decisions about work-related evaluations and promotions,” notes the
VA’s National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. “In addition, victims are often forced to choose between continuing military careers during which they are forced to have frequent contact with their perpetrators or sacrificing their career goals in order to protect themselves from future victimization.”5
If heterosexual women face barriers in reporting discrimination within the military, the situation is even worse for gay men and lesbians. Gay and lesbian Americans are increasingly accepted in civilian society and (at present) allowed to marry in California and Massachusetts, but are not allowed to serve openly in the Armed Forces. If a gay soldier reports abuse to his or her chain of command, the servicemember can be immediately expelled from the military for violating the Pentagon’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. Over eleven thousand servicemembers have been expelled since President Bill Clinton implemented the policy in 1994.5
Military leaders have stuck by this discriminatory policy even as they have loosened recruiting standards for everyone else. In 2006 an estimated one in five soldiers being recruited to fight in Iraq received a “moral waiver” in order to enter the service. From 2003 to 2006 the military allowed 106,000 people to enter with troubled histories, including 4,230 convicted felons, 43,977 individuals convicted of serious misdemeanors such as assault, and 58,561 convicted illegal drug offenders.7 In the army, allowable offenses include making terrorist threats, murder, and kidnapping.8
Why, veterans at Winter Soldier asked, does the Pentagon allow kidnappers and murderers to join the military, but not openly gay men and lesbians? Consider this question as you read their testimony on “Gender and Sexuality in the Military.”
Jen Hogg
Sergeant, New York Army National Guard, Track Mechanic
Deployments: Ground Zero after 9/11
Hometown: Buffalo, New York
Age at Winter Soldier: 26 years old
I attended basic training in 2000 and went through Advanced Individual Training (AIT) from November 29, 2000, until March 1, 2001. During AIT, after the Supreme Court ended the Florida recount in Bush v. Gore, a male E7 teacher, during his introduction of the class for that day, stated that he was glad that Bush was going to be president because now we won’t have all these fags in the army.
I did not report the incident because I felt it would single me out and cause repercussions. I felt as though I would easily fit the stereotype of a lesbian physically and I was in a specialty that was heavily male. I heard the word “fag” used on a daily basis by other soldiers while in uniform. In basic training I helped a straight soldier report to our drill sergeant another female recruit constantly calling her a “dyke” due mostly to what I suspect was her short hair. The woman had a boyfriend at home so I felt helping her to report the name-calling was safe for her and necessary because the label “dyke” can cause someone to be kicked out of the military. I believe the drill sergeant told the offending woman to “cut it out.” The incident later in AIT did not hold the same level of safety, as I was vulnerable both as a lesbian myself and as a lower rank of the E7.
For myself harassment meant verbal harassment. When I removed my battle dress uniform top in hot environments I would often hear a comment about my body such as “where you been hiding them puppies” in reference to my breasts. Since I generally liked the soldier who said it I said nothing to him, not wanting to ruin our working relationship.
Male soldiers also tried to do my job for me. I was the smallest soldier and would have male soldiers politely take a wrench from me and do the job I was preparing to do. While they did so as a gesture of being nice, it gave the impression that women are weak and unable to do their jobs. Many times I had to argue politely to let me do my job and if they wanted to help me out I would be sure to ask for it in the case something proved beyond my capacity. On the flip side of that, being smaller allowed me to access to certain areas larger males could not. I felt capable as a mechanic even if my physical strength did not always match the larger males, something I made up for in devising ways to use my brain instead of strength alone.
There was at one time a clock in the shop with a photo of a topless woman. Instead of reporting it as a workplace violation I just took care of the problem myself by applying a healthy coating of Never-Seez grease as a bikini top.
We were expected to clean up in the bathrooms of the shop. In the women’s room there was not proper soap for cleaning automotive dirt from one’s hands. I had to knock on the men’s room and use their soap and washbasin. It took nearly three years to get usable soap. At the time I was the only female mechanic but there was a few other women who also used that bathroom, such as supply and armorers. The women’s room itself was not a safe haven for women, though, as men often used that bathroom when they wanted to take a shit, as it were. When a male was in my bathroom I had to go all the way to the front of our armory or just wait outside and give the male dirty looks on his way out.
In my unit all briefings relating to sexism were treated as a joke and never attended by all members of the unit as most people found ways to avoid briefings in general or have a friend sign them in even if they were not present. Briefings on sexual orientation—“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”—were treated as through the briefer was embarrassed to give them. In both cases the briefing was not given in a serious manner.
Being a member of the National Guard and lesbian on 9/11 is what initially led me to begin to question my involvement in the military and the military’s involvement in the world. If on 9/11 I did not have the freedom to hug my girlfriend goodbye before we left as a unit for New York City then what freedom was I protecting? What freedom could we offer to the world if we treat it so restrictively based on who a person falls in love with?
I had one friend in the Guard in another company of my unit (Geoff Millard) who knew of my sexuality so we always hung out. This caused the rumor that I was a dominatrix and that Geoff and I were sleeping together. I let that exist due to the safety net of heterosexuality it offered. In the military men and women are nearly never allowed to be just friends, they are almost always assumed to be “fucking.” In reality in my experience most people breaking military regulations in regards to sexual regulations are straight. I saw multiple instances of adultery between fellow soldiers who had husbands and wives at home.
Before I joined the military I was out in high school and was often known as the gay girl in a very positive way, despite being in the South. After I left the military in 2005 I continued to censor myself in regards to me being a lesbian and only recently have begun to speak out publicly about it. While I never hid my sexuality after leaving the military, I rarely went out of my way in new situations to mention it. It has been very liberating to begin to break that lasting effect of my military career. I also have felt poorly about my response to being in a position to help learn with and educate men and women about the power and effects of sexism. It wasn’t until after I left the military I fully learned about this myself and have vowed to not make the same mistakes in IVAW or life in general.
Abby Hiser
Sergeant, Wisconsin Army National Guard, Heavy Construction Equipment Operator
Deployments: August 2003–April 2004, Talil Air Base, near Nasiriyah
Hometown: Rice Lake, Wisconsin
Age at Winter Soldier: 26 years old
I have many thoughts and feelings on my service, some positive, some negative, and some indifferent. Yet, as a female in the military, I have encountered my fair share of inappropriate, unprofessional, and discriminatory acts.
I’m a friendly and confident person; I like to make friends and talk with others. Shortly after I joined I started to make friends, but my friendliness was misinterpreted as promiscuity. There were false rumors of me sleeping with a married man. I learned my lesson, and I kept to myself. But then I was labeled as rude, mean, snooty, or a witch or the “B-word.” I joined the military to defend my country and not my integrity and self-worth.
There needs to be more res
pect and professionalism in the training field. I was disrespected by an ROTC soldier during a summer assignment when he inappropriately patted me down during a training exercise. I was playing a role of the enemy, and he grabbed my chest with both hands and patted me down inappropriately, and he walked away laughing like it was a joke. He just laughed with his buddies, like, “Oh, look at her, she really enjoyed that.” Like it was no problem. This happens more than you think and it needs to be addressed.
I was assigned to an engineering unit as a heavy equipment operator. When it came to assigning equipment, my sergeant stated that he was going to advocate for me to be assigned as an excavator because I showed skill and confidence. My sergeant was a civilian excavator operator as well, so coming from him this was quite a compliment. Still, I did not get my promised equipment. My sergeant was told he was only advocating for me because he had a crush on me. This led me to think one of two things: Did he really have a crush on me and I wasn’t a good operator? Or do the higher-ranking NCOs not believe that a woman could be as good as this experienced operator reports?
Just shy of three years in the service, I was selected to go to Primary Leadership Development Course (PLDC), sergeant leadership training. I had worked very hard to get this opportunity. I even left college mid-semester for two weeks to attend. I was under the assumption that I’d be promoted as soon as the sergeant slot opened up. Shortly after completing the course, I volunteered to go to Iraq early and deployed with a unit that was not my own.
While sitting in the desert, I filled out the paperwork to be promoted and I sent it in, only to find out that I couldn’t be promoted while deployed with another unit. However, it was okay for them to promote a male sergeant who had barely been in our unit for six months and had volunteered to go to Iraq as I did.
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