03/14/08 – Geoff Millard – The Scott Horton Show

Hi my friends, welcome back to Anti-War Radio and Chaos Radio 95.9 in Austin, Texas.
I'm Scott Horton, and our first guest today is Jeff Millard.
He is the chapter president of the DC branch of Iraq Veterans Against the War, and they're having a big to-do up there in Washington, D.C. called Winter Soldier, Iraq and Afghanistan, eyewitness accounts of the occupation.
Welcome to the show, Jeff.
Thanks for having me, Scott.
Appreciate it.
It's great to have you on here.
I'm very interested to know exactly what's going on with this Winter Soldier event that you guys have.
Of course, that's a reference to Patrick Henry trying to convince the guys not to quit and to stick it out at Valley Forge back during the American Revolution.
So I guess the implication there in the title is that you guys are the Winter Soldiers.
Well, it's actually a Thomas Paine quote, but yeah.
Oh, Thomas Paine.
I'm sorry, what did I say?
I believe you said Patrick Henry.
Oh, no.
Okay, I'm sorry.
Go ahead.
And it actually goes back to his statement about Sunshine's Patriots and Summer Soldiers.
And the fact is that we could easily go home, all of us, and put our feet up and say, oh, we're war heroes, that's all we need to do, you know, and just forget about it all.
But the fact is, is we are brought together by a sense of obligation and duty, a duty that very much goes back to that original oath of enlistment to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic.
And so Winter Soldier, Iraq and Afghanistan, eyewitness accounts of the occupation, which will bring together 100 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans to testify about their experiences, and just talk about it and just let the American people know that.
Because right now, the two biggest voices that we just do not hear in debate over Iraq and Afghanistan is the two most important, and those are the eyewitness accounts.
Those are the Iraqi and Afghanistan people that are caught in the middle of a war zone, and those are the voices of U.S. soldiers who've actually been there.
And those are the voices that we're going to hear during Winter Soldier, Iraq and Afghanistan eyewitness accounts of the occupation.
All right, well, tell us a little bit about yourself.
What branch of the military were you in and for how long and starting when and so forth?
Well, in 1998, I enlisted in the Army National Guard, and I was deployed then to Iraq in October of 2004.
I returned from Iraq in October 2004, returning to the Guard until August of 2006, when I went AWOL and I decided to leave the military.
I was mailed my discharge in May of 2007.
You went AWOL?
Yes, I did.
But you were not prosecuted for it?
No, I was actually in the National Guard.
And really, when you go AWOL in the Guard, there's very little they can actually do to you, other than give you a less than honorable discharge, which didn't even happen to me.
I ended up with an honorable discharge.
There's very little in the National Guard they can do to you when you've decided your time is up.
And that's what I stopped thinking like a soldier, honestly.
I didn't think any more that I could follow an order just because I was given an order.
I could only follow my conscience, and that led me away from the military.
Well, now, was there a specific event during your time in Iraq that changed your point of view on that?
Well, I was actually against the war before I went, but I really didn't have a context of GI resistance.
I didn't know that GIs have been resisting as long as there's been war.
I didn't know that GIs resisted the Revolutionary War, the Spanish-American War, the Civil War.
You look at the war, especially in Vietnam.
I mean, I hadn't seen CERN or I hadn't read soldiers in revolt.
I didn't know that there was this huge GI resistance.
And then when I found out, it was very empowering to me, which is another thing that is very important about Winter Soldier Iraq and Afghanistan, eyewitness accounts of the occupation, is we're empowering veterans to speak out.
We're empowering veterans to tell their stories.
And that really does help, not only in the healing process of war, but also in making sure that there's a tradition.
You know, more than 35 years ago, a tradition was really concretely started with Vietnam veterans against the war when they did the original Winter Soldier hearing.
And we're following that tradition.
We're following the tradition of having soldiers come home and tell their stories, because we have to make this country realize that they cannot just send us into battle and expect us to fight the wars of this country and then come back silent and die in their silence.
We won't do that.
We're breaking that silence, which is another reason why Winter Soldier Iraq and Afghanistan, eyewitness accounts of the occupation, is so important as an event.
And now, well, how do you answer the people who just see black and white and say that you're disloyal?
You're a soldier whose, you know, your oath is to the Constitution, and part of that Constitution is the military is supposed to do what the President says and respect it and keep their mouth shut.
Well, again, I don't think that the Constitution ever asks us to keep our mouth shut.
As a matter of fact, as I read it, the First Amendment encourages us to speak out.
And if I protect the Constitution, I can't possibly do that if I don't know how to use it.
And we are using that freedom of speech and making sure that we tell our experiences, because when we go overseas and we carry a weapon in another country, we become the ambassadors for that country.
Let's be really clear on who Iraqis and Afghans see as ambassadors of the United States.
They're not seeing politicians.
They're not seeing pundits.
They're not seeing even the general safe in the green zone.
What they're seeing is boots on the ground.
What they're seeing is soldiers with rifles.
They're seeing us.
And so our stories need to be told.
Because otherwise, Americans can't be an informed electorate if we don't know how we're seen in other countries.
And we're seen right now in Iraq and Afghanistan as occupiers.
We're seen through the guise of soldiers holding rifles with boots on the ground.
Well, now, Bush gave a speech justifying the war by, again, citing freedom and democracy.
And I guess we have seen, you know, not just weekly standard propaganda, but even clips on the news and so forth, at least in years past, of Iraqis thankful for a new chance to replace the Saddam Hussein regime with something more hopeful.
Do you give Bush any credit for this war at all?
Do I give Bush credit for killing 4,000 of my brothers and sisters?
Do I give Bush credit for killing more than a million Iraqis?
Yeah, I'd probably give him credit for that.
Yeah.
Well, now, I mean, when you sign up for the military, don't get me wrong, the Iraqi civilians is, I think, a different argument, or partly a different argument.
But when you sign on the dotted line, you know that that's your job, is killing who the president tells you to kill, right?
Well, no.
Actually, it's not.
Part of what we sign up for is to be professional soldiers.
And part of being a professional soldier was a tradition that I know is treasured in my family.
My grandfather was a World War II veteran.
And what those veterans fought for was to make sure that we had things like the Geneva Accords.
And in Geneva, and by the Nuremberg Standard, just being given an order is not enough.
And so what we're saying is that, no, our highest loyalty isn't to the president.
Our highest loyalty is being a professional soldier.
Our highest loyalty is to our other soldiers.
Our highest loyalty is to the service members and veterans, which is why we're taking care of them with peer support and things like that here.
But the fact of the matter is that I never, ever took an oath to go against being a professional soldier, which is what sometimes is asked of us.
And Winter Soldier, Iraq, and Afghanistan are just our stories.
The only reason that they're damaging is because people don't want to hear them, because it's hard.
It's easy to hear about us rebuilding schools and rebuilding hospitals.
And that happens.
But that's easy to listen to.
It's very difficult to listen to traffic control point shootings.
It's very difficult to hear about what a house raid really is.
It's very difficult to know what the rules of engagement are.
Very few Americans actually even know the casualty count in Iraq, let alone to realize what the rules of engagement state that we can and cannot do in the middle of an occupation.
And, in fact, there was just a new poll out that said, I think it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 25% of the American people could correctly say that approximately 4,000 Americans have died in the Iraq war so far.
It's very few.
And so how many of them can actually tell me what the rules of engagement are?
So what are the rules of engagement?
Tell us, Jeff.
Well, that's why we have two panels on the rules of engagement.
That's not one that I'm actually testifying on, but we do.
And so I'd implore people to go to IVW.org and watch.
It's live broadcasting right now.
And I don't want people to shut your show off, but as soon as your show's over with...
No, that's all right, too.
...go over to IVW.org and watch the panel.
We've got another rules of engagement panel coming up later on today.
I'll actually be on the second panel having to do with dehumanization and racism of the enemy later on tomorrow afternoon.
And that's what my testimony is relevant to, because that's what my experience is.
And that's what really this is all about.
Okay, good.
Let's talk about that.
Let's talk about that.
I want to know about your experiences with the dehumanization of the Iraqi people.
Well, I was actually stationed in Fobs Piker, which is right around to Crete in Iraq.
And I worked on a staff for a brigadier general.
And my job was essentially...
It's funny, my detractors have often called me a secretary.
And I used to get so mad at that, because I was in the infantry and I was an engineer.
To be called a secretary when you're in the infantry, it's a pretty big insult.
But looking back at it, I put together PowerPoint slides.
I monitored the radio for the general.
I was pretty much a secretary.
So that's what I did for the general.
Like in I'm-Gonna-Get-You-Sucka, where he's got a medal for shorthand?
Right, exactly.
That was pretty much me.
But the fact is that what really shocked me, and one of the things that I'll testify to, is hearing generals and hearing the brass, colonels and generals, refer to the Iraqi people as hajis on a regular basis, including when Iraqis were killed, referring to them as hajis.
And granted, this is a term that in Muslim culture would be considered a term of endearment.
You know, it's someone who's completed the Hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam, the pilgrimage to Mecca.
But the fact is that when we use it, and especially when we throw the F word in front of it, that hardly makes it a respectful term.
There's not many respectful terms that you can use the F word in front of, and they still hold that meaning of respect.
But the fact is that we don't mean it that way.
It's the same thing as Goop was in the Vietnam War.
It's the same thing as Jap was in World War II.
And it's the same thing that we've seen time and time again.
It's to make it okay to kill them, right?
Well, it's not just okay to kill them, but it's also to make sure that we never question.
And we don't question orders.
A lot of it is to make sure, because it comes from the top down, not from the bottom up.
It's not the grunts who come up with this stuff to make sure that they can keep killing.
It's the top down that makes sure that we'll never question orders.
Because if we don't question those orders, then we won't question any orders.
And that's really what it's about.
It's about maintaining control over the U.S. military.
Now let me ask you specifically about the Winter Soldier conference that you guys are putting on.
Eyewitness accounts of the occupation.
This is March 13th through 16th, which was today the 14th, right?
So it started yesterday.
What exactly is going on here?
You guys are talking to congressmen, or you've just set up your own...
We rented a hall, and we're speaking basically mostly to the cameras to make sure that people all over the world can see this.
But we do have a select audience here of veterans and military families.
But the biggest thing that we want people to do is go and listen to these stories online.
It's being broadcasted on a number of Pacifica stations.
You can watch it on Free Speech TV.
If you have satellite, you can go to our website, IVAW.org, and you can watch it there.
And don't just go as though...
I have a lot of friends who go to P-Smart and they feel great after they're done.
But then a couple days later, it kind of sets in like, what now?
We want people to build communities around Winter Soldier.
Come together with your family, with your friends, with your community, and discuss these things.
Make sure that you're an informed electorate.
Make sure that you know who represents you.
And make sure that you're talking about this with your community.
Yeah, well, you mentioned earlier about setting an example that, no, listen, it's alright for you to stand up against these guys.
There's historical precedent, and there's precedent in our own time that you don't have to keep your mouth shut.
It's alright to get up there and say what you believe to be the truth.
Well, it's not just a dichotomy, too, of drawing that line, but just telling your experience as you experience it.
Because every person's going to experience this differently.
So let's hear...
If a police officer is going to investigate, they're going to talk to every witness.
Not just one and go, oh, that's what happened.
They're going to talk to all of them.
Why?
Because all of them are going to experience it differently.
So we would love the American people to go to all the different veterans and listen to all the different stories and make up your mind.
And, you know, decide what the experiences are of soldiers.
And now, so far, do you have any coverage from the major news, cable news channels, C-SPAN, that kind of thing at all?
Well, we had a press conference yesterday, which we had over 85 press outlets attend.
And today there is a line of cameras in the back.
I know our media team is working very hard on that.
I can't tell you exactly what media, because I've been kind of running around pretty crazy organizing this myself.
But I know that we are getting quite a bit of attention.
But really, the focus is on our website.
It's not necessarily...
Again, to us, it's not about politicians or pundits.
It's not about what the media is going to say about us.
The importance here is us telling our stories.
Another part of that is how many people are going to be able to be exposed to it.
I mean, I'll sit here and recommend everybody go to IVAW.org, but a lot more people would see it if it was on CNN, is really all I'm saying.
Well, I completely agree with that.
And I hope they give us as much coverage as you have.
Yeah, I do, too.
I'd very much like to hear more about this.
And I think it takes a lot of courage for people to come home and, well, put themselves in the position that you guys are putting yourselves in.
At Antiwar.com, we have to suffer all kinds of accusations of being traitors and so forth, but I'm sure that's nothing compared to what actual military servicemen who turn against the mission publicly have to suffer through.
Well, and I think that the biggest patriots and those who love their country more than anything are going to win our soldier, and they are going to defend their country's soul in its darkest hour.
And I cannot recall in my short life a darker hour in America's soul than this.
And I know that there's a lot of Vietnam vets here that feel the same way, but there's just not been a darker hour for America's soul.
So it's time for winter soldiers to stand up and make sure that we do tell our experiences.
There you go, folks.
It's IVAW.org, Iraq Veterans Against the War.
Jeff Millard, the chapter president of the Washington, D.C.
Iraq Veterans Against the War.
Thank you very much for your time today.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.