A Soldier Speaks: Kelly Dougherty
I also saw a lot of times, abuses of power by people in the military — using excessive unwarranted force against the Iraqis because they could and they could get away with it. One of the things we dealt with a lot in my unit was guarding broken down vehicles. All these convoys would drive by every day, hundreds and hundreds of vehicles every day, and most of them were owned by [Kellogg] Brown and Root, which is a subsidiary of the Halliburton Corporation.
These fuel tankers would sometimes break down or they would get stuck in the mud and we would have to go and secure them so the Iraqis wouldn’t loot them … One of the most frustrating things about our mission there was every day when we went out to guard these trucks, we’d have to call back to the base and request rapid route when someone recovered a vehicle because supposedly it’s an asset — because it’s full of fuel and of course the money from the vehicle.
So, we’d wait there for two or three hours guarding this vehicle from hundreds of Iraqis, who wanted to get something, because they didn’t have any jobs and they were still poor. It’s hard to understand how a piece of scrap metal from a vehicle can be worth something. But for people who have nothing, it really was an asset to them. Inevitably, after waiting there for three hours, we’d get a call that we weren’t going to get anyone out there so just leave it. We’ve been guarding it for three hours. Or we would get orders to destroy it and burn it. You know it’s really hard when you’re initially told that, ‘Oh, you’re going to be helping the Iraqi people,’ but all that you’re really doing is destroying something in front of them. That was really frustrating.
And after a while we got some riot control stuff. What’s called ‘Less than Lethal’ ammunition — bean bag shots for guns, and rubber bullets and smoke grenades — things like that to control the crowds. I saw a lot of abuse of those things, like indiscriminate firing with rubber bullets, because you know it’s probably not going to kill someone. So, for some it was funny to do drive-by shootings with rubber bullets. And the things are no joke! It could kill someone, like a small child … Or if it hits you in the face … It’s something you don’t play with.
We were originally in an area of Iraq that was originally one of the safer areas and it had more support from the local people for the war. But to me, I was more apprehensive every day I went out because I knew every day we were making enemies from people who might have wanted to give us the benefit of the doubt, or who had hope in us originally. Now, they’re not.
When a mother’s seven-year-old son comes home with a huge welt because he was shot by a rubber bullet, or someone threw rocks at him — every day I could tell we were making more and more enemies. I definitely sensed a change from when we first got there — when we would drive by, people would wave at us and smile at us. To when we left — more and more people would just turn their backs or give us rude gestures. And of course you can’t blame the Iraqi people.
At the same time, you can’t totally blame the American soldiers. Because you’re sent to Iraq without really knowing why you’re there, your mission keeps changing, it seems like you’re not accomplishing anything and you’re kind of just protecting yourself.
Then you get into these confrontations with the Iraqi people and you start to take out all of your frustration and stress and project it onto them. And then it turns into hatred for them … I think you have to blame the whole thing — the whole occupation of Iraq — it’s the bigger problem.
An Alternet interview by Celina R. De Leon | (read more. . .)