Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan. Aaron Glantz
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March 2003–May 2003, from Kuwait to Iraq;
August 2004–April 2005, al-Qaim
Hometown: Chesterton, Indiana
Age at Winter Soldier: 23 years old
An act that took place quite often in Iraq was taking pot shots at cars that drove by. This was quite easy for most marines to get away with because our Rules of Engagement stated that the town of al-Qaim had already been forewarned and knew to pull their cars to a complete stop when approaching a United States convoy. Of course, the consequences of such actions pose a huge problem for those of us who patrol the streets every day. This was not the best way to become friendlier with an already hostile local population. This was not an isolated incident, and it took place for most of our eight-month deployment.
We were sent out on a mission to blow up a bridge that was supposedly being used to transport weapons across the Euphrates, and we were ambushed. We were forced to return fire in order to make our way out of the city. This incident took place in the middle of the day, and most of those who were engaging us were not in clear view. Many hid in local houses and businesses and were part of the local population themselves, once again making it very hard to determine who was shooting from where and where exactly to return fire. This led to our squad shooting at everything and anything, i.e., properties, cars, people, in order to push through the town. I fired most of my magazines into the town, but not once did I clearly identify the targets that I was shooting at.
Once we were taking rocket fire from a town and a member of our squad mistakenly identified a tire shop as being the place where the rocket fire came from. Sure enough, we mortared the shop. This was one of the only times we actually had the chance to investigate what we had done and to talk to the people we had directly affected. Luckily, the family who owned the shop was still alive. However, we were not able to compensate the family, nor were we able to explain how it was he could rebuild his livelihood. This was not an isolated incident, and it took place over the course of our eight-month deployment.
Another task our platoon took on was transporting prisoners from our base back to the desert. The reason I say the desert and not their town is because that is exactly where we would drop them off, in the middle of nowhere. Now, most of these men had obviously been deemed innocent, or else they would have been moved to a more permanent prison and not released back into the population. We took it upon ourselves to punch, kick, butt-stroke, or generally harass these prisoners. Then, we would take them to the middle of the desert, throw them out of the back of our Humvees while continually kicking, punching, and at times throwing softball-sized rocks at their backs as they ran away from our convoy. Once again, this is not an isolated incident, and this took place over the duration of our eight-month deployment.
The last and possibly the most disturbing of what took place in Iraq was the mishandling of the dead. On several occasions, our convoy came across bodies that had been decapitated and were lying on the side of the road. When encountering these bodies, standard procedure was to run over the corpses, sometimes even stopping and taking pictures with these bodies, which was also standard practice whenever we encountered the dead. On one specific occasion, I had shot a man in the back of the head after we saw him planting an IED device; we pulled his body out of the ditch he was laying in and left it to rot in the field. We saw the body again up to two weeks later. There were also pictures taken of this gentleman, and his picture became the screen-saver on the laptop belonging to one of our more motivated marines.
The larger point that I’d like to touch on is that these are the consequences for sending young men and women into battle. These are the things that happen. And what I’d like to ask anyone who’s viewing this testimony is to imagine your loved ones put in such positions. Your brothers, your sisters, your nieces, your nephews, your aunts, and your uncles, and more importantly, and maybe most importantly, to be able to put ourselves in the Iraqis’ shoes who encountered these events every day and for the last five years.
Sergio Kochergin
Corporal, United States Marine Corps, Rifleman First Battalion Seventh Marines Scouts Sniper Platoon
Deployments: February 2, 2003–October 2, 2003, from Kuwait to Baghdad;
August 27, 2004–March 20, 2005, along the Syrian border
Hometown: Eugene, Oregon
Age at Winter Soldier: 23 years old
Our area of operation was near Vincent Emanuele’s, along the Syrian border. It was a little base. The town was not secure when we arrived, and the initial Rules of Engagement were if a person had a weapon, or there’s suspicious activity going on, we had to call the commanding post, request permission, assess the situation, and see what we were going to do.
The third day after we arrived, our company commander, our first lieutenant, and one of our NCOs all got killed by an IED. As time went on, and as the casualties grew in number, the Rules became lenient. Because we saw our friends getting blown up and killed every day, we didn’t really question them. We were angry. We just wanted to do our job and come back
We used “drop weapons.” Drop weapons are the weapons that were given to us by our chain of command in case we killed somebody without weapons so that we would not get into trouble. We would carry an AK-47 and if the person that was shot did not have the weapon, the AK-47 would be placed at his corpse. Then, when the unit would come back to the base they would turn it in to identify the shot man as an enemy combatant. The weapons could not come from anyone else but the higher chain of command because after a raid all the weapons are turned into the armory and should be recorded.
The Rules of Engagement were very flexible. After our own casualties mounted the Rules changed. We were allowed to engage anyone with a weapon without calling in and asking permission from the higher command. Two months into the deployment our Rules were to engage any personnel with a heavy bag and a shovel at the intersections or on the roads. This gave us a bigger window on who we can engage. Looking at the situation from this point of view a lot of the enemy combatants that we shot were really civilians in the wrong place at the wrong time.
One of our intelligence officers told us that they received a call from one of the sources in the city, telling them that there were flyers posted all over the town that said that there were unknown snipers in the city that kill the insurgents and the civilians. We did not take into consideration that these innocent people were being killed by us, because every time we sent the pictures to the command post through an interlink system, we would receive an approval to kill people with shovels and heavy bags. Now I know that it was not right to do that, but when you trust those who act like they care for you, you listen to them and follow their orders because you don’t want to let your friends down. “What if…?” was used as propaganda and a way to relieve our minds from the actions we have partaken in and make it easier on us.
Finally, I want to tell you is about a roommate who we shared the bathroom with back in the United States. He was on the suicide watch for a few months on and off. The last three weeks before we deployed he was constantly on the watch. A week before a family day he was released from the watch so that he would not say anything to his parents and he did not say anything to them. About a month into the deployment he blew his brains out in one of the shower stalls. Actions like that show the poor judgment of our command who don’t care for the troops just to save their own skin. That marine should have not gone to Iraq in the first place and nobody was held responsible for his death. If they do not care for their own marines what care do they have for the people of Iraq when they give the orders?
I want to apologize to all the people in Iraq. I’m sorry, and I hope this is going to be over as soon as possible.
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