Fathers, your sons and daughters need you now to embrace peace for though we were attacked, we have dealt in retaliation that same suffering one-thousand times over to a people who never wronged us. The nation will know little healing until first we stem off the flow of blood and human life for justice and healing will never be done by a blade or a bullet or a bomb or a torture cell.
By continuing to participate in the unjust occupation of Iraq, we, as service members, are contributing to that flow of human life and we cannot now -- nor could we ever -- call the Iraqi people an enemy in the fight against the use of terror. But terror is all we now know. We are terrified of the prospect that we have been lied to. We are terrified by the idea that we have killed for nothing. We are terrified to break the silence. We are terrified to do what we know is right.
But never again will I allow terror to silence me. Nor will I allow it to govern my actions. I refuse terror as a tactic for uniting a people around an unjust cause. I refuse to allow terror to motivate me to do violence on my fellow man especially those who never wronged me in the first place. I refuse to be terrified to stand in defense of my Constitution. And I refuse to be terrified of doing so in great adversity.
As a resister to the Iraq Occupation, I refuse to be terrified by what may come for I know those who stand against me are in terror of the truth. But I will speak my truth, and I will stand by it firmly and forever will my soul know peace. Thank you.
Matthis Chiroux delivered the above yesterday. The full speech is later in this entry. Moving to AFP's "US soldier refuses to report for active duty in Iraq:"
Matthis' father Rob, a rocket scientist who lives in the army town of Huntsville, Alabama, said mobilizing IRR members was a form of back-door draft.
"If our country is in such a dire emergency that we need to conscript manpower, congress has to vote to reinstate the draft," the elder Chiroux told AFP.
"But they won't do that because if congress said we need to bring back the general draft, the war in Iraq would be resolved very quickly," he said.
"Moms and dads, who represent millions and millions of voters, would say: wait a minute -- you want to draft my kid? Iraq's got to stop."
Matthis Chiroux announced May 15th that he would not deploy to Iraq. He was honorably discharged and placed in IRR and then, months later, informed he was being pulled back into the military and sent to Iraq.
He is a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War and they carried his statements (text, video) on refusing to deploy:
Good afternoon. My name is Sgt. Matthis Chiroux, and I served in the Army as a Photojournalist until being honorable discharged last summer after over four years of service in Afghanistan, Japan, Europe and the Phillipines. As an Army journalist whose job it was to collect and filter servicemember's stories, I heard many stomach-churning testimonies of the horrors and crimes taking place in Iraq. For fear of retaliation from the military, I failed to report these crimes, but never again will I allow fear to silence me. Never again will I fail to stand. In February, I received a letter from the Army ordering my return to active duty, for the purpose of mobilization for Operation Iraqi Freedom. Thanks in great part to the truths of war being fearlessly spoken by my fellow IVAW members, I stand before you today with the strength, clarity and resolve to declare to the military and the world that this Soldier will not be deploying to Iraq. This occupation is unconstitutional and illegal and I hereby lawfully refuse to participate as I will surely be a party to war crimes. Furthermore, deployment in support of illegal war violates all of my core values as a human being, but in keeping with those values, I choose to remain in the United States to defend myself from charges brought by the Army if they so wish to pursue them. I refuse to participate in the occupation of Iraq.
I would assume everyone knows how to click on Iraq Veterans Against the War but to put a face on the issue and to remind that there is a legal defense fund already set up, we'll note "War Resister: Matthis Chiroux" here:
Sgt. Matthis Chiroux, who served in the Army until being honorably discharged last summer, has announced his intention to refuse orders to deploy to Iraq.
To donate to IVAW's Legal Fund to support Matthis and other servicemembers who are refusing to support the occupation of Iraq, use our online donation form and select "Legal Fund" under special projects.
If you would like to send a message of support to Sgt Matthis Chiroux, email thankyoumatthis@ivaw.org.
Below is the video of the speech Matthis gave yesterday and further down is the text -- note, I'm not sure whether he said "birthed" or "born" (and it may be another word). I've put "[born]" in parenthesis. All typos are mine. If a text is posted online at IVAW later, go by that.
I am here on this Father's Day, the day I am supposed to report to Fort Jackson South Carolina for subsequent deployment to Iraq, the Iraq occupation. And first of all I'd like to thank my father for being here on Father's Day. Thank you for coming up from Alabama, Dad. I want to thank my fellow members of Iraq Veterans Against the War for standing in solidarity with me today in my decision not to deploy to Iraq. And I have a short statement I would like to read.
Good afternoon. We gather here this Father's Day on a very somber note. The American occupation of Iraq -- an illegal, immoral war which is ripping this nation apart as well causing an immeasurable harm to the Iraqi people and the people of the world alike. We gather in the remembrance of the sacrifice of many whose fathers weep on this joyous day for they know their own flesh and blood has been torn and siphoned from them for what we collectively hope will be this last blunder of American military might. We gather here and hope that our fathers will forgive us for the wrongs we have perpetrated on our bodies, hearts and minds alike in this cruel decade of disaster which stems from the very city in which we stand.
This father's day, we gather here to calm the vicious and vengeful alike. The first day I came to Washington, D.C. was less than one month before I shipped out to basic training. I was so moved by this country and its history that it reinvigorated my belief in the righteousness of what I was doing: Joining the army not only in search of personal progress but to participate in the efforts to bring justice to the individuals responsible for 9-11.
I remember standing at the base of the Washington Monument and watching the fireworks explode in the sky that Fourth of July and wondering how it was that we could have come under attack on American soil and believing firmly that I would be participatingin dealing justice for September 11th.
I remember standing before the Lincoln Memorial and feeling the presence of not just the former president and emancipator but of Martin Luther King and his dream for a brighter and more united future for the children of this nation.
That young me could not have known where he'd be standing almost six years later and what he would be saying this Father's Day. I am Sgt. Matthis Chiroux and tonight at midnight I may face further action from the army for refusing to reactive to participate in the Iraq occupation.
This fact hangs heavy on my heart as I look back at my five years of service in uniform. But I understand that what I am doing is in keeping with the values I shared with my friends-in-arms while we wondered if things could really get any worse?
Today I stand in resistance to the occupation of Iraq because I believe in our nation, its military and her people. I resist because I swore an oath to this nation that I would not allow it to fall into decay when I may be serving on the side of right. And my country is in decay and in these times of crisis Thomas Paine once said, "The summer soldier and sunshine patriot will flee from service to our country."
I stand here today as a Winter Soldier. To serve our nation, its military and its people in this dark time of confusion and corruption.
I stand here to make it known that my duty as a soldier is first to the higher ideals and guiding principles of this country which our leaders have failed to uphold.
I stand here today in defense of the US Constitution which has known no greater enemy, foreign or domestic, than those highest in this land who are sworn to be governed by its word.
I stand here today in defense of those who have been stripped of their voices in this occupation for the warriors of this nation have been silenced to the people who need to start listening.
We are here to honor the memory of our fathers who more than two centuries ago brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, as Abraham Lincoln once noted.
We are here to honor the struggle of our fathers and their fathers and their fathers before them to build this nation and bring it together -- through slavery and poverty, to sexism and racism, through materialism and imperialism. They built this nation and struggled to keep it alive as we've blundered and learned and blundered again. We owe it to our fathers to stand for this nation now when a dark cloud has descended upon it in the form of an administration who is stealing the lives of us all to wage an illegal war -- conceived in lies and birthed [born] of manipulation.
As a soldier I was told it was not my place to question the orders of those appointed above me. I had that lie trained into me from my first day of basic training to my last day of active duty. But I have learned the truth, the truth that the occupation of Iraq is inherently illegal and that it is my duty as a soldier to refuse illegal orders to reactivate and deploy in support of it.
I have learned that in these times of crisis one must look deep into their own values to know the path that they must walk. I have learned that feeling and thinking and speaking and acting and keeping with courage and honesty in preservation of a righteous cause is blessed and may give a person strength to utter truths that may calm the vicious and the vengeful alike.
I believe that this nation and this military may come to know the same truth: That the rule of law has been forsaken and we must return to it or be doomed to continue disaster. I believe in the goodness of the American people and I believe that justice is not dead because we as a people believe that it is our responsibility to resist the injustices done by our government in our names. We know this truth to be self-evident that our nation can unite to oppose an illegal occupation which is killing and scarring and shattering the lives of our youth and the Iraqi people.
On this Fathers Day, know, America, that your children need you. We need you to care for us and to care for our country which we will inherit when you are finished with her. We need you to end this occupation of Iraq which has destroyed a country and scattered its people to the wind like ashes in the tempest -- a tempest that has engulfed the nation of Iraq and scrubbed any sign of peace and prosperity from the surface of a civilization older than even history itself.
Fathers, we need you to care for your children and the children of Iraq for they know not why you fight and carry no fault in the conflict.
Fathers, your sons and daughters need you now to embrace peace for though we were attacked, we have dealt in retaliation that same suffering one-thousand times over to a people who never wronged us. The nation will know little healing until first we stem off the flow of blood and human life for justice and healing will never be done by a blade or a bullet or a bomb or a torture cell.
By continuing to participate in the unjust occupation of Iraq, we, as service members, are contributing to that flow of human life and we cannot now -- nor could we ever -- call the Iraqi people an enemy in the fight against the use of terror. But terror is all we now know. We are terrified of the prospect that we have been lied to. We are terrified by the idea that we have killed for nothing. We are terrified to break the silence. We are terrified to do what we know is right.
But never again will I allow terror to silence me. Nor will I allow it to govern my actions. I refuse terror as a tactic for uniting a people around an unjust cause. I refuse to allow terror to motivate me to do violence on my fellow man especially those who never wronged me in the first place. I refuse to be terrified to stand in defense of my Constitution. And I refuse to be terrified of doing so in great adversity.
As a resister to the Iraq Occupation, I refuse to be terrified by what may come for I know those who stand against me are in terror of the truth. But I will speak my truth, and I will stand by it firmly and forever will my soul know peace. Thank you.
The front page of the New York Times this morning features Paul von Zielbauer's "After Feud and 2 Deaths in Iraq, Soldiers and Families Are Torn:"
Capt. Phillip Esposito and Staff Sgt. Alberto Martinez went to war together, two very different soldiers from the same New York National Guard unit. After five months in Iraq, a bombing sent both men back home, one in a coffin, the other in handcuffs, a suspect in his murder.
Captain Esposito, as straightforward as his M4 carbine, was an Eagle Scout and West Point graduate who built a civilian career as a computer specialist for a Wall Street investment bank. His service as a National Guard company commander, family members said, was a matter of honor and old-fashioned patriotism.
Sergeant Martinez came from a tougher background, documents and interviews show, and found camaraderie and discipline in military service. Transplanted from Puerto Rico as a teenager, he drifted through a series of part-time jobs after high school, taking community college classes in electronics. But he had a habit of playing by his own rules, some of his managers said, and lacked maturity. Rejected by the Army Reserve and Navy Reserve, he was fired by U.P.S. in 1999.
The National Guard eventually admitted him on a waiver after three failed attempts to pass the military's standardized aptitude test. Working at the Watervliet Arsenal, near Albany, Sergeant Martinez strained to handle duties that called for more than basic clerical or mechanical work.
That's the opening and the photo of the late Phillip Esposito shaking hands with Bill Clinton that's barely visible is much better online.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
iraq veterans against the war
scott horton
the new york times
paul von zielbauer
