A Soldier of Conscience

Editor's Note: For nearly 12 years, Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey was a hard-core, some say gung-ho, Marine. For three years, he trained fellow Marines in one of the most grueling indoctrination rituals in military life: Marine boot camp. The Iraq war changed Massey. The brutality of the U.S. invasion touched his conscience and transformed him forever. He was honorably discharged with full severance last Dec. 31 and is now back in his hometown, Waynsville, N.C. We are republishing the following interview from the May 16 Sacramento Bee because it is a rare first-hand account of the carnage taking place in Iraq, especially the killing of innocent civilians.

You spent 12 years in the Marines. When were you sent to Iraq?

I went to Kuwait around Jan. 17. I was in Iraq from the get-go. And I was involved in the initial invasion.

What does the public need to know about your experiences as a Marine?

The cause of the Iraqi revolt against the American occupation. What they need to know is we killed a lot of innocent people. I think at first the Iraqis had the understanding that casualties are a part of war. But over the course of time, the occupation hurt the Iraqis. And I didn't see any humanitarian support.

Killing Civilians

What experiences turned you against the war and made you leave the Marines?

I was in charge of a platoon that consists of machine gunners and missile men. Our job was to go into certain areas of the towns and secure the roadways. There was this one particular incident -- and there's many more -- the one that really pushed me over the edge. It involved a car with Iraqi civilians. From all the intelligence reports we were getting, the cars were loaded down with suicide bombs or material. That's the rhetoric we received from intelligence. They came upon our checkpoint. We fired some warning shots. They didn't slow down. So, we lit them up.

Lit up? You mean you fired machine guns?

Right. Every car that we lit up we were expecting ammunition to go off. But we never heard any. Well, this particular vehicle we didn't destroy completely, and one gentleman looked up at me and said: "Why did you kill my brother? We didn't do anything wrong." That hit me like a ton of bricks.

Baghdad was being bombed. The civilians were trying to get out, right?

Yes. They received pamphlets, propaganda we dropped on them. It said, "Just throw up your hands, lay down weapons." That's what they were doing, but we were still lighting them up. They weren't in uniform. We never found any weapons.

You got to see the bodies and casualties?

Yeah, firsthand. I helped throw them in a ditch.

Over what period did all this take place?

During the invasion of Baghdad.

How many times were you involved in checkpoint "light-ups"?

Five times. There was [the city of] Rekha. The gentleman was driving a stolen work utility van. He didn't stop. With us being trigger happy, we didn't really give this guy much of a chance. We lit him up pretty good. Then we inspected the back of the van. We found nothing. No explosives.

The reports said the cars were loaded with explosives. In all the incidents did you find that to be the case?

Never. Not once. There were no secondary explosions. As a matter of fact, we lit up a rally after we heard a stray gunshot.

A demonstration? Where?

On the outskirts of Baghdad. Near a military compound. There were demonstrators at the end of the street. They were young and they had no weapons. And when we rolled onto the scene, there was already a tank that was parked on the side of the road. If the Iraqis wanted to do something, they could have blown up the tank. But they didn't. They were only holding a demonstration. Down at the end of the road, we saw some RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) lined up against the wall. That put us at ease because we thought: "Wow, if they were going to blow us up, they would have done it."