A Soldier Speaks: Zechariah

By Celina R. De Leon, AlterNet. Posted August 4, 2005.

Editor's Note: As of August 4, 2005, 1,821 American troops and between 22,500 and 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed in the war in Iraq. Domestically, the bill for the war has reached $204.6 billion.

This is the first in a continued series of profiles of some of the tens of thousands of Iraq War veterans who have come home bearing the scars of battle -- emotional and physical wounds that may never heal unless the nation pays them the attention and care that they deserve. We at AlterNet believe it is the one issue that can and must bring us all together as Americans.

Zechariah, 25, of Lynnwood, Washington, enlisted in the Army when he was 21, and was deployed to Iraq from March 2003 to January 2004 with the 173rd Airborne Brigade as a medic.

Zechariah grew up in a military family; both his mother and father were medics in the Army. Zechariah wanted to work in the medical field as a nurse, but couldn't afford school. So he signed up to be a parachute infantry medic for the job experience, money for school, and a little adventure.

He spoke to AlterNet about the war, his hopes and fears, and the hard road ahead.

What were you told were the reasons for the war in Iraq when you first began your duty?

The only thing that we had really heard was that Saddam was hiding weapons of mass destruction and we were going to go and oust him and find them.

I knew about the gassing of the Kurdish population in northern Iraq and was scared of being attacked while on the ground there with chemical and biological weapons. I highly doubted that they had any type of nuclear weaponry though, so I wasn't worried about that. I think if Saddam had that stuff, he would have shown it off with either a test or public display. He was a pretty arrogant person, in my opinion.

Did your beliefs change once you were participating in the war?

I think my beliefs had changed once we were on the ground. Within days we had seized all of the oil fields in northern Iraq and our primary mission was to protect them. Bush had said this war wasn't about oil, but there I was defending oil fields at all costs in the middle of Iraq. A lot of the piping and workings of the fields had been destroyed by the fleeing army and before we even started to help the people by fixing the power or water supplies, they had construction crews trying to get everything up and running on the oil fields.

They say this war isn't about oil. How about they go and trade places with one of the soldiers that would love to come home, and see what's going on around the oil refineries and see how much work is being put into them and how little is being put into restoring power and water. My brother just got back [from Iraq] and said they still only have power and water for maybe five to six hours out of the day.

I also worked with a lot of the local hospitals. The whole time we were there, the hospitals kept getting worse and worse. They never had any supplies or new machines installed. Even some of the more simple machinery, like X-ray machines, were never replaced. Every time I went into one of the hospitals I almost emptied my aid bag so they could have sterile catheters and needles. I couldn't believe my eyes to see that they were having to reuse these supplies because they couldn't get replacement equipment. They didn't even have soap.

All of this helped me to see where the priorities in this war were. Obviously, not in the people.

How were some of your experiences interacting with local Iraqis?

We lived in a normal house in a neighborhood that was pretty helpful. They always told us that as long as we protected the neighborhood, they would do all they could to help us. Whenever we got attacked, some of the neighbors would normally know where they came from. They also gave us tips whenever they happened to hear of something weird going on. We worked pretty heavily with the Turkmen [Turk] populations and the Kurdish populations. Both were very friendly.

We personally re-supplied three schools in a Turkmen [Turk] neighborhood through family donations and personal contributions for the help they gave us in finding weapons, caches, and insurgent hideouts. They invited our whole platoon to a dinner and dance put on by the school of elementary-age students for our help. My brother said they aren't friendly to U.S. forces anymore. I'm sure we wore out our welcome in the past year.

Celina R. De Leon is a social justice journalist based in Brooklyn, NY.

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