Battlefield Iraq

By Terrence McNally, AlterNet. Posted January 20, 2006.

Park City, Utah, is a long way from Baghdad. The four Iraq war veterans attending the Sundance Film Festival, which starts this weekend, are probably more comfortable in combat boots than Ugg boots, but they hope their presence will help promote "The Ground Truth," a documentary directed by Patricia Foulkrod in which they appear. Two of those vets, Paul Rieckhoff and Sean Huze, recently joined a third, Jimmy Massey, to talk with interviewer Terrence McNally about their experiences in Iraq.

As a corporal in the Marines, Sean Huze participated in the March 2003 invasion of Iraq with the 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion. Huze was awarded a Certificate of Commendation citing his "courage and self-sacrifice throughout sustained combat operations" while in Iraq. After returning to the United States, he starred in his debut as a playwright, "The Sand Storm: Stories from the Front." His third play, "The Dragon Slayer," which focuses on PTSD, will premiere in Los Angeles in March.

Paul Rieckhoff enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserves on Sept. 15, 1998. In early 2003, he was assigned as platoon leader for the 3rd Platoon, B Company, 3/124th INF (Air Assault) FLNG, and spent approximately 10 months in Iraq. Third Platoon conducted over 1,000 combat patrols; all 38 men in Rieckhoff's platoon returned home alive. In June 2004, Rieckhoff founded Operation Truth -- now called Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) -- along with a couple of other veterans, some volunteers and massive credit-card debt.

Jimmy Massey, a co-founder of Iraq Veterans Against the War, is a former staff sergeant in the United States Marine Corps. He was a boot camp instructor at Parris Island, S.C., and a Marine recruiter before fighting in the Iraq war and was honorably discharged in December 2003 after 12 years of service. His autobiography, "Kill, Kill, Kill," was recently published in France. Ron Harris, a reporter for the St. Louis Dispatch, once embedded with the Marines in Iraq, claims Massey has lied or exaggerated his accounts of atrocities in Iraq. The controversy was recently a cover story in Marine Corps Times.

TERRENCE MCNALLY: Sean Huze, when and why did you enlist?

SEAN HUZE: I enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in response to the September 11th attacks in 2001. The following day I went to the Marine Corps recruiting office at Sunset and La Brea, and told them I wanted to be in the infantry. I deployed with Second Light Armor Reconnaissance Battalion for Kuwait in February of 2003, and we were part of the initial invasion in March.

TERRENCE MCNALLY: When you went to Iraq, did you believe that the invasion was part of the response to September 11th?

SEAN HUZE: I don't know that I actually believed that it was a response to September 11th. I did believe that Iraq was a credible threat. Polls at the time show that about 90 percent of Americans believed that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, believed that Iraq posed a threat not only to its neighbors but possibly to us. I was part of that 90 percent. I like to say I was part of the 10 percent of that 90 percent who'll admit it now.

It all comes down to weapons of mass destruction, for me. And they weren't there. Dick Cheney's going around accusing all of us of being revisionist now. But if you're trying to say that the war in Iraq was about anything other than WMD, that's revisionism. I don't care how many times Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, whoever, says that this war was about anything other than WMD, or that we were given a justification or rationale other than WMD.

I've got a long memory, and it was only a couple of years ago. I know why I was sent to Iraq; I know why I went to war. And when that proved to be false, I think that's when we lost our credibility and our world standing. And ultimately we're in a quagmire right now.

TERRENCE MCNALLY: Your play, "Sand Storm," how did that happen?

SEAN HUZE: "Sand Storm" was born out of a lot of personal pain. From talking to other veterans. Everything that makes you a functional and healthy individual amongst society are all detriments in a combat zone, and it takes a while to decompress from that. You kind of go numb.

It's not like two armies went out there on a battlefield. This war was fought in an urban environment amongst the civilian population, and ultimately it is that civilian population that has paid the heaviest toll. It's difficult as a husband and as a father to reconcile who I was over there with some of the things that I saw. I mean, a dead child on the side of the road in Nasiriyah, about the same age as my son right now. And how unfeeling I was at the time about it, with who I am now, how I feel about it now.

Interviewer Terrence McNally hosts Free Forum on KPFK 90.7FM, Los Angeles (streaming at kpfk.org). To find out when "The Ground Truth" screens, visit the Sundance Film Festival website.

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