Reflections of a Transformed Warrior

Hart Viges is a 30-year-old peace activist and Iraq veteran whose antiwar organizing has carried him from classroom presentations in Texas high schools to Camp Casey near President Bush's ranch, from street protests in New York City and Washington, D.C., to a joint march of solidarity between Iraq veterans and Hurricane Katrina survivors along the Gulf Coast.*

Viges just came back from a whirlwind, two-week speaking tour across Ireland on behalf of Iraq Veterans Against the War, which concluded earlier this month, as well as demonstrations at the national meet-up for Halliburton shareholders.

WireTap Magazine spoke to Viges about his transformation from a warrior to a peace activist, and what he thinks supporting the troops should mean today.

WireTap: Why did you enlist?

Hart Viges: I enlisted because of 9-11. You know, a threat was imminent on American soil, and I needed to be part of its solution.

WT: Where did you serve during those 11 months?

HV: I served with the 82nd Airborne Division out of Fort Bragg, N.C. My time in Iraq I spent in As Samawah, a couple of weeks in Fallujah and the remainder of that time in Baghdad.

WT: Why do you think you, among tens of thousands of others, were shuttled off to Iraq by our government's leaders?

HV: Why? For money, and that's the pure truth of it. War really doesn't help anyone out -- it's not helping out the Iraqis, it's not helping out the soldiers that are going over there. It's just more money gained for a strategic hold in a region of the world that we're all dependent on -- and that's oil. It's business.

WT: Were there moments in Iraq when you questioned your mission?

HV: I didn't feel I had much of a say in it. I didn't see an escape while I was there. Basically just do my job and make sure everyone comes home safely. I remember in Kuwait for the first month we were there, waiting for the order to go in, I go to the porta-potty and write, "Of course Saddam has weapons of mass destruction -- we gave them to him."

I came back, and there were at least 20 other comments, 'Fuck you,' 'What are you, some crazy liberal?' and 'Russia gave them the weapons of mass destruction' -- that was my favorite one. I really didn't question it -- at the time I didn't really care if they had weapons of mass destruction or not.

When we came into Iraq, they were cheering us, 'Yes, Bush! No, Saddam! Yes, Bush! No, Saddam! Having guys come up to our position with no ears because they refused to fight in Saddam's army and just seeing the poverty of that country, I felt we were actually doing a good service for them by disposing of that leader. But those cheers faded after a while, when I guess they realized we weren't leaving and no changes were really coming into view for them.

WT: When did you start to oppose the war in Iraq?

HV: When I came back home, I was planning on going out for Special Forces. I wanted to be a more useful tool in fighting the war. I saw the regular Army not doing hardly anything to help the situation in Iraq, so I wanted to switch up to a more specialized unit, but when I came back home on leave, after serving a year in Iraq, I just remembered how it was here. It was a culture shock because being over there, I just really forgot what it was like in America. To see how we lived as opposed to how people live in Iraq. This is a choice. These are choices we make that can either bring us this peace or that war.

That kind of struck me pretty hard. And then I met my current girlfriend, and she basically questioned me -- she confronted me pretty harshly at first. When we first met, we just argued, argued and argued. What she really laid into me was -- question why. Are you really looking at the big picture here? Again, I was still holding on to "we got rid of Saddam." But as a soldier, you're given an order and you do it. You don't think about it. That's hesitation, and hesitation can kill you, so that was pretty much stripped out of me.