How One IVAW Member Really Feels About the Troops - UPDATED

UPDATED:
Thus Spake Ortner over at The Sniper has totally debunked this John Kerry wannabee with his very own words. You have GOT to read this...

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I read an article today that just took my breath away - and not in a good way. It is vile and hateful but oh so indicative of just how some members of IVAW (Iraq Veterans Against the War) really feel about the Military. For all the bloviating and blog comments about how much they support the troops, the truth is the support is only for those that toe the IVAW Winter Soldier Wannabes line.

I am not even going to fire back at Clifton Hicks "Letter to Vets for Freedom". My buddy, Thus Spake Ortner over at The Sniper, has done a fine job at smacking Hicks down. But there is a history with Hicks and his denigrating of the Military that must be exposed.

Clifton Hicks is not retired - he received an honorable discharge as a Conscientious Objector. He volunteered for the military at age 17 in 2002 - well after the terrorist attacks on September 11 so joining in "peace time" can't be used as a valid excuse.

Hicks had his share of run-ins with the military including this...

I had been charged with disrespecting a couple of NCO’s, willfully damaging government property, etc.

Luckily for Hicks, his First Sgt called him a “bitch” in front of half the troops. The CO downgraded Article 15 from a max out Company grade (14 days extra duty, busted down to E2, etc) to a summarized and received the minimum punishment (a verbal reprimand). His conscientious objector application was then approved.

Hicks admits to committing crimes against humanity while serving in Iraq. He stated "I speak of things I have seen with my own eyes and things I have done with my own two hands. I am GUILTY of these things!"

Here's some of the things that Hicks admits to doing or knowing about:

We beat the fuck out of a lot of people but we rarely shot them. They threw rocks at us a lot and so we took to carrying rocks with us to throw back at them.

And eventually as casualties mounted and families fell apart back home, abusing the Iraqis was seen as a simple matter of revenge, whether it be demolishing their homes with our tanks; handcuffing and publicly beating them in front of their families, destroying their livestock and burning down their places of business, kidnapping entire male populations of villages to be tortured in secret prisons, refusing basic medical care to mothers with dying children, cheering from rooftops while entire apartment complexes filled with people were leveled by C130 gun ships or even covering up the wrongful deaths of local civilians.

The only thing missing from that little speech is a reference to Genghis Khan.

And how did this self described "soulless mercenary who kills on a three year contract" feel about the Military? The Army and the leaders were the REAL enemy...

For a few of us, the war outside the wire became so normal and monotonous that we ceased to view it as our primary antagonist, with the Army as a whole and our leaders taking it’s place.

We learned that our real enemies were not the skinny little brown guys who shot us and blew us up, but the big men with the weighted collars who threw us to the lions every day for reasons which we no longer believed and never understood

But this latest article is not the first time Hicks has blasted the Military members that do not follow the Vietnam Redeux mantra. This from the blog Let Them Enforce it...

Click on this link for audio of Hicks, who had just finished saying that he hates and resents those in America who have yellow ribbons, or wave flags, or say "the boys" are doing a great job, responds to the NPR interviewer pointing out that some veterans had recently rallied in Tampa for the notion that not supporting the administration's execution of the war is damaging to morale in the field. He says the following:

"[to paraphrase interviewer: some veterans think that the anti-war folks are damaging morale] Hicks: "[derisive laughter] That's a damn foolish lie. I'd like to actually meet those two so-called soldiers and find out what they do in Iraq. I bet they pump gas and scrub mess hall floors. They -- they -- don't know what they're talking about. The only people you'll ever see doing stuff like that are the -- these National Guard types who are safe and don't even know what an Iraqi looks like."

So the troops that don't walk in lockstep with the IVAW are REMF's or fobbits? Kinda funny coming from a Private who opted out of his service with a CO claim. What's even funnier is this guy claiming to be a reformed bad-ass war criminal in one paragraph while admitting that he rarely saw any action other than a few patrols or guard duty...

Fortunately through all of this I saw very little heavy or sustained combat. For us it was mostly just the arduous routine of patrols, tower/gate duty and a few raids here and there, interspersed with random RPG, small arms and IED attacks.

Hicks claimed that history will prove the Vets for Freedom's message wrong. I disagree. When the history of this war in Iraq is written, people like Clifton Hicks will be nothing more than a footnote - forever linked with the deserters, the fake veterans and the "I saw war crimes but did nothing" crowd. Our great grandchildren will look at the pictures of the defaced uniforms marching with upside down American flags while jumping over concrete barriers and running around holding invisible guns as street theater in the city and laugh at the absurdity of it.

Right now though, it makes me puke.