Why I'm A Prairie Dog
On the morning of November 23, 2005 I was sitting on a bench in the McLennan County Jail. I had been arrested with eleven of my fellow activists an hour or so earlier for protesting outside the Bush Ranch in Crawford Texas. We would later be called the Prairie Chapel 12, individually prairie dogs and at that moment we were listening to a Justice of the Peace read us our rights. As I heard him say “you have the right to remain silent,” it was suddenly clear to me that as Americans, all of us can remain silent about anything, but I ended up on the bench exercising my right and duty not to remain silent.
For me, the road to Crawford began over three years ago. In February 2003, I was a career military man, a new father, and devoted husband. My government had been waging a public relations campaign against the country of Iraq for several months and now war was imminent. I kissed my wife and daughter good bye and boarded a bus to go get on an airplane bound for Iraq. I refer to this event as the end of my other life. I was going to Iraq because George Bush said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, ties to the Al Qai’da terrorists who attacked our country on September 11 2001, and Iraq was a threat to national and global security. To keep my nation and the world safe I was willing to risk my life and everything I had on the premise that my government would not ask me to risk my life in vain. I was wrong. None of it was true. In fact, now there is overwhelming evidence that our government knew well before I went to Iraq that there was no tangible evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that the alleged meeting between Mohamed Atta and Iraqi intelligence officers never happened. In short, our government knew that the government of Saddam Hussein was not a credible threat to U.S. national security. The war in Iraq has in reality weakened national and global security by creating a hotbed for terrorism and a target for would be terrorist to attack.
In May 2003, I returned to the United States. Many would say I returned home, but one does not fight in Iraq and get to come home again. I was plagued by nightmares, crushing guilt, depression, anger and horror at what I had been forced to do. I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and discharged in March of 2005. My marriage ended shortly thereafter. My life will never be the same again. The hardest part of it all, is that the reasons I joined the military are virtues and I still hold them today. I joined the Navy because I believed that freedom was at risk. I believed that as a member of the global community, I should attempt to serve something greater than myself. I joined the Navy to “support and defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” I hold all of those ideals as dearly today as I did then. But today it is clear that freedom is truly at risk from individuals inside our government who seek to destroy the Constitution and all that it stands for. I thought I was defending freedom, but in reality soldiers do not fight for freedom, soldiers fight for governments and have to hope that freedom will somehow survive the ordeal.
In August, I went to Crawford Texas with the mother of a fallen soldier to ask the president a simple question: for what noble cause have so many in our military sacrificed their lives? Predictably, Bush refused to meet with us and after we left McLennan County passed an ordinance that outlawed “residing in a bar ditch.” The law defined reside as eating, sleeping, erecting a structure, storing trash or erecting a port-a-potty in a ditch as well as parking in the ditch within 16 miles of the Bush Ranch. If the county enforced this law indiscriminately, they would have to arrest hunters for sleeping in their trucks, road crews for erecting port-a-potties at work sites, county inmates on trash detail, and even sheriff’s deputies for eating lunch in their squad cars at break time. No, it is obvious that this law seeks to encourage all of us to exercise our right to remain silent and let our government blindly destroy the world in which we live.
The judge is right, I have the right to remain silent, but with 160,000 of my brothers and sisters in arms are still in harm’s way and thousands more struggling with the aftermath of service in an unjust and immoral war, I have an obligation not to remain silent. I am outraged about what our country has done in the name of freedom and democracy. The war in Iraq weakened our national security by giving “terrorists” of the world reasons to hate us. We have destroyed the country of Iraq, killed 2,223 American, over 100,000 Iraqis, and spent over 170 billion dollars with no end in sight. For me to remain silent about that makes me culpable in the crime. I know there may be consequences, but I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees.
For me, the road to Crawford began over three years ago. In February 2003, I was a career military man, a new father, and devoted husband. My government had been waging a public relations campaign against the country of Iraq for several months and now war was imminent. I kissed my wife and daughter good bye and boarded a bus to go get on an airplane bound for Iraq. I refer to this event as the end of my other life. I was going to Iraq because George Bush said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, ties to the Al Qai’da terrorists who attacked our country on September 11 2001, and Iraq was a threat to national and global security. To keep my nation and the world safe I was willing to risk my life and everything I had on the premise that my government would not ask me to risk my life in vain. I was wrong. None of it was true. In fact, now there is overwhelming evidence that our government knew well before I went to Iraq that there was no tangible evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that the alleged meeting between Mohamed Atta and Iraqi intelligence officers never happened. In short, our government knew that the government of Saddam Hussein was not a credible threat to U.S. national security. The war in Iraq has in reality weakened national and global security by creating a hotbed for terrorism and a target for would be terrorist to attack.
In May 2003, I returned to the United States. Many would say I returned home, but one does not fight in Iraq and get to come home again. I was plagued by nightmares, crushing guilt, depression, anger and horror at what I had been forced to do. I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and discharged in March of 2005. My marriage ended shortly thereafter. My life will never be the same again. The hardest part of it all, is that the reasons I joined the military are virtues and I still hold them today. I joined the Navy because I believed that freedom was at risk. I believed that as a member of the global community, I should attempt to serve something greater than myself. I joined the Navy to “support and defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” I hold all of those ideals as dearly today as I did then. But today it is clear that freedom is truly at risk from individuals inside our government who seek to destroy the Constitution and all that it stands for. I thought I was defending freedom, but in reality soldiers do not fight for freedom, soldiers fight for governments and have to hope that freedom will somehow survive the ordeal.
In August, I went to Crawford Texas with the mother of a fallen soldier to ask the president a simple question: for what noble cause have so many in our military sacrificed their lives? Predictably, Bush refused to meet with us and after we left McLennan County passed an ordinance that outlawed “residing in a bar ditch.” The law defined reside as eating, sleeping, erecting a structure, storing trash or erecting a port-a-potty in a ditch as well as parking in the ditch within 16 miles of the Bush Ranch. If the county enforced this law indiscriminately, they would have to arrest hunters for sleeping in their trucks, road crews for erecting port-a-potties at work sites, county inmates on trash detail, and even sheriff’s deputies for eating lunch in their squad cars at break time. No, it is obvious that this law seeks to encourage all of us to exercise our right to remain silent and let our government blindly destroy the world in which we live.
The judge is right, I have the right to remain silent, but with 160,000 of my brothers and sisters in arms are still in harm’s way and thousands more struggling with the aftermath of service in an unjust and immoral war, I have an obligation not to remain silent. I am outraged about what our country has done in the name of freedom and democracy. The war in Iraq weakened our national security by giving “terrorists” of the world reasons to hate us. We have destroyed the country of Iraq, killed 2,223 American, over 100,000 Iraqis, and spent over 170 billion dollars with no end in sight. For me to remain silent about that makes me culpable in the crime. I know there may be consequences, but I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees.
posted by Charlie at 4:58 PM
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