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An Awakening

By Robert W. Gaines

In January 2002 the dust had long settled in downtown New York and the fog of jingoism was lifting elsewhere. The media started reporting a few unflattering details of the USA PATRIOT Act. Their criticism, however meek, caught my attention. I decided to quit reading the news and began analyzing it instead.

Years ago I developed a "Triangulation Hypothesis," which is simply a method for discerning facts through three or more independent sources. As I jumped from the BBC to the Wall Street Journal and even occasionally Al-Jazeera, a startling realization came over me: we are being lied to on an unequaled scale.

One of the greatest American minds, Noam Chomsky, recommends looking at the back page of any newspaper for the truth. Journalists use an "inverted pyramid" method of writing, putting the least important items at the bottom of an article. Unfortunately, that is where they are burying the only scraps of anything resembling honest and forthright reporting. We know now, far too late, that there was more to the stories of the USA PATRIOT Act, Afghanistan, bin Laden, Iraq, the Taliban, and WMDs.

This wasn't the first time I had been subjected to such a massive propaganda campaign. Fresh out of high school in 1990, I bought into the spin regarding Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Sure, I was reading the paper, but with zero critical analysis. The clear and present danger Iraq posed was far too great to ignore. In short, I was consumed with a virulent brand of uninformed patriotism.

I soon joined the U.S. Army and chose a combat specialty. I remember a recruiter urging me to choose a career more appropriate to my test scores, but I had no desire to be a desk jockey; I was there to kill some "ragheads," and I chose a job that would help me do just that. Thankfully, the Army didn't send me anywhere near a battlefield.

When the war in Kuwait began to wind down, the weapon system I specialized in was replaced, and I was technically out of a job. An opportunity in the medical field appeared, and I chose to train as an X-ray tech. Once I began working in a hospital I was exposed firsthand to the injuries sustained by soldiers. This was not limited to the Gulf War. Veterans from Panama, Vietnam, Korea, World War II, and even one from World War I helped me see the cost of war in human terms.

Active-duty GIs and retired and disabled veterans flooded our hospital daily. To call their medical treatment inadequate would be a gross understatement. What was equally obvious was the fact that I had to reassess my misconceptions of war, particularly its glorification. Around this time the Gulf War syndrome was gaining a bit of attention in the media and in the halls of the hospital.

The syndrome was my first introduction to a conspiracy theory. Sure, the government had us believing in a magic bullet for Kennedy, but I was witnessing this one directly from my own grassy knoll. I remember the government repeatedly denying anything that came out of a Gulf veteran's mouth. Reports of being gassed by the enemy, forced inoculations, and adverse reactions to inoculations were dismissed out of hand. A superior once said to me, "Admit nothing, deny everything, and demand proof" — a sad but fitting quote of the prevailing mode of operation.

I didn't need an M.D. after my name to clearly see that some of the Gulf veterans were ill. I also remember the indignation with which the Army treated the soldiers and their medical claims. A common quote by health professionals at the time was: "It's all in their head." Now we know that is a lie. Some soldiers were gassed; a few were forcibly given injections, and there were cases that injected substances later caused illness.

Shortly after I ended my eight years of active duty I started nodding off and went to sleep with the rest of the country. That slumber was interrupted in September 2001, and then I was shaken again by the details of the USA PATRIOT Act. Anger, denial, outrage, disgust and more; I went through the buffet of human emotions and heaped my plate.

When our boots hit the sand in Iraq, I made no attempt to hide my disagreement with the government's actions. Some friends and family began to question my patriotism. In one particularly heated conversation the word "traitor" was not used towards me, but it was clearly implied — by a person who had not served, making the attack even more inexcusable.

Thankfully, groups like Vietnam Veterans Against the War provided the necessary fellowship I needed; it was good to know that I wasn't the subversive pariah I was being treated like. For most of 2002 and 2003 I was solidly in the minority regarding Iraq and American foreign policy in general. It wasn't until earlier this year that many began shifting their support away from the war.

It is tough to stay ahead of the spin, though; the 9/11 attacks silenced a great number of dissenters and even managed to change a few doves into hawks. Then people began to rally against the war in Afghanistan and they were quickly vilified as not supporting the troops. The same people promoting these lies were sending undertrained, underequipped and understaffed units of soldiers to fight in battles with non-specific goals or timelines. The absolute insanity of it is difficult to stomach.

I remember the faces that lined the wall at my old unit in Germany detailing our chain of command. Some left, and a few were promoted to the highest levels of office. Horrific mistakes were made then, and many are being made now. Today I am fully awake, and so are many others. The sanctity of human life does not depend on sex, race, sexual preference, creed, or nationality. An incalculable mistake is being made in Iraq, and time is of the essence to remedy it. I look forward to the day when those who stood peacefully (yet firmly) against this war can look back with pride at their contribution to ending the bloodshed.