Pentagon Holds Thousands of Americans "Prisoners of War"
By Penny Coleman
AlterNet

Wednesday 26 March 2008

"There are at least 60,000 of them, but they're not on the DOD's list of soldiers missing in action."
Sgt. Kristofer Shawn Goldsmith was one of the many soldiers and Marines, veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, who gave testimony at last weekend's Winter Soldier investigation. They spoke from personal experience about what the American military is doing in those countries. They gave examples of what they had done, what they had been ordered to do, what they had witnessed, how their experiences had wounded them, both physically and psychically, and what kind of care and support they have, or most often have not gotten since coming home. The panel Goldsmith was on was called "The Breakdown of the U.S. Military," so he surprised the audience when he said that he was going to talk about prisoners of war.

He was not, however, going to talk about the three soldiers listed as missing in action on the Department of Defense website. He was referring to those who have been the victims of stop-loss, the device by which the president can, "in the event of war," choose to extend an enlistee's contract "until six months after the war ends." The "War on Terror" is this president's excuse for invoking that clause. Because that war will, by definition, continue as long as we insist that there is a difference between the terror inflicted on our innocents and the terror inflicted on theirs, American soldiers are effectively signing away their freedom indefinitely when they join the military. They are prisoners of an ill-defined and undeclared war on a tactic - terrorism - that dates back to Biblical times and will be with us indefinitely.

According to U.S. News and World Report, there are at least 60,000 of them.

"I was a great soldier once upon a time," Goldsmith says. He graduated at the top of his class in basic training and was on the commandant's list in the Warrior Leadership Course with a 94.6 percent average. He aced every test, mental and physical, received commendations and medals and promotions, but by the end of his first deployment he knew he was in serious trouble. His CSM (command sergeant major) Altman, however, had told his battalion, "If any of you go try to say you're depressed and thinking about killing yourself, you're going to get deployed anyway, and when we get there, you'll get to be my personal I.E.D. (improvised explosive device) kicker!" So he self-medicated; he drank. A lot. "All I wanted to do was black out."

What kept him going was the end that was in sight. He just had to hang on till his contract was up, and then he could go home, go back to school, and finally be a 20-year-old kid. Then days before he was scheduled to get out, his unit was locked down, stop-lossed as part of the surge. He was looking at another 18-month deployment.

At first he thought he was having a heart attack. It turned out to be a panic attack. He was diagnosed with depression, anxiety disorder and adjustment disorder, given a lot of pills and told he'd be fine. Or at least fine enough to go back.

The day before his unit was to deploy, Memorial Day 2007, he went out onto the memorial field at Ft. Stewart, where trees are planted for every soldier from 3rd Infantry Division killed in Iraq. He mixed pills and vodka, and tried to die.

He woke up handcuffed to a gurney and spent a week in a mental ward. His commanding officer tried to rip off his stripes and threatened to prosecute him for malingering, a court martial offense: He had tried to kill a U.S. Army soldier. Ultimately, he was given two Article 15s (nonjudicial punishment), one for malingering and one for missing movement (not deploying on time) and separated from the service with a general discharge stamped in big letters: "misconduct: serious offense." Under a general discharge, he lost all his educational benefits.

Sgt. Goldsmith's story is not necessarily more devastating than others I heard over the course of the four-day gathering. There were many that were told with equal courage and clarity, and that were equally revealing of important issues. But at some point as I listened to him speak, I realized that I was no longer listening as a journalist, I was listening as a mother. In 1971, the original Winter Soldiers were my age. This new generation are my children's. And this young soldier framed everything he had to say with a mother's worst nightmare: the death of a child.

The first picture Goldsmith showed was of a 10-year-old boy in "cammies," with dog tags on a chain around his neck, proudly offering his best boy scout salute. "That boy died in Iraq, " he says.

Another picture flashed on the screen, this time of a young soldier in real military camouflage, leaning out of a jeep and flashing a ****-eating boyish grin. It was a good day, the first day of his deployment to Iraq in 2005. That boy, too, Goldsmith told us, is dead.

Three years after that picture was taken, Sgt. Goldsmith doesn't look any older. In fact, sitting on the speakers' platform between two big Marines, he almost looks fragile. Even the Mohawk haircut doesn't come off as particularly tough. He may be fragile, but there is nothing, absolutely nothing fragile about what he has to say. Or the way he says it.

Goldsmith is from Bellmore, Long Island. On Sept. 11, 2001, he could see the smoke from the towers from his home. Like many Americans, he wanted to join the military to protect his country. He signed on as a forward observer, perhaps the most dangerous position on the battlefield.

In Iraq, he was stationed in Sadr City, one of the poorest and angriest of Baghdad's neighborhoods. Electricity was available for only 2-4 hours a day, sewage contaminated the water system, and the outside temperature often topped 130 degrees. American soldiers were charged with enforcing a curfew that kept locals locked inside their homes, away from the coffee shops or the rooftops or their neighbors' yards, for the only cool hours of the day.

Essentially rendering 3.2 million Iraqis prisoners of war. Goldsmith was among the prisoners guarding other prisoners.

Among the stories Goldsmith told was one about a little boy on a rooftop with a stick, pretending it was an AK47. He was yelling down at the Americans, angry, acting tough and posturing defiantly. Goldsmith trained his weapon on the kid and almost fired. Something made him stop, but when he told the story last weekend, you could hear the disbelief in his voice: "I almost took out a 6-year-old boy. I almost killed someone's son."

When a mass grave was discovered, he was ordered to take pictures of the dead. One after another, horrific images of death in partial decay went up on the screen. "Every one of these pictures is burned into my mind," he says. "I could draw them." And he remembers the flies. The flies had no particular preference for the living or the dead. They were "landing on the corpses ... And then they would land on my lips. They would land on my eyes. They would crawl up my nose. And I felt so violated and emotionally raped." It did not help to know that those images, ostensibly for identification purposes, were never shared with Iraqis hoping to find a missing loved one. They were trophies for a few armchair warriors who used them to "boost morale," to prove that Americans were really kicking haji butt. But for Goldsmith, the horror is indelible. It will never go away.

When they wanted him to go back for more, he despaired and tried to kill the 21-year-old he had become. Nothing made sense anymore.

I find it so painfully ironic that as other excuses for the war have been proven false, (weapons of mass destruction, U.N. sanctions, ties to Al-Queda, etc.) the administration has fallen back on the most unbelievable of all: freedom. While George Bush insists that Iraqis accept freedom, American style, one out of every 100 of our own citizens are in prison. Almost twice as many as the runner-up, China. Iraq is 62 on the list, though it is unclear whether that includes those being held by Americans. In this country, there are 2,258,983 in prison. That figure does not include the 723,000 locked up in local jails. Or the 60,000 stop-lossed soldiers.

Pentagon studies have shown that each deployment leaves a soldier 60 percent more likely to suffer serious mental health problems. In support of that, as this president sends soldiers back into combat as many as five times in as many years, the U.S. Army Medical Command Suicide Prevention Action Plan acknowledges that suicides among active-duty soldiers in 2007 were up 20 percent from 2006, their highest level since the Army began keeping such records in 1980. And the number of suicide attempts has increased sixfold since the Iraq war began. There were several in the I-30 Infantry Battalion, and Goldsmith holds his sergeant major responsible. Like Goldsmith, these young soldiers are being told not only that they are prisoners, but that they are disposable. They are our children, and their deaths are on the hands of those who hold their freedom hostage.

Congress could put an end to this.



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Penny Coleman is the widow of a Vietnam veteran who took his own life after coming home. Her latest book, Flashback: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Suicide and the Lessons of War, was released on Memorial Day, 2006. Her website is Flashback.
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i'm really curious how much of this crap is made up.....

awesome! support the prisons!

uh, I mean prisoners!

To be honest with ya'll i know i kid in my own unit who was stop lossed and brought over here...now he's only got one leg. Believe what the ppl are sayin sometimes but the Government.....well thats a differnet story

stop loss, one of a few reasons i reconsidered my attempt to join the army

Wow, now if this isn't sensationalism, I don't know what is. Comparing the U.S. military to a prison? Yeah, because, you know, they threaten to kill you nowadays if you refuse to sign up! Oh wait, now I remember, it's a volunteer force.

Also, this kid is a moron and should have never been let into the military,

"I almost took out a 6-year-old boy. I almost killed someone's son."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. You're in a warzone, chief. Your job is to kill or be killed. If you can't grasp that concept then you probably shouldn't be in the military, period. What if that kid really did have an AK? I'm sure he would've thought the same for you!

Comparing the U.S. military to a prison?

The US Military is the closest thing to a dictatorship we have in America.
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"I almost took out a 6-year-old boy. I almost killed someone's son."
This is a very human reaction. This man should have no shame admitting this. Thank God for Soldier's with a conscience!

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Also, this kid is a moron and should have never been let into the military, it's a volunteer force.

This kid is a patriot, if you live to be a hundred you will never know what this Man has seen or experienced. Yes it is a voluntary force, lucky for you aye?

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If it werent for brave patriotic men like him, they would be forced to institute the draft! Personally, I think they should before they institute the stop-loss clause.
These men, and women are having to make all the sacrifices for Bush's war.
Thats what the story should convey to you. In fact, it should move you to the point where you run to the AFEE's station to volunteer, or at least drop to your knees to kiss the ground that these soldiers walk on!
If patriotic men like him did not volunteer, we could really hear boy's like you crying the blues as they drafted your ass!

I dont like this war,
even worse to me is the loud-mouthed,
sit on their ass, soak up the benefits and freedoms,
without actually contributing to any of it, punks!


Sit back and smoke your cigars,
soak up the freedoms you do nothing for (welfare???), and
talk **** about a man who would probably whoop your ass if you said that **** to his face!

interesting

criticism of someone's trauma is not an answer.. nor is the belittling of it. There is truth in this writing... Stop loss is not something that has always been here in our military.. it was never an accepted risk..death yes.. but freedom to walk away when your agreed to time is done?.. when a man signs up his life.. aka volunteers.. he expects the government to adhere to its obligations.. He signed up for four years.. and six years later is still in... Where is the volunteer then? is he really not a prisoner? is not that much at least true?
They did thier duty.. they should be released.

no pity.. no mercy... try to serve this country mister warelephant.. see the truth of the thanks they give you.. indeed that is the problem right there.. people join to serve.. not to become property and owned. There is a difference between the owned and served... Our country would do well to remember that.

Having been in the military, having so many friends in the military, you ought to believe it. When you haven't been in the military, it is easy to believe these things can't be true or are only partly. But it isn't even the half of it.

I can't believe you are that ignorant.

I can.. but the saddest of all that is that it is just those men and women that serve and get discarded, which allows exactly such ignorance

Nobody should join. The truth should be known. But what do they do? They call them "Heros" and anyone who is against the war are looked at as if they are some kind of traitor. I say hell no don't go.

The war on terrorism is a fraud, a lie, and excuse to give the president unlimited power to be a dictator. You want to know who the real terrorists are? The CIA, the Mossad, the trilateral commission, the United Nations, the world bankers, the illumanati. Yes they exist. They control terrorism. They train and supply terrorists. They sell guns to both sides.

War is big business. Just say no. Don't be a fool.

JB

dont be kidded by what the goverment has not told you or how they mess up and how very important things all of a sudden get lost

To add to that when a guy does get out of the war zone, or injured for life they don't take care of them. The government would just as soon they have died. They hate having to take care of the vets.

JB

loud and clear

That's right, the guy should sue the government for breaking their contract with him. They (the government) expect the soldier to keep his contract, but they don't think they have to keep theirs. WHY?? BECAUSE THIS COUNTRY IS NOT AS FREE AS YOU MIGHT THINK.

Our freedom is just an illusion, that they work hard to keep in our faces because after all, we are sending our sons and daughters to fight for this so-called freedom that we are supposed to have. Once that illusion is gone, well, if there is not a revolution, there should be one.

Americans are supposed to be free. But there has been an infiltration in this country. We are not even a country anymore, we are a business. The United States of America is a corporation. And guess what? You don't own it. It owns you.

JB

ah.. but people do join.. and they will.. because they are looking for purpose and reason in an insane world..because of many different reasons and purposes.. BUT they do.. and in having made that decision, they live up to the responsiblity they sign up for.. and the government should in return live up to the same.

A prisoner does a crime.. he gets tried and convicted.. he repays society..

A military member does an honor, a duty or a responsiblity.. he is raped by society..

There is a huge difference here.. but the original writer is correct.. They are prisoners.. and they were never criminals

Yes they do join up, out of lack of knowing what is really going on. Yes they feel like they are fighting for a cause. They are deluded. Sorry, but they are brainwashed just like most of the American Public. I feel sorry for them. I want to tell them the truth but most will not hear. It is their decision and they will pay a dear price for it. WAR steals your humanity and your sanity. If you can get out with that intact, you probably were not in a war zone.

JB