David Tirri

I joined the United Sates Army for a multitude of reasons, but mainly because I was looking for a way to escape from my crazy family. Truth be told, if I hadn’t been required to provide and notify an emergency contact, I would have disappeared without anyone knowing I was gone. I thought I was running toward a positive change. I believed all the noble things I had been told about joining the service, and I was looking forward to the honor and prestige that came with it. Now don’t be mistaken, there were some great parts to my ten years of enlistment however, I am not here to relay those things. In reading the accounts outlined in “The Winter Soldier” I have been able to reflect upon my time in the service free of the rose colored glasses that come from all the propaganda we are inundated with on a constant basis. Prior to writing my account of things I decided to take a walk, and as I walked I noticed several green light-bulbs shining in the doorways of the homes I passed. The green light was to signify that the household “Supported the Troops”. I scoff as I pass those hollow gestures. I wondered if I knocked on any of those doors, how many people would tell me to “piss off”. I wondered if the occupants inside actually knew what happens during a war and if they did how many would take out their green light-bulbs. In war there are no innocents. The machine of war only seeks to create suffering. Again please don’t be mistaken, I understand that there are a great many things worth fighting for. Putting action toward a noble cause is not the same as making war. I am still willing to stand up, put myself in harms way, and even lay my life on the line for the things that matter. However, war is not a cause worth dying for. I hope that my words in the following paragraphs can illustrate why that is true. The first story I’d like to tell is the one that most stuck with me mainly because the images I see whenever I think of it. I don’t remember the little girl’s name in this photograph, but I do remember why she has a bandaged eye. The day she almost lost her eye all-together was the day when that was the least of the things she lost. Her and her family was simple farmers. They lived in constant fear of not only the oppressive Taliban, but also of the US forces there to combat them. Both sides ignored the civilian affects of our skirmishes. Truthfully, I think for all parties involved it was simply easier to imagine that there were no civilians, no regular people just trying to live their lives. But make no mistake, there are regular people living in and around every “war zone” and they constitute the most horrendous and inhumane casualties of any war. One day, while this little girl and her brother were helping her parents herd their sheep to the only grazing area that we (the US Army) would allow them to go, her mother and father triggered a road-side bomb left for our forces by the Taliban. I wonder if we hadn’t decreed that the fields around our base as off limits and a free fire area would she and her family had even been there to stumble upon the bomb. I wonder if her family hadn’t tripped this trap, would some of my battle-buddies have spotted it in time or would it had been another family to lose as much as she did. Regardless, the bomb went off along the road leading from the town of Mizan past Fort Mizan (the local prison we had appropriated as our base). At first most of the soldiers thought that it was just another failed mortar attempt by the enemy. It wasn’t until the local Imam, carrying this little girl and frantically trying to convince the gate guard not to shoot him, did we find out otherwise. Our interpreter helped to diffuse the situation at the gate and the Imam and the little girl were escorted to our tiny aide station. The medic, who was working alone that day, immediately called for any help he could. I remember responding and being told to help him hold this little girl down while he tried to reinsert her eye back into its socket. The shrapnel that flew from the explosion had struck her in such a way as to leave her eye dangling by the retinal chord from her skull. It was by far the most gruesome thing I had ever seen. The little girl was frantic and flailing about screaming in pain. Blood and tears flowed down my uniform as I tried to hold her still so the Doc could do his work. I know it must have been hard on him. We hadn’t received a resupply of medical supplies for some time and he had no anesthetic to help sedate her. Despite the lack of adequate equipment the Doc managed to reinsert the eye socket and bandage her up in a triage fashion so she could be choppered to a real hospital. I’ll never forget the screams as Doc worked to apply enough pressure to get the eye in place withought further damaging it. I’ll never forget the feeling of helplessness as I squeezed this little girl tight enough to keep her still so the Doc could do his work. To this day I cannot watch gruesome or gory movies. Imagine seeing the “Saw movies in real life. You’d have a different take on them. We managed to get this little girl bandaged up and sent to the army medical facility on Kandahar, and the photo at the beginning of this story is from her return. We managed to save her eye however; we could do nothing for her parents. They were the ones who had triggered the bomb and so they took the blunt of the blast (It tore them to shreds similar to a slasher film). Her brother had been trailing behind her and so he managed to suffer nothing more than a few cuts and bruises. I don’t know what happened to the sheep. I think they escaped and were later rounded up as consolidation. However, on that day two children became orphans. How can a few sheep ever make up for that? This is my battle-buddy Josh Malore. I’d like to tell you that Josh made it through his time in Afghanistan unaffected. I’d like to tell you that he never had to experience the atrocities that others did. However, I’d be lying if I did. Josh was a 13 Bravo (A Mortar man), and part of his duties a soldier was to provide artillery support for those soldiers on patrol. They would radio in with coordinates and he would fire mortars to rein down on those coordinates. On several occasions he would be the only mortar man on base and would need assistance. On those occasions he would call on any available troop to be the ammo handler while he’d fire the mortars. The ammo handler’s job was to prepare the charges and hand them to him to fire. On one such occasion, when I was filling the position of ammo handler, he received coordinates from a patrol that had come under fire. Josh was a diligent soldier and he repeated the coordinates that he’d been given for accuracy. He checked, and double checked his math and positioning of the 120MM Mortar cannon. He relayed to me the correct charges to use for the coordinates he had been given, and he fired in according to the training he had practiced so many times. Yes, everything he did that day was by the book and 100 percent correct. He fired once. BOOM! He fired twice. BOOM! He fired a third time, and waited for confirmation via radio of a hit. Thus was the standard operation procedure on base. He’d fire three mortars; wait for confirmation further coordinates for continued fire support. On this particular day he didn’t get any such confirmation. On this day he heard “Cease FIRE, Cease FIRE, and Cease FIRE!” The next thing he heard over the radio would scare Josh for life. The next words to squawk across the radio were, “My bad wrong coordinates, impact on non-combatant domicile adjust fire to...” We had just dropped a mortar on a civilian home. Some unsuspecting family had their lives snuffed out because someone on the ground couldn’t be bothered to verify coordinates before calling for fire support. To my knowledge this incident was swept under the rug and choked up to the fog of war. However, Josh didn’t see it so flipped. For days afterward he sequestered himself to his bunk. He couldn’t reconcile himself with what we had done. He didn’t see it as a mistake made by the ground troops, and he certainly didn’t see it as acceptable collateral damage. He, in his mind, had committed murder. Josh was a great soldier, a war fighter, and he could conduct himself as such even to the point of firing his weapon at the enemy. However, Josh couldn’t see himself as having anything to do with killing civilians. To do so was contradictory to whom he was. I was torn up for my part in this incitement, but honestly I was able to put it out of my mind for the longest time because I didn’t SEE the end results. Josh could though. In his mind, whenever he closed his eyes, he could see the lives he had taken that day. Josh was medically discharged with PTSD. No investigation as to who had provided the wrong coordinates ever occurred, and certainly no attempt was ever made to compensate anyone for the losses suffered that day. Josh and I completed training and deployed to Afghanistan as soldiers, but we left murderers. Looking back I feel remorse and regret for the actions that day. No amount of counseling could ever change what I did but I wasn’t the one to drop the motor. I can never imagine what Josh felt and continues to feel. While Josh was able to leave Afghanistan alive, I know that he’s a casualty of war and the US occupation just as any of those that lost their lives. I’d like to say that this was an isolated incident. I’d like to tell you that every precaution is made to prevent needless death and murder. However, the systemic notion from the upper echelons of leadership is continue mission. Keep doing what you’re told, even if what you’re told is just plain wrong. Looking back I’d say the real Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy was the one surrounding the many deplorable acts surrounding the US occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Soldiers don’t ask if your orders are moral and right, and don’t ever tell what really happens. The Last thing I’d like to say is that most soldiers are inherently good. Most of us just want to serve admirably. However, the dehumanizing effects of the 16 year long occupations have put many of us in the position of monsters. We are told that the Rules of Engagement are meant to ensure that we conduct ourselves honorably as soldiers, but then we are told that there are free fire areas where we’re expected to shoot anyone no matter who and we do. We are fed constant streams of propaganda surrounding the enemy. So much disinformation that soldiers not only attack human beings believed to be the enemy but often carry on aggression well beyond what is necessary. I’ve seen combatants with four inch holes in their stomachs still being kicked and spat upon. I watched as one such “enemy” had his jaw broken from a boot to his face after he had been shot several times. We are told that we are a welcome force, but I never saw anything to lead me to believe that. I lost bits of my humanity during my time in Afghanistan. I threw things at the local children simply because they were begging for food. I shot at lights on a hillside blindly, because I was told that the rightful citizens of Afghanistan weren’t supposed to be there. A noble fight is one in which it is obvious that a person’s efforts are just. War is not a Noble fight. I listen to folks speaking grandiosely of making war, and I quickly realize that they don’t know anything about it. Making war is to perpetuate lies through theft and murder. We don’t wage war on injustice we wage war against people in response to perceived slights. War is not the correct term for such actions. The correct term for that is revenge. If what we are doing in Afghanistan is so “Right and moral” than why have I lost three battle-buddies in less than a year to suicide? SGT David Tirri United States Army 1AD Sustainment Brigade Oct 2006 – Oct 2016