Travis Snider

This is a testimony that I posted to my FaceBook, along with a lot of FaceBook groups I subscribe to. I am a Veteran of the Iraqi War. This is my official testimony as to why I have joined the Veteran's Against the Iraq War (VAIW). I have placed several testimonials on FaceBook; however, I believe, this one to be the most important that I've ever given. Prior to being sent to war in 2006, I was an active duty USAF Airman. I was proud of my service and had a very accomplished career. I was what military service members and supervisors call a fast burner. We call it that because, your career is so decorated that you essentially burn through all of the ranks faster than your peers. I was also a Youth Pastor at my local Church and had served in ministry since, around 2002. I believed in the war on terror and I believed that what our soldiers were doing was necessary in the name of safety and freedom for the American public. In 2006, after six months at my new duty station (WPAFB), one of our Airman reported to mental health shortly prior to a slotted deployment date. While we did not tell her to her face, most of us, if not all, saw her as a disgrace. Even with all of my morality, in thinking I was a good Christian, I felt the same way about her (hypocrite). You see rather than talking to my military "sister" and trying to understand what she was facing (like a good Christian pastor should do), I chose to slander her behind her back and state to my other military brothers and sisters, that she was a prime example of a deserter. Some of that came from knowing that, because she was too "weak minded" to do her duty of service to this great American country, I had to take her place on the deployment (ridiculous). For me this meant leaving my family behind to go to war, while they were struggling to stabilize in a new state, without family or friends, after three moves in under two years. Because of this, so called, week minded soldier, I now had to leave my, very unstable family behind and take her place in war. At that time, you were not supposed to deploy if you had less than 15 months on station (AF), because AF leaders knew that deploying people in those situations, inevitably always led to a destabilized family unit, which in turn led to a destabilized military member during and upon return for deployment. I was placed on this deployment, against standardized regulations, because of special circumstances, in that there were no other qualified members, in my deployment bucket, who could take this "weak minded" female's duty. Now they could have pulled from another bucket or another base who was up in rotation. The leadership chose me to deploy, not because it was better for me, my family, the Airman who was not mentally qualified to deploy, but because sending me was easier and did not make them look bad, since they would not have to admit that they did not have enough trained medics in their deployment buckets. After returning from training, I learned more about the so called "weak minded" female. She reported to mental health because she was severely depressed and had severe anxiety, not because of a deployment notice, but because she was being heavily abused by her husband during the time of the deployment notice, and she knew that if she deployed under the circumstances, her mental state would place others at risk. She actually did what we as military supervisors, implore our Airman do. She sought help, got a divorce and eventually got out of the Air Force. I'm happy to say that her and I are good friends and talk here on FaceBook from time to time. I'm sad to know that rather than doing what was right, by her, I actively participated in making her a pariah, rather seeking to help her, as a true Christian should have. That never escapes my mind. During my first deployment, I quickly realized that, in my service to this great country, I was serving a lie. I could not tell you how many children I saw badly mutilated and killed from our war on terror, and the so called collateral damage being inflicted on defenseless mothers and children. As a medic, I am bound by only one code, and that is, "first, do no harm". I can't tell you just how important this code is to the medical community. This is the only code that prevents Dr.'s and medical staff from taking the law into there own hands and killing you as your only judge and jury. Picture this if you will, you're walking through an American community and gunshots ring out from gangland warfare, you're shot, you had nothing to do with the violence. Children and innocents are shot, killed and injured in this violence. You are transferred to the hospital, unconscious , and unable to speak up to defend yourself, the officers on the scene are not sure if you were involved in the crime; therefore, you're cuffed and placed into the ambulance and scurried off to the nearest hospital. By the time you've arrived, the EMS has radioed ahead, and notified the ER that they're bringing a potential gangland violence suspect in with a severe GSW, who needs immediate surgical intervention. By the time this is communicated to the surgeon, the phone game is in full force, you're now a gang member and you may be responsible for the deaths of several innocent children. You're now on the surgeon's table, and low and behold, he has a family member or friend who was shot an killed in gangland violence some time in his past. If there was no code of ethics that says, "first do no harm", this surgeon would be inclined to look like he is trying to save your life, while really letting you die, or inflicting further damage which will disable you. In that short time an innocent person dies or is permanently disabled. Well, guess what, that's exactly what was and is going on at Balad Air Base, in Iraq. It was not unusual to see a technician intentionally contaminate their sterile field, while working to save the lives of Iraqi males who were brought to us for surgery. I've, personally witnessed Dr.'s intentionally do harm to patients who were suspected terrorists, with the key word being suspected (sick, first do no harm, assholes). I did stand firm alongside, several other medics, against this practice; however, just because I wasn't participating in such practices, did not absolve me of my guilt, of not reporting it until something was done to correct it or I was taken out. I wish I would have done it at all costs, now. The one time I tried to speak up, I was essentially slapped down, by the Med Group Commander, as being a trouble maker. Shortly after arriving in country, I had witnessed one of our Anesthesiologist, smashing Iraqi detainee's surgical gurneys, who were bagged and cuffed, into walls and doors in order to startle them. Any medic knows that your supposed to push and pull these gurneys with extreme care, even when the patient does not have a bag on their heads and are not cuffed to the gurney. This is because going into surgery is extremely stressful, and anything you do to startle the patient magnifies their fear of the unknown, increases cortisol levels, increases blood pressure, and can have life threatening consequences during surgery. Beyond that, these are life threatening injuries that, increasing blood pressure and the cortisol response to stress, could kill the patient before they even make it to surgery. Upon witnessing this, I immediately stepped in and instructed the Army Major to cease this behavior, he in turn, laughed, called me a pussy, and told me to fuck off. I went to his commander, who laughed it off and told me to get with the program. This commander told me that if the soldiers don't finish these "bad guys" off in the field, it was up to us to take them out. I was sick with disbelief, even though I may have been a hypocritical religious person, I knew this was sick and disgusting, I then went to the Med Group commander to inform him of what was going on. To my dismay, while he did not state it, I could tell he was aware of this behavior and did not have a problem with it. However, the waves I was beginning to create had become so crazy that the commander consoled me and explained to me that sometimes war just brings out anger and certain emotions that soldiers can't process, and that these emotions manifest themselves in this way, and it's how soldiers blow off steam, again sick! He told me that he did not condone the behavior and he would speak to those who were participating in it. Just so you're aware , this sort of behavior is considered a war crime, under the Geneva Conventions, and is punishable by death, and yet not one single reprimand was ever handed out to these criminals. However, they were instructed that if they were going to do these things, not do do them in my presence, which just essentially made me out to be the asshole. This was hard for me and became the basis for a lot of my PTSD and suicidal tendencies. It wasn't fighting war that made me suicidal, it was knowing that what we were doing over there was sick and inhumane, that made me want to kill myself. It was commonly known to all Airman then, and still is, that reporting to mental health and being diagnosed with PTSD was a career ender. Upon return from deployment, I filled out my deployment return survey, which is a tool that the medical and mental health professionals use to ask you questions that will lead them to discovering if you have a medical or mental health issue as a result of your deployment. Ask anyone who has deployed and I l guarantee you that you will discover that at least 99% of members returning from deployment lie on these surveys to prevent losing their careers , because they know they have PTSD or because they sustained a medical injury that would disqualify them from continuing in service. I on the other hand, knew how messed up I was and decided to answer these questions truthfully, in the event I was eventually disqualified as a result of my severe PTSD, and not having any medical documentation of the things that had happened to me while deployed. This resulted in me receiving a call, at work, from a psychologist, who was now informing me that my survey indicated that I had sever PTSD and major depression and that they wanted me to report to mental health for treatment. I then asked the Dr. if I could deny said treatment. The Dr. informed me that I could; however, they were going to place a note, in my medical record indicating that I had symptoms of severe PTSD and was refusing treatment. I was then told that if, I did not get treatment and later did something "wrong" as a result of my mental state, I'd receive a dishonorable discharge on the basis that they tried to help me and I had denied this help (Pontius Pilate much). I also sustained a severe back injury while deployed, which went undiagnosed for many years after my deployment, as a result of substandard care, negligent Dr.s, and being misdiagnosed on over 100 Dr.'s visits. This eventually led to severe nerve damage, and eventually resulted in me not being able to stand or walk. In 2010, I was requested for a short notice deployment to the Philippines, by the Surgical Technologist Career Field Manager. I was selected to deploy as a result of the individual who had originally been picked for the deployment was severely unqualified and due to the remote nature of the camp and the fact that this deployment required five medical personnel to independently run a level 3 trauma center, which this member was not qualified or trained to due, hell in all honestly, I don't believe I was really qualified to do that, but I did. I had one week's notice prior to this deployment. My wife and I were currently undergoing fertility treatments in an attempt to have another child, this did not matter and was put on hold for the deployment. While I understood my duty to go on this deployment, this was very damaging to my wife, who had already gone through months of treatments to facilitate something I'd no longer be there to be a part of. It also caused a great deal of marital distress, because my wife could not understand why I would not fight to get off of this deployment, as stopping the treatments would almost certainly seal the deal on us not being able to have another child, which we both wanted (actually it did seal the deal). Prior to the deployment I was told that this was a cake deployment, out of combat, essentially a really nice paid vacation to the Philippines, yeah right! I deployed to Jolo, a Philippine Marine Camp, where the US special forces were working to eradicate the top 5 most wanted terrorist on the FBI's most wanted list, not cake. Not only was I at risk of IED's while convoying all over the place, there were several times where I was placed in situations, where me and my special forces compadres were in fear for our lives, not a vacation. I'll admit; however, that it was beautiful over there and many things about the deployment were amazing, especially meeting and helping Filipino families in need of medical care. However, what was not beautiful was the behavior of the US and Coalition forces operating over there. Our mission was to eradicate the sex trafficking network that these five terrorists were using to fund the terrorism around the world. A very noble mission, until you realize that the majority of US and Coalition forces were participating in the sex trafficking. None of the 4 others in my group participated; however, none of us spoke up to make this sick behavior known to the US citizens we were fighting for. Unfortunately this was mostly out of fear of reprisal. Every top level leader there had their own personal entourage of child sex slaves. The youngest prostitute, that I witnessed was no no older than 9 years, but potentially as young as 5 or 6. She was known to be one of our highest ranking commander's arm candy, every time he visited Manilla. Politician's and other Commanders would visit our camp on TDY, from the US, the under the guise of trying to help us get the things we needed to fight this war. I guess that's why the Filipino Tattoo artist on our camp had a better sterilizer than the antique pressure cooker I was given to sterilize instruments with in a level 3 trauma center, designed to operate on American and Coalition forces. Their trips to the Philippines costed more than it would have costed me to get a decent sterilizer. So what were they there for? In order to visit us, you had to have a layover in Manilla, in my opinion the sex trafficking capital of the world. This meant you could have a fews days to secure some child prostitutes upon arrival in country and on the way out. This occurred at every level of leadership, period. It was also quite rampant on camp Jolo. While it was a violation of the US and Coalition treaties to bring prostitutes on the camp, this happened every day I was there. It was not unusual to see convoys take a detour to pick up child prostitutes to bring back to the camp, to be exploited by US soldiers at every level. Many people have struggled to understand why someone as strong, who loves his children, family, and friends, as I do, could want to kill himself. Well heres your answer, it's not because I saw war, it's because I was awakened to the fact that we serve a sick and corrupt government, and not the freedoms of good loving Americans. My silence in this has been the very reason I've attempted to kill myself at least six times. Not because I'm weak minded, but because I placed little girls and boys below myself, by not speaking out against this shit. My concern for my family and all of my possessions, sucked the soul right out of me. Well I refuse to let these monsters win. I won't kill myself, not because I don't believe that I shouldn't be drug out into the public square and stoned for my inaction, but because I refuse to sit in silence anymore. Let this be a warning to all of those monsters, I'm coming for you. I've already lost my wife and kids through a divorce, most of my possessions are gone, and I would love nothing more than being martyred for the cause of taking you down. Your secrets are no longer safe with me and you will have to kill me to silence me, because killing myself would be a waste. Therefore, let it be known, if I die of a suicide, they did it, not me. With love, "T" https://youtu.be/4T8IfQNl-_8