Iraq One Year Later

Mar. 19, 2004 - Memorial Procession & Gathering in Missoula

300+ Turn Out Here to Mourn the Losses - 2 Million Gather Worldwide
Link to Missoulian article
Link to Missoula Independent article
Download Amy Holtz singing, "We Must Choose Peace"
Note: This MP3 file takes a little while to download, but does so in a separate window.

Army Vet Speaks

The remarks of COLIN HOLTZ, US Army Veteran of Desert Storm:

Hello, I’d like to thank you all for coming out to remember the dead from this war.

My name is Colin Holtz. I am a veteran of the U.S. Army and I served in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. I am also on the Coordinating Council of the Jeannette Rankin Peace Center. I had another name when I was in Iraq; it was Battle Roster Number Echo Charlie 1110. The boy that was Colin is dead. He died on the battlefield somewhere in Saudi Arabia or Iraq, sometime between the friendly fire incident and being ordered to kill women and children.

Colin wanted another child, a little sister for his daughter. However, Echo Charlie 1110 was immunized against Polio, Flu, MMR, Mono, Typh, Small Pox, Yellow Fever, Hep-B, Plg, Plg II, Plg B1, Diph, MCG, PPD, AD 4-7, TYP, and TYP II. He was ordered to take pyridostigmine bromide — experimental pills that had not been approved by the FDA. He breathed in depleted uranium dust and the smoke from burning oil wells. He was exposed to chemical and biological agents. On the plane ride home, Echo Charlie 1110 was briefed that he should not attempt to father any children for at least six months.

Colin donated blood twice a year. Echo Charlie 1110 was told by the Red Cross that there was a ban on blood from Gulf War veterans. Colin knew nothing of Gulf War Illness. Echo Charlie 1110’s friends have brain tumors and experience blackouts, phantom sights, sounds, and smells, and are racked by grand mal seizures. Echo Charlie 1110, himself, has joint pain, excruciating muscle spasms in his legs and back, and a lump growing on his sternum.

Colin loved to throw a Frisbee. While in Iraq, Echo Charlie 1110 juggled hand grenades for fun. Colin believed it when they said his war was about oil, and then when they said it was about jobs, and finally, when they said it was about naked aggression and weapons of mass destruction.

Echo Charlie 1110 knows different. His war, as with all wars, was about terror — the terror felt by the civilian populations in the theater of operations, the terror felt by the “enemy” troops, and the terror felt by him and his fellow battle roster numbers. Colin believed that when you drop a bomb or fire a round the target is destroyed, period. Echo Charlie 1110 knows that every depleted uranium round fired is the equivalent of a dirty bomb, and that radiation pays heed to neither friend nor foe, neither combatant nor non-combatant. He knows that the winds of democracy recognize no national border, that they heed no line of demarcation, and that they carry a cocktail of nuclear, biological, and chemical fallout.

Colin was willing to offer himself upon the altar of war, but Battle Roster Number Echo Charlie 1110 knows that “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” (It is sweet and becoming to die for one’s country) is the biggest lie of all.

I am a veteran of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. I spent 207 days in the Gulf, 30 of them in Iraq. During the 1991 Gulf War I saw many horrific things. I saw PFC Willhouse shoot Corporal Robinson square in the chest with an anti-tank weapon. I watched Corporal Albright buckle under the pressure and require a psychological evacuation. I saw my commanding officers push for combat missions in the eleventh hour of the war so that they could further their careers. These were not anomalies. These are the obscenities of war.

Viet Nam era author Tim O’Brien offers the following as the definition of a true war story: A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue. As a first rule of thumb, therefore, you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil.

As I look out at you, I see, in your hands, the faces of 551 men and women who were cut down in their prime — 551 dreams turned to nightmares; 551 future statesmen, surgeons, garbage collectors, and mail carriers; 551 sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles, grandfathers, grandmothers, husbands, wives, and lovers; 551 minds that could have held the cure for cancer, the solution to oil dependency, the next Pulitzer Prize. And we have lost 21 more since we made these gravestones.

To make matters worse, the Pentagon contends that only 2,722 soldiers have been wounded in action as of March 1. However, the U.S. Air Force admits that it has flown approximately 12,000 wounded soldiers into Andrews Air Force Base over the past 9 months. In addition, the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center has seen over 1100 psychiatric cases — soldiers so traumatized by what they have seen and done that they simply cannot go on.

Why? What possible good could come from this tragedy? Where are the weapons of mass destruction? Where is the Al Qaeda link? Where is the clear and present danger? Why have 6,370 Iraqi troops and 10,430 Iraqi civilians been killed?

As if this tragic loss of life was not enough, the financial costs here at home are mind boggling. With the money we spend on a single minute of the war in Iraq we could pay the annual salary, with benefits, of 15 registered nurses. The money spent on one hour of the war in Iraq could be used to improve, repair, and modernize 20 schools. With the money spent on one stealth bomber we could pay the annual salaries, with benefits, for 38,000 teachers. The money spent on 7 unmanned Predator Drones could fund WIC program nutrition for 200,000 families. This is obscene. This is a true war story.

If we bring it a little closer to home, the $87 billion in additional spending on the war on Iraq will cost Montana tax payers $137 million. That money could fund $52.0 million in school construction resulting in 1,245 new jobs, AND 188 new affordable housing units, creating 460 new jobs, AND $23.6 million for local and state roads and bridges, creating 727 new jobs, AND 753 new firefighters, AND health care coverage for 3,988 people. This is obscene. This is a true war story.

We simply must rein in our elected representatives. We must be unrelenting. We must remind them that we remember when they stood on the floor of the House and told us that 95% of their constituents said no to war and that they said yes anyway. We must insist that they find nonviolent ways to achieve our goals. We must remind them that they work for us and that we will fire them if they fail to perform. This is an election year. This is our chance. Vote for a change. Too many lives have already been reduced to memories.