"We forget what war is about, what it does to those who wage it and those who suffer from it. Those who hate war the most, I have often found, are veterans who know it."
- Chris Hedges, New York Times reporter and author of "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning"
For nearly 12 years, Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey was a hard-core, some say gung-ho, Marine. For three years he trained fellow Marines in one of the most grueling indoctrination rituals in military life - Marine boot camp.
The Iraq war changed Massey. The brutality, the sheer carnage of the U.S. invasion, touched his conscience and transformed him forever. He was honorably discharged with full severance last Dec. 31 and is now back in his hometown, Waynsville, N.C.
When I talked with Massey last week, he expressed his remorse at the civilian loss of life in incidents in which he himself was involved.
Q: You spent 12 years in the Marines. When were you sent to Iraq?
A: I went to Kuwait around Jan. 17. I was in Iraq from the get-go. And I was involved in the initial invasion.
Q: What does the public need to know about your experiences as a Marine?
A: The cause of the Iraqi revolt against the American occupation. What they need to know is we killed a lot of innocent people. I think at first the Iraqis had the understanding that casualties are a part of war. But over the course of time, the occupation hurt the Iraqis. And I didn't see any humanitarian support.
Q: What experiences turned you against the war and made you leave the Marines?
A: I was in charge of a platoon that consists of machine gunners and missile men. Our job was to go into certain areas of the towns and secure the roadways. There was this one particular incident - and there's many more - the one that really pushed me over the edge. It involved a car with Iraqi civilians. From all the intelligence reports we were getting, the cars were loaded down with suicide bombs or material. That's the rhetoric we received from intelligence. They came upon our checkpoint. We fired some warning shots. They didn't slow down. So we lit them up.
Q: Lit up? You mean you fired machine guns?
A: Right. Every car that we lit up we were expecting ammunition to go off. But we never heard any. Well, this particular vehicle we didn't destroy completely, and one gentleman looked up at me and said: "Why did you kill my brother? We didn't do anything wrong." That hit me like a ton of bricks.
Q: He spoke English?
A: Oh, yeah.
Q: Baghdad was being bombed. The civilians were trying to get out, right?
A: Yes. They received pamphlets, propaganda we dropped on them. It said, "Just throw up your hands, lay down weapons." That's what they were doing, but we were still lighting them up. They weren't in uniform. We never found any weapons.
Q: You got to see the bodies and casualties?
A: Yeah, firsthand. I helped throw them in a ditch.
Q: Over what period did all this take place?
A: During the invasion of Baghdad.
'We lit him up pretty good'
Q: How many times were you involved in checkpoint "light-ups"?
A: Five times. There was [the city of] Rekha. The gentleman was driving a stolen work utility van. He didn't stop. With us being trigger happy, we didn't really give this guy much of a chance. We lit him up pretty good. Then we inspected the back of the van. We found nothing. No explosives.
Q: The reports said the cars were loaded with explosives. In all the incidents did you find that to be the case?
A: Never. Not once. There were no secondary explosions. As a matter of fact, we lit up a rally after we heard a stray gunshot.
Q: A demonstration? Where?
A: On the outskirts of Baghdad. Near a military compound. There were demonstrators at the end of the street. They were young and they had no weapons. And when we rolled onto the scene, there was already a tank that was parked on the side of the road. If the Iraqis wanted to do something, they could have blown up the tank. But they didn't. They were only holding a demonstration. Down at the end of the road, we saw some RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) lined up against the wall. That put us at ease because we thought: "Wow, if they were going to blow us up, they would have done it."
Q: Were the protest signs in English or Arabic?
A: Both.
Q: Who gave the order to wipe the demonstrators out?
A: Higher command. We were told to be on the lookout for the civilians because a lot of the Fedayeen and the Republican Guards had tossed away uniforms and put on civilian clothes and were mounting terrorist attacks on American soldiers. The intelligence reports that were given to us were basically known by every member of the chain of command. The rank structure that was implemented in Iraq by the chain of command was evident to every Marine in Iraq. The order to shoot the demonstrators, I believe, came from senior government officials, including intelligence communities within the military and the U.S. government.
Q: What kind of firepower was employed?
A: M-16s, 50-cal. machine guns.
Q: You fired into six or ten kids? Were they all taken out?
A: Oh, yeah. Well, I had a "mercy" on one guy. When we rolled up, he was hiding behind a concrete pillar. I saw him and raised my weapon up, and he put up his hands. He ran off. I told everybody, "Don't shoot." Half of his foot was trailing behind him. So he was running with half of his foot cut off.
Q: After you lit up the demonstration, how long before the next incident?
A: Probably about one or two hours. This is another thing, too. I am so glad I am talking with you, because I suppressed all of this.
Q: Well, I appreciate you giving me the information, as hard as it must be to recall the painful details.
A: That's all right. It's kind of therapy for me. Because it's something that I had repressed for a long time.
Q: And the incident?
A: There was an incident with one of the cars. We shot an individual with his hands up. He got out of the car. He was badly shot. We lit him up. I don't know who started shooting first. One of the Marines came running over to where we were and said: "You all just shot a guy with his hands up." Man, I forgot about this.
Depleted uranium and cluster bombs
Q: You mention machine guns. What can you tell me about cluster bombs, or depleted uranium?
A: Depleted uranium. I know what it does. It's basically like leaving plutonium rods around. I'm 32 years old. I have 80 percent of my lung capacity. I ache all the time. I don't feel like a healthy 32-year-old.
Q: Were you in the vicinity of of depleted uranium?
A: Oh, yeah. It's everywhere. DU is everywhere on the battlefield. If you hit a tank, there's dust.
Q: Did you breath any dust?
A: Yeah.
Q: And if DU is affecting you or our troops, it's impacting Iraqi civilians.
A: Oh, yeah. They got a big wasteland problem.
Q: Do Marines have any precautions about dealing with DU?
A: Not that I know of. Well, if a tank gets hit, crews are detained for a little while to make sure there are no signs or symptoms. American tanks have depleted uranium on the sides, and the projectiles have DU in them. If an enemy vehicle gets hit, the area gets contaminated. Dead rounds are in the ground. The civilian populace is just now starting to learn about it. Hell, I didn't even know about DU until two years ago. You know how I found out about it? I read an article in Rolling Stone magazine. I just started inquiring about it, and I said "Holy s---!"
Q: Cluster bombs are also controversial. U.N. commissions have called for a ban. Were you acquainted with cluster bombs?
A: I had one of my Marines in my battalion who lost his leg from an ICBM.
Q: What's an ICBM?
A: A multi-purpose cluster bomb.
Q: What happened?
A: He stepped on it. We didn't get to training about clusters until about a month before I left.
Q: What kind of training?
A: They told us what they looked like, and not to step on them.
Q: Were you in any areas where they were dropped?
A: Oh, yeah. They were everywhere.
Q: Dropped from the air?
A: From the air as well as artillery.
Q: Are they dropped far away from cities, or inside the cities?
A: They are used everywhere. Now if you talked to a Marine artillery officer, he would give you the runaround, the politically correct answer. But for an average grunt, they're everywhere.
Q: Including inside the towns and cities?
A: Yes, if you were going into a city, you knew there were going to be ICBMs.
Q: Cluster bombs are anti-personnel weapons. They are not precise. They don't injure buildings, or hurt tanks. Only people and living things. There are a lot of undetonated duds and they go off after the battles are over.
A: Once the round leaves the tube, the cluster bomb has a mind of its own. There's always human error. I'm going to tell you: The armed forces are in a tight spot over there. It's starting to leak out about the civilian casualties that are taking place. The Iraqis know. I keep hearing reports from my Marine buddies inside that there were 200-something civilians killed in Fallujah. The military is scrambling right now to keep the raps on that. My understanding is Fallujah is just littered with civilian bodies.
Embedded reporters
Q: How are the embedded reporters responding?
A: I had embedded reporters in my unit, not my platoon. One we had was a South African reporter. He was scared s---less. We had an incident where one of them wanted to go home.
Q: Why?
A: It was when we started going into Baghdad. When he started seeing the civilian casualties, he started wigging out a little bit. It didn't start until we got on the outskirts of Baghdad and started taking civilian casualties.
Q: I would like to go back to the first incident, when the survivor asked why did you kill his brother. Was that the incident that pushed you over the edge, as you put it?
A: Oh, yeah. Later on I found out that was a typical day. I talked with my commanding officer after the incident. He came up to me and says: "Are you OK?" I said: "No, today is not a good day. We killed a bunch of civilians." He goes: "No, today was a good day." And when he said that, I said "Oh, my goodness, what the hell am I into?"
Q: Your feelings changed during the invasion. What was your state of mind before the invasion?
A: I was like every other troop. My president told me they got weapons of mass destruction, that Saddam threatened the free world, that he had all this might and could reach us anywhere. I just bought into the whole thing.
Q: What changed you?
A: The civilian casualties taking place. That was what made the difference. That was when I changed.
Q: Did the revelations that the government fabricated the evidence for war affect the troops?
A: Yes. I killed innocent people for our government. For what? What did I do? Where is the good coming out of it? I feel like I've had a hand in some sort of evil lie at the hands of our government. I just feel embarrassed, ashamed about it.
Showdown with superiors
Q: I understand that all the incidents - killing civilians at checkpoints, itchy fingers at the rally - weigh on you. What happened with your commanding officers? How did you deal with them?
A: There was an incident. It was right after the fall of Baghdad, when we went back down south. On the outskirts of Karbala, we had a morning meeting on the battle plan. I was not in a good mindset. All these things were going through my head - about what we were doing over there. About some of the things my troops were asking. I was holding it all inside. My lieutenant and I got into a conversation. The conversation was striking me wrong. And I lashed out. I looked at him and told him: "You know, I honestly feel that what we're doing is wrong over here. We're committing genocide."
He asked me something and I said that with the killing of civilians and the depleted uranium we're leaving over here, we're not going to have to worry about terrorists. He didn't like that. He got up and stormed off. And I knew right then and there that my career was over. I was talking to my commanding officer.
Q: What happened then?
A: After I talked to the top commander, I was kind of scurried away. I was basically put on house arrest. I didn't talk to other troops. I didn't want to hurt them. I didn't want to jeopardize them.
I want to help people. I felt strongly about it. I had to say something. When I was sent back to stateside, I went in front of the sergeant major. He's in charge of 3,500-plus Marines. "Sir," I told him, "I don't want your money. I don't want your benefits. What you did was wrong."
It was just a personal conviction with me. I've had an impeccable career. I chose to get out. And you know who I blame? I blame the president of the U.S. It's not the grunt. I blame the president because he said they had weapons of mass destruction. It was a lie.
― Rockist Scientist, Wednesday, 19 May 2004 17:52 (twenty-two years ago)
Im skeptical whenever strong accusations such as 'i Killed Innocent People For Our Government' are presented.
― Spinktor, Wednesday, 19 May 2004 17:56 (twenty-two years ago)
― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 17:57 (twenty-two years ago)
― Rockist Scientist, Wednesday, 19 May 2004 17:58 (twenty-two years ago)
― Rockist Scientist, Wednesday, 19 May 2004 17:59 (twenty-two years ago)
Marines are hardcore, at least most of the time. Marines get a hard-on with big words and acronyms...and are very strict with ranks, and how they address people. No Marine would ever say "Top Commander"...thats just silly.
Marines dont call enlisted people "Sir", especially Sargeant Majors...they like to be called "Tops". This is because they are the TOP enlisted persons(I think only Marines do this). Calling an enlisted person Sir in the marines will get you yelled at, and you might get a response such as "Im an NCO, I work for a living." Trust me, I made that mistake a few times.
Basically, I think that this is quite possibly a fake. Its certainly not transcripted properly if its true in any way.
― Spinktor, Wednesday, 19 May 2004 18:08 (twenty-two years ago)
Enlisted troops are NEVER addressed as sir. NEVER.
― Skottie, Wednesday, 19 May 2004 18:11 (twenty-two years ago)
― Spinktor, Wednesday, 19 May 2004 18:12 (twenty-two years ago)
― Rockist Scientist, Wednesday, 19 May 2004 18:13 (twenty-two years ago)
Apparently he does exist and was a Marine, this seems to be true at least.
― Gear! (Gear!), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 18:14 (twenty-two years ago)
Experts: 9/11 Vengeance Fed Iraq Abuse
DAVID CRARY
Associated Press
NEW YORK - As U.S. forces surged through the desert to topple Saddam Hussein, slogans and symbols referring to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, made clear that a spirit of anti-terrorism vengeance infused the ranks.
"Let's Roll" was a common battle cry, evoking the defiant passengers aboard one of the planes hijacked in those attacks. Soldiers displayed flags from Ground Zero and images of the World Center's twin towers.
More than a year after Saddam's ouster, no proof of his ties to Al Qaida or Sept. 11 has materialized. Some skeptics suggest that the avenging rhetoric and imagery instead may have fostered an atmosphere conducive to the maltreatment of Iraqis who had no connection whatever to international terrorism.
Curt Goering, deputy executive director of Amnesty International-USA, said the Bush administration bears some responsibility for blurring the lines between Sept. 11 and the Iraq war.
"The tone that was set, all the way to the top, and the climate in which these soldiers operated was an invitation to this kind of abuse," Goering said. "Governments have the obligation to take appropriate steps to protect their citizens, but they have to take these in a manner consistent with respect for fundamental human rights."
The Army's own investigative report, by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, suggested that interrogation techniques used against suspected terrorists detained at Guantanamo Bay were applied inappropriately in Iraq.
Taguba concluded that there were many common criminals at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, but probably no detainees linked to Al Qaida or other international terrorist groups. In a separate report, the International Committee of the Red Cross suggested that most Abu Ghraib prisoners were detained by mistake.
However, Army Lt. Col. Joe Yoswa, a Pentagon spokesman, said Tuesday it was wrong to suggest that the prison abuse was symptomatic of broader problems of attitude. As for the Sept. 11 imagery, Yoswa said it was hard to gauge what impact such rallying cries had on individual soldiers.
"Does a rallying cry motivate troops to go out and do things? Yes," he said. "It motivates people to stand up and volunteer and help try to get Iraq on its feet as a country."
Some American Islamic leaders contend the maltreatment at Abu Ghraib is part of a wider animosity toward Muslims that was stirred up by Sept. 11.
The prisoner abuse "represents a growing trend in our culture that demonizes and dehumanizes Arabs and Muslims," the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee and the Muslim Public Affairs Council said in a joint statement. "It conflates innocents with criminals."
U.S. officials have consistently depicted the Iraq conflict as part of the war on terrorism, and many soldiers said their decision to serve was prompted by Sept. 11. Among them was Pfc. Lynndie England, one of the soldiers charged with abuse; her lawyer says she joined the Army Reserves to help prevent future terrorist attacks.
Capt. Adrian Wheeler, commander of a Kentucky Army National Guard military police company, said the Sept. 11 attacks - rather than contributing to any excesses - provided an incentive to perform better.
"At no point have we loosened up on professionalism or the values that we hold true," said Wheeler, a Louisville police officer whose troops transported Iraqi POWs from battlefields to temporary holding facilities.
"After 9-11, if anything, soldiers, citizens I think really wanted to prove themselves as professionals," Wheeler said. "That was the time when people really stepped up."
Leonard Wong, a professor of military strategy at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., has visited Iraq twice to assess the motivations of U.S. soldiers. While some cited Sept. 11, more expressed a desire to liberate Iraq or help it achieve stability, Wong said.
However, Sept. 11 imagery provided a backdrop for many troops during the early phases of the war. The Navy Seabees, for example, called their Kuwaiti base "Camp 93" in honor of the passengers who fought hijackers aboard United Airlines Flight 93 before it crashed in Pennsylvania. One of the units at Abu Ghraib was named after Peter Ganci, a fire chief killed at the World Trade Center.
"Soldiers were encouraged to make the incorrect links," said Jimmy Massey, a former Marine sergeant from Waynesboro, N.C., who served in Iraq, then quit the force and has affiliated with an anti-war group called Veterans for Peace.
Massey said "a bunch of innocent civilians" were killed by his platoon and he attributed these deaths in part to military intelligence reports warning of potential terrorist attacks by non-uniformed Iraqis.
"You put a bunch of Army or Marines out in the desert and tell them to guard these supposed terrorists, and they're going to start inventing ways to keep themselves busy," Massey said.
Nancy Lessin of Boston, who co-founded a group called Military Families Speak Out, said her stepson's Marine unit took along a flag from Ground Zero when it headed to Iraq.
"That whole 9-11 connection paved the way for certain things to happen in certain ways," she said. "It's revenge and vengeance, based on a lie."
Curt Goering, the Amnesty International official, said at least some of the soldiers who committed abuses likely believed their actions were patriotic.
"Carrying out these despicable acts doesn't just happen," he said. "In every war, part of the process of transforming a person into a soldier involves a certain dehumanizing of the enemy. ... They often believe they're acting for the greater good."
― Rockist Scientist, Wednesday, 19 May 2004 18:16 (twenty-two years ago)
Did a 15 year old write this shit?
Those ICBM cluster bombs are making me laugh though...that shit is just silly.
If this isnt fabricated(which i still believe is true), it was doctored...or this guy just wants some news coverage for his mother to be proud.
Who knows? Maybe he will grow up and run as the Democratic Nominee in a presidential race some day?(Kerry reference if you didnt already smell it)
― Spinktor, Wednesday, 19 May 2004 18:20 (twenty-two years ago)
― Spinktor, Wednesday, 19 May 2004 18:46 (twenty-two years ago)
― Gear! (Gear!), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 18:50 (twenty-two years ago)
"Does a rallying cry motivate troops to go out and do things? Yes," he said. "It motivates people to stand up and volunteer and help try to get Iraq on its feet as a country."***
Yes, that's EXACTLY the type of sentiment most of our grunts were expressing in the aftermath of 9-11: "C'mon guys, let's volunteer and help try to get Iraq on its feet as a country!"
― briania (briania), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 18:53 (twenty-two years ago)
― Aimless (Aimless), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 18:59 (twenty-two years ago)
― cinniblount (James Blount), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 20:19 (twenty-two years ago)
that's be an awesome battle cry.
― Kingfish Disraeli (Kingfish), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 20:23 (twenty-two years ago)
also I'm wondering about all his tales of killing people and then OH NO suddenly this one guy says "Why did you kill my brother??" and THAT'S when it hit him? the more I read it the more it seems to be an embellishment at the very least (since if he was a Marine in Iraq there's probably some truth in some of what he says....)
― Gear! (Gear!), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 21:00 (twenty-two years ago)
― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 22:18 (twenty-two years ago)
― Spinktor, Thursday, 20 May 2004 12:42 (twenty-two years ago)
Name Bosko Balaban Team Aston Villa Total Appearances 0 Starts 0 Substituted 0 Total Minutes Played 0 Avg Minutes Played Per Start 0 Goals 0 Avg Goal Mins When Starting 0.0 Avg Mins Played/Goal Scored 0 Goals Scored As Sub 0 Number of Bookings 0 Total Booking Minutes 0 Avg Bookings Per Start 0 Number of Red Cards 0 Total Red Card Minutes 0 Avg Red Cards Per Start 0 Avg Booking Minutes When Starting 0.0
― bosko, Monday, 14 June 2004 18:02 (twenty-two years ago)
WAYNESVILLE, N.C. — If you were young and tough and wanted a challenge, Jimmy Massey was the man to see. He was gung ho. He was Semper Fi. He was the strutting, cussing, tobacco-chewing Marine recruiter.
The staff sergeant won scores of recruits in this and other patriotic mountain towns by talking courage, honor, commitment. Then, following his own adage — "you gotta walk the walk" — he went to Iraq.
That was two years ago, before Massey left the Marines, returned to Waynesville, and began saying things about the war that make people wonder whether they really knew him in the first place. These days Massey carries a sign around town that says he killed Iraqi civilians. He confesses to having enticed some recruits with false promises, and encouraged others to lie on applications. He has gone to Canada to testify for an Army deserter seeking asylum, and he has spoken at peace rallies.
He left a Marine recruiter and returned a peacenik.
This is the story of a veteran and the town to which he returned — a town that no longer recognizes the man who once preached the leatherneck gospel and now has a whole different sermon.
Carolyn Burkes, whose son served in Iraq, wants to kick his butt for recruiting him. Louise Goss, whose son will soon return to Iraq, wants to run him over for turning on the troops. Cpl. Lincoln Walburn, a reservist who could go to Iraq any time, wants to deck him. "I looked up to the staff sergeant," says Walburn, whom Massey recruited, "but he is dishonoring himself and the Marine Corps."
Others want to shake Massey's hand. "It's unthinkably courageous to admit you're wrong and turn your life around," says Daniel Miller, whose Marine son was recruited by Massey. "Most people would slink away. He's trying to make amends."
More than anything, people are puzzled by Massey's transformation.
But they don't know the whole story: that for two years before he went to Iraq, Massey apparently suffered from depression, which he blamed on the stress of recruiting, and that before rejoining his unit, he stopped taking his medication.
Does knowing the whole story make a difference? Did depression color what Massey saw in Iraq, or did what he saw there make him depressed? Soldiers talk about the "fog of war." Sometimes things aren't any clearer on the home front.
When Massey came here as the recruiter in 1999 after eight years in the Corps, he seemed to embody its mystique, down to his tattoos. Kids dropped by the recruiting station just to hang out. "Sgt. Massey was someone I could talk to," Walburn says. But there was a side people didn't see, according to a military medical report furnished by Massey. It was written after he returned from Iraq.
When he was a recruiter, Massey felt stressed by pressure to fill his quota and by guilt over the half-truths he told to fill it. He developed shingles and high blood pressure. In May 2001, halfway through his three-year tour, he was diagnosed with depression.
But in April 2003, according to the medical report, Massey asked "to taper off his psychiatric medications. In anticipation of finishing recruiting duty, he expected that things would just magically improve. He reports that he would tell himself that everything would be great as soon as he was off recruiting and in a normal unit again."
That fall, Massey says, he stopped taking antidepressants and prepared to rejoin his infantry weapons unit. Walburn heard worry in Massey's voice, "but he kept up a good front. If you're a staff sergeant, you don't want to look weak."
A year later, Massey was back. He had left the Marines, gotten engaged to a local woman and was selling furniture. No one knew what happened in Iraq. When Mark Phillips, whom Massey recruited into the Marine Forces Reserve, ran into him on the street, "He just told me he had some issues and he had to get out."
Then, in February 2004, the local newspaper published a story about Massey.
Massey told The Mountaineer that he and his platoon were staffing a roadblock near Baghdad when a car inexplicably failed to slow as it approached, despite the Marines' warnings. The Marines opened fire, killing three occupants. Only the driver survived.
Massey said that these and other civilian deaths depressed him, and that finally he told his superiors he thought that the Geneva Conventions were being violated.
He was sent back to the USA, where a military doctor diagnosed him with major depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. He was honorably discharged with an 80% disability.
Massey's friends were shocked by his charges about civilian deaths. Walburn says he asked himself, "That's the hard ass that recruited me?"
Louise Goss, whose son was recruited by Massey, wrote a letter to the newspaper accusing him of turning his back on his recruits: "This is war, Mr. Massey. ... Innocent people die in war, always have and always will."
The Marines say Massey's charges about civilian killings have been "found to be unsubstantiated," according to a Corps spokesman, Maj. Doug Powell. He declined to discuss in detail the incidents Massey described, but said, "You have to consider the rules of engagement and the current threat," which demanded heightened suspicion of civilians and civilian vehicles.
Many Massey recruits feel his description of what he saw in Iraq doesn't support his conclusions. Soldiers, they argue, are obligated to fire on a vehicle that fails to stop at a war zone checkpoint. "In that situation, it's either kill or be killed," Walburn says. Phillips agrees: "He was doing his job, whether he knows it or not."
Massey has his defenders. As a recruiter, "He was straight with me," Marine Sgt. Noah Miller says. "Some recruiters offer you the sky because if they told you the real deal, they wouldn't get nearly the number of people they get. ... That was not the case with Jimmy Massey."
For others, Massey's claims raise difficult issues. Louise Owens sent a copy of her letter in The Mountaineer to her son Cody, who spent six months in Iraq last year. His reaction surprised her: "He said, Mom, I'm not saying he's right or wrong, but some of the things that happen in Iraq, the U.S. people don't know about. ... I don't like to hear anyone putting Massey down who's not been over there and done that.' "
At 33, Massey is not what you might expect in a former Marine sergeant. He seems introspective. He says he is in therapy, and takes six different prescription medicines for maladies ranging from depression to high blood pressure. He lives on disability pay.
Most local veterans regard Massey as "an outcast," according to Roy Pressley, an officer at the American Legion post here. He keeps to himself, and left his sales job because of tension over his comments on the war. He says that once, when he was out walking with his protest sign, a man driving a car swerved at him.
Why the one-man picket line? Isn't he afraid of looking like a nut?
"It's leadership by example. That's what the Marines teaches," he replies. "How can I ask another Marine to protest the war if I haven't done it myself?
"That lifestyle never leaves you," he adds. "Honor, courage, commitment — that still works well for me. I still eat and sleep the Marines. I'm still a Marine."
He pulls up his right sleeve to reveal, on his right arm, a big purple tattoo: the Marines' eagle, globe and anchor insignia.
When Lincoln Walburn is told of his old recruiter's battle with depression, he's not sympathetic. He says Massey should never have tried to go to war.
But he understands why Massey had wanted to get back to his combat unit after his stint as a recruiter: "That's the Marine mentality," he says. "He was a staff sergeant in the United States Marine Corps. If that doesn't say something about who you are, I don't know what does."
― RS, Tuesday, 22 March 2005 15:09 (twenty-one years ago)
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 15:15 (twenty-one years ago)
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 17:17 (twenty-one years ago)