I’ll begin this with some background for the first time readers who will not have the energy to bother checking my “About” page before they email me with their false outrage. I spent twenty years in the Airborne and Bradley Infantry – I wore maroon, black and green berets all within the first six years of my career. I volunteered last year to go back on active duty – after being out for 14 years – because my country asked me. My son is currently an Air Force Staff Sergeant on active duty, my father was in the Navy during the Korean War, my niece (Army Reserve) and her husband (USMC) were both tapped for active duty service Iraq. All of my friends are or were on active duty. I have no friends who haven’t been on active duty. I’m no “chickenhawk”. Period.
So why did I say all of that? Well, I just finished reading the latest at Chickenhawk Express and it got my blood boiling and I’ve got some things to say that I can get away with, while people like Rush Limbaugh can’t get away with saying.
There’s a common thread that runs through all of these IVAW folks – they’re proven liars and sociopaths. This one that Robin wrote about, Clifton Hicks, is no different. At Hick’s IVAW “Back to Baghdad” fantasy tale about his so-called service in Iraq, he starts out telling lies;
I grew up in Savannah, Georgia, right near Fort Stewart, and I’ve always remembered what a big deal it was when 3rd ID came home in ’91.
If Hicks remembered the 3ID coming home, he lived in Germany because that’s where the 3ID called home at the time. The 24th Infantry Division came home to Fort Stewart in 1991. Anyone living in Savannah, Georgia at the time would have known that. The people in Savannah loved their 24th Division – many of the members of that division were from Savannah. Hicks is lying.
So we get treated to more lies about this cumbubble’s so-called service;
We were tucked away in the shittiest part of the base, behind two concrete walls and a canal, about a mile and a half from all the luxurious MWR facilities that we either weren’t allowed in or never had time to visit. We occupied old Iraqi Army barracks that besides being poorly built were of course plagued by rats and giant camel spiders who pestered us relentlessly. We lived off of junk food, MRE’s, and the rancid, fly ridden slop from our DFAC when we were desperate. A health inspector actually came by one day and demanded that our DFAC be shut down, but the Squadron Commander and Sergeant Major fought it and they stayed open.
That, my friends, is an outright lie. No commander, nor sergeant major, would tolerate unsanitary conditions in their mess hall. No squad leader, platoon sergeant, first sergeant would tolerate it. Mess sergeants are proud of the way they can feed nourishing food anywhere under any conditions. “Rancid, fly-ridden food” would never get to a soldier’s mouth. Having been an Infantry Platoon Sergeant, I know how important chow and sanitary conditions are to the successful completion of the mission.
Now let’s look at this picture from Hick’s photo gallery at IVAW;
Hick’s calls the photo “My First Notch” implying that as an M1 driver, he killed the driver of the vehicle with his tank. The only problem is that the photo is taken from the gunner’s position on the M1. If there is indeed a dead person in that car, and if indeed the M1 killed him, the photographer wasn’t driving the tank.
In another interview, Hicks described “the wedding incident”
Hicks is haunted by his activity in Iraq. He talks about what he calls the “wedding party incident.” His unit was on patrol when they heard shooting between US armed forces and what they thought were Iraqi insurgents. While Hicks prepared to go house to house in search of the enemy, what he discovered instead was a wedding. Some of the men had been shooting rifles into the air, as is customary during family parties and celebrations. Three people from the wedding were shot; a six-year-old girl was killed. When the platoon sergeant called the command center to report the incident, “all they said to us was ‘Charlie Mike,’ a stupid Army acronym for continue mission.”
So, if that’s true, why didn’t Hicks report it higher? We all know what happened at Haditha when innocents were killed. If Hick’s conscience is bothering him, why doesn’t he give testimony to the incident instead of just yapping like a yorkie?
In Hick’s Letter to Vets for Freedom;
How come nearly every single one of you people that I’ve seen or read about are Lieutenants and Sergeants? When I look at your little war pictures and read your poorly written bio’s my vision is overflowed with images of lazy, incompetent, cowardly Officers with a handful of brain-dead NCO’s to do their dirty work, as usual. I wonder where you boys all served?
So only Hick’s service can be considered heroic, I suppose. Anyone else was just a pogue. Funny, but while I served in the Infantry, I thought Cav pukes were pogues – the difference between me and Hicks; I grew out of it and honor everyone’s service.
I have to snicker, though. He calls VfF members’ bios poorly written and then writes the awkward “…my vision is overflowed with images….” phrase. Editorial kharma got him.
I suspect that Hick’s application for CO status stemmed from something more than what I can find. Some kind of childish misbehavior that he was trying to escape. I’m sure I’ll find it eventually – because there’s always a backstory to CO filings – in a volunteer military, people of coscience just don’t join.
I had a soldier transferred to my platoon from another company where he had misbehaved. When he found out how tough life was going to be in my platoon, he threatened to file as a concientious objector unless we transferred him back with his buddies. I, of course, told him to file – I didn’t give a tiny little rat’s ass what the little punk did. But the sergeant major caved and transfered him to appease the little punk. The soldier went to the war and came back – so much for the “conscience” part of being a CO.
Another soldier – the commander’s driver, if I’m not mistaken – went AWOL the morning we were scheduled to deploy to Iraq. When he called the commander, he claimed to be a CO – but it turned out that he just didn’t want to leave his German girlfriend unsupervised. He did 18 months at hard labor for thinking with his “other” head.
Adam Kokesh, whom I’ve written about extensively here, was busted for smuggling an Iraqi pistol back from the war. Hardly the actions of someone who “questioned” the war. It was only after the Marines busted him a rank and then denied him the opportunity to return to Iraq did he suddenly decide the war is immoral.
Lt. Ehren Watada, the youngster who volunteered for the Army didn’t become a CO until he’d been in the Army for three years – joining after the war in Iraq began. The little known fact is that Watada’s father had been a draft dodger during the Vietnam War. So, a logical person could conclude that Watada had joined the Army just to demoralize the troops – and to insure Democrat support in future elections.
Those are the phony soldiers – the guys who turn their sociopathic behavior into something marketable to the eager press willing to pay in exposure and feed the phony soldiers’ need for attention. But attention away from their crimes and misbehavior, portraying themselves as noble men, when the truth is that they are nothing more than snake oil salemen.
Scumbags all. These people don’t understand the concept of “selfless service” because in every action they take, it’s all about them. That’s why there are no conscientious objectors anymore – just a bunch of self-promoting morons with bouts of John F. Kerry syndrome.
And yes, because they don’t think like me, they’re wrong – because they don’t want the war in Iraq to end. If the war ends, they’re just another footnote in the history books and maybe a “where are they now?” interview in twenty years or so.
UPDATED: I forgot to add the link to The Sniper where my new buddy Thus Spake Ortner inspired this whole Hicks thing (from me, Robin and lately, GI Jane) in the first place. Compared to TSO and Robin, my rant is just a footnote.