Matthis Chiroux, in his typically oblivious way, decided to politicize Veterans Day yesterday and sent emails to everyone he knows (I have the email addresses so I’ll be mailing this link to them) apparently for no other reason than to prove to the world that he’s a blowhard and he thinks he’s a lot smarter than the rest of us think of him (he also posted it on the IVAW website). Of course, he uses the opportunity to repeat his claim that he has PTSD from hearing war stories;
We military few are carrying a burden larger than most in this country would care to comprehend. Blood has been spilt, and the only solution we’re given is more spilt blood. So we kill, like they do in combat, like they did in Fort Carson, Fort Benning, Fort Bragg, Fort Hood…Oklahoma City.
We kill ourselves, like we do on every base, in every state, in my bedroom…all too close. I was called up for Iraq. Five years I survived to be discharged and recalled. While I never deployed, I was a journalist. I heard stories.
As Maj. Hassan heard stories. The kinds of which nightmares are made of and then medicated. If they were like the ones I heard, memories have rubbed off on Maj. Hassan of murder, torture, racism, rabid aggression, sexual deviance, mutilation, brutalization and dehumanization.
So we can expect that Chiroux will be knocking on the door of some poor overworked VA counselor pestering him about the horror…the horror of his six days (give or take) at the Bagram Air Base Baskin-Robbins.
Notice how he says “we” like he’s one of us combat veterans and not a chickenshit coward who didn’t want to disrupt his life just because he promised?
Oh, and he’s being persecuted like Black slaves;
I chose the path of outright resistance. I did not end my life. I reclaimed it and refused deployment to Iraq. I was found guilty of misconduct, but I know from experience how often the Army’s dead wrong, as is our nation. Resisting slavery was once illegal too.
See, how it all comes back to Matthis and how brave he thinks he is? And so what if Hasan yelled Allahu Akbar – everybody in the movies shouts stuff before they shoot, too. Well, Chiroux doesn’t say that, but that’s the only place he’s ever seen anyone shoot anyone else – in movies.
But the usual suspects are asserting that it’s not the war, the guns, or the Army’s brand of illness and callousness at fault here. It’s Islam and the terrorists, they say, while their ethnocentricity goes unchecked by good people and knowledgeable veterans.
So he screamed Allahu Akbar before he pulled the trigger. Ever hear what Soldiers scream in combat? It’s a combination of profane, blood-lustful jargon and cries for reassurance from the almighty. “Ain’t no such thing as an atheist in a fox-hole,” I’ve heard. What about Christians behind mass murder?
They happen in Iraq and Afghanistan all the time. There’s a million dead, and they didn’t all kill themselves. Knowledge of this is what drove Maj. Hassan to the realization that our wars are genocidal. Lack of legal recourse is what drove him to violent madness, as it nearly did me.
A lack of legal recourse? How many have walked away from this war so far? And he doesn’t have legal recourse. Chiroux wants everyone in the military to be a chickenshit coward like him amd walk away when the going gets too tough…or uncomfortable;
Soldiers must be given the right to walk away as Maj. Hassan tried to do so many times. If half the military quits, so be it. We’ll rest assured knowing our truly volunteer force is getting twice the care and attention. But the first step in repairing trauma is curtailing the trauma, a luxury not afforded to our troops, many on their third and fourth tours. What better way to put needless war in check?
Well, who better to address Chiroux than Chiroux the Elder, his father who emailed me this;
Many of you have received an email from my son, Matthis Chiroux, titled “VET DAY OP ED: The violence within is the Veteran Without”. Matthis has taken the opportunity to write an opinion piece on the trajedy at Ft. Hood which reads more about himself than the gunman and murders that took place. I do not believe my son has any personal experience of PTSD nor does he have any formal training on PTSD, let alone knowledge of the facts surrounding the gunman and events at Ft. Hood beyond that which we all have access to through the media. Use of this tragedy to push his own point of view and dramatization of his own experience is inappropriate. As are all of us I am deeply troubled by the events that took place at Ft. Hood and in general the heavy burden carried by our Iraq and Afghanistan deployed forces and veterans and the innocent caught in the middle around the world. We Americans enjoy the right of free speech and we also enjoy the right to rebuke abuse of that right and I do so here. On behalf of my family I apologize for my son to any and all offended by his use of other’s tragedy for his own agenda. Most Humbly, Dr. Robert C. Chiroux
And he sent me this in response to an interview Chiroux did about the Fort Hood tragedy;
Recently Matthis Chiroux made the following comments to the media concerning the massacre at Ft. Hood: “There’s a lot more of this out there, potentially. Anyone coming back from war with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) could do the same thing,” said Matthis Chiroux, a former U.S. army sergeant who refused to go to Iraq. “We’re talking about nightmares yet unseen here.”
To my knowledge,Matthis, a member of the Board of Directors of the IVAW, and thus a default spokesman for that oraganization, has absolutely no experience with PTSD and absolutely no formal training regarding PTSD.
Matthis served for 5 years as a journalist in the U.S. Army, entirely at Camp Zama in Tokyo and Heidelberg, Germany, except for a short stint with the Marines to Palawan (Matthis’ own description at the time) that somehow morphed into an excursion with his “Army buddies” and a “felt-like” rape of a local and a one week trip to Kabul where he recounted a local boy stepping out into the street and pointing a boot at the Humvee he was in and just for a moment the occupants thought it was a weapon. Other than that I cannot recall anything that would qualify as a PTSD inducing experience.
Granted Matthis may feel his “abuse” by his father was a source for PTSD but in fact Matthis was serious trouble and very manipulative as a child and when his father resorted to corporal punishment Matthis convinced his youth pastor to report it to the local child welfare office. The ensuing investigation totally exonerated his father, including the pastor of the church weighing in favor of the father. That did not stop Matthis from claiming abuse in his public confessional. If anyone has experienced abuse it has been his entire family and some of his fellow IVAW members, past & present. And I am still puzzled by his confession that he came from a “…poor, white southern family”. Matthis’ mother’s family is worth well in excess of 7 figures and his father has a Ph.D. The point being I respect the IVAW’s right to “peacefully” protest the war but with absolutely no basis for an opinion on PTSD one of your directors is grandstanding over the bodies of 13 murdered U.S. soldiers and the IVAW should have the good sense to reign him in and muzzle him or publically censure him if he does not comply.
Sometimes these posts just write themselves.
Thanks to Dr. Chiroux and ArmyVet11B for the links.
