Tag: Fallujah

Swept up in the violent hysteria (A Marine remembers, Part 7)

Posted on by kathiemm

[A continuing series by guest author Ross Caputi]

I spent many nights on post or lying awake in bed, wrestling with my memories and trying to understand the links among them.

Bombing Fallujah
Second siege of Fallujah. Image in public domain

I remembered that it was because my command made me an unofficial translator that I spent more time in the villages and had more contact with Iraqis than most others. I heard their grievances and saw that we were not helping them.

I remembered that it was because my command hated me that they made me the captain’s radio operator for Fallujah, and because of that I was more isolated than most from the bloody, gory combat. I was able to witness what was happening with a clearer head than all the others who got swept up in the violent hysteria of those few weeks.

And because my command hated me and made me stand post at the barracks more than anyone else, I was there to witness the effect that Iraq had on all of us. I saw it every night when I was on duty.

Once everyone was good and drunk or stoned, the stories started to pour out of them. I listened as they told me about when they had pulled the trigger and wished they hadn’t, or had watched friends bleed to death in the street and weren’t able to go help them because they were pinned down by enemy fire.

I remembered the family man that we had arrested in the villages outside of Fallujah who was not presumed innocent until proven guilty, and who would not get a jury of his peers.

I remembered the family photos that clung to the bullet-riddled walls of the homes in Fallujah.

Ross Caputi, former Marine, founder of the Justice for Fallujah Project, and former president of the Boston University Anti-War Coalition

It all had to mean something (A Marine remembers, Part 5)

Posted on by kathiemm

[A continuing series by guest author Ross Caputi]

Marines along the Euphrates River
Marines along the Euphrates River. Image in public domain.

Just a couple weeks after he received the news that he failed the drug test, Eddie Barker was found dead, suffocated in a puddle of his own vomit. The high of having survived Fallujah and being welcomed back as heroes was now long gone.

Barker was dead, my friends were getting kicked out of the Marine Corps left and right, and I did not know what I believed or felt about anything.

The end of that winter and for the following year, I spent many sleepless nights replaying the previous two years in my head. They had been full of so many ups and downs, so much pain and suffering, so much hate and discontent, that I felt it all had to mean something.

I remembered my senior year in high school when I wanted so badly to be a Marine. Exactly one year later I found myself in Iraq. I remembered the stunning beauty of that country; the palm groves, the Euphrates River, and the beautiful architecture—and the brutal poverty; the malnourished children, the villages without running water, and the gardens that they somehow managed to grow in the desert.

More than anything else, I remembered Fallujah, even though I tried to forget it. I remembered my friends who did not make it back, I remembered the women and children of Fallujah who were forced to become refugees, and I remembered the lifers in my command who only cared about how much the battle would help their careers.

Ross Caputi, former Marine, founder of the Justice for Fallujah Project, and former president of the Boston University Anti-War Coalition

It reminded me of Fallujah (A Marine remembers, Part 3)

Posted on by kathiemm

[A continuing series by guest author Ross Caputi]

The sequence of events of that year is somewhat muddled in my memory, but certain experiences are still crystal clear.

Marines in Fallujah, Iraq
Marines in Fallujah, Iraq. Image in public domain.

I remember one night sitting with a friend from my unit in the back seat of a car in the ghetto. We were clean-cut with fresh high-and-tight haircuts, waiting for our contact to show up with the promised drugs.

The two junkies in the front seats were dirty and their skin sagged limply off their bones. They had burn marks on their fingers from cigarette lighters and they were unshaven and sweaty.

Up the street there was a group of guys, all wearing white t-shirts, who looked like they were guarding a house. I heard police sirens from about two blocks away in that densely settled neighborhood.

I watched my friend desperately bargain for drugs. He begged one of the guys up front to give him a bag, promising that when our contact showed up with our dope he would give him two in return.

I saw a disaster coming, but said nothing. I knew that when our dope finally arrived my friend would not want to give up two bags, and I expected that we would have to fight those two guys, and that they probably had guns or knives on them.

I remember the adrenaline that rushed into my veins and the indifference that I felt toward the consequences.

It reminded me of Fallujah. If a fight happened, it happened. If I died, oh well. Whatever fate brought me would be. I wouldn’t lift a finger to cause it or stop it. My mind and body were just along for the ride.

Ross Caputi, former Marine, founder of the Justice for Fallujah Project, and former president of the Boston University Anti-War Coalition

A feeling that something was wrong (A Marine remembers, Part 2)

Posted on by kathiemm

[A continuing series by guest author Ross Caputi.]

Smoke rises from fighting in Fallujah, Iraq
Smoke rises from fighting in Fallujah, Iraq. Image in public domain.

It was tormenting and too vague to put into words; but even if I could, I would have been too afraid to talk about it. Whatever it was, I knew that the consequences of saying it out loud would have been enormous.

It had something to do with Fallujah. It had something to do with the Marine Corps, my platoon, and my country. It was a feeling that something was wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it was. And it seemed as if nobody felt it but me.

That feeling began in Fallujah. There were moments during the fighting when I felt disgusted with what I was seeing, and there were moments when I picked up my gun and tried to be the hero that I joined the Marine Corps to be.

Most of the time I felt torn between the things that I had joined the Marine Corps for—glory, adventure, and the GI Bill—and a very clear truth about what we were doing to the people of Fallujah. In those moments an uneasy feeling materialized inside of me, and it continued for a long time afterwards.

When friends from my unit told war stories about Fallujah, I would fake a smile, or laugh, or do whatever seemed appropriate; and that feeling would creep into my gut.

When people thanked me for my service, I would bite my tongue and not say what was really on my mind; and that feeling would be there, gnawing at me.

Ross Caputi, former Marine, founder of the Justice for Fallujah Project, and former president of the Boston University Anti-War Coalition