Ex-U.S. Marine: I Killed Civilians in Iraq

Jimmy Massey, a 12-year Marine Corps veteran from Waynesville,
NC, was fed up with America’s fight for democracy in Iraq. He was
tired of watching his boys ‘light up’ cars full of innocent
civilians with their 50 cal’s and M-16’s. He couldn’t forget how
his paranoid, sleep-deprived soldiers opened fire on a group of
unarmed protestors while he walked the lines making sure they had
enough food and water. More than enough Iraqi babies had died in
his arms after suffering wounds from American machine gun fire. And
he shuddered at the thought of unexploded cluster bombs littering
the countryside, lying in wait to kill more Iraqis.

So Jimmy Massey committed the big no-no by armed forces
standards. As he recalled in an interview with Democracy
Now‘s Amy Goodman on Monday, May 24, Massey told his
lieutenant: ‘We’re not going to have to worry about the Iraq
[people] — you know, we’re basically committing genocide over
here, mass extermination of thousands of Iraqis, and with the
depleted uranium that we’re leaving around on the battlefield,
we’re setting up genocide for future generations within Iraq.’
Massey wouldn’t settle for the counterargument: ‘Better them than
us — they are just casualties of war.’ He knew that speaking out
would effectively end his career with the Marine Corps. But his
psychological ride was just beginning, and he was sent home to
receive therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder and major
depression. The Marine Corps was trying to discredit Massey by
making him out to be a loony.

But the honorable soldier continues to fight — for himself and
for his boys back in Iraq still forced to do the dirty deed of
their superiors. Massey hired Washington D.C.-based attorney Gary
Myers who, as fate would have it, was involved with the My Lai
trials after one of the most publicized massacres in the Vietnam
Conflict. A pending case may revolve around Massey’s objection to
the Marine Corps’ attempt to classify him as a conscientious
objector. To this he says, ‘I told [the Marine Corps] that I
believed in war and some wars in our history have been helpful for
humanity and society as a whole, however, I do not believe in
killing innocent civilians.’
— Jacob Wheeler

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Ex-U.S. Marine: I Killed Civilians in Iraq

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