By Jessica Newman, April 2008

           The all-to-familiar sounds of AK-47s and M16s resonated in the distance. The platoon raced ahead to engage in the combat, eager to get in on the action. By the time they arrived, the skirmish had ended, but the 82nd Airborne Division told them that two or three insurgents opened fire on American troops from a roadside field.

            During the frenzy of the firefight, a soldier heard a gunshot from across the street in the residential portion of what was described by commanding officers as an “unusually friendly neighborhood.”

            In the heat of the onslaught, the troops sprayed bullets in all directions, not knowing the enemy’s exact location.

           But they were unaware that the gunshot heard from the residence was merely innocent, celebratory fire into the air in observance of an Iraqi wedding. They realized this only after firing pounds of ammunition into the home and barging through the door in search of enemy combatants. Instead of insurgents they found an Iraqi family tending to the wounds of two injured civilians and mourning over the body of a six- or seven-year-old girl, whose body had been riddled with the bullets of American troops.

            Learning of their mistake, the men loaded up on their Humvees and continued on their mission as if the misdeed never occurred.

            “We didn’t have a translator, and we couldn’t speak Arabic,” said Clifton Hicks, an Army tanker of the first squadron of the first U.S. Cavalry regiment in Iraq. “We couldn’t even say sorry.”

            Hicks, a Gainesville resident, told his story to a crowded room of approximately 300 observers March 13-16 at Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan in Silver Spring, Md.

            Approximately 50 veterans and active-duty soldiers of the War on Terror in Iraq and Afghanistan gave similarly haunting testimonies at the event, which Iraq Veterans Against the War sponsored. Many had gruesome digital photographs and videos of their experiences, adding concrete validity to their stories.

            The gathering was modeled after the original Winter Soldier investigations of 1971 when 109 veterans of the Vietnam War and 16 civilians testified about the horrific atrocities committed by American troops during the war.

            Like its predecessor, Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan intended to show the American people the true nature of war. It aimed to shed light on typical monstrosities that occur daily and are often neglected by the mainstream media.

            “Little girls get killed by soldiers in Iraq every day, not because we want to but just because it happens,” Hicks said.           

            He kept a journal to remind him of his experiences because after witnessing and participating in countless situations like the one described above, he said one tends to easily forget the details as soon as the men are loaded up and head back to the base.

            The soldiers who commit these atrocities are not criminals or savages. It is the nature of war and the misappropriation of military power that drive them to these acts, he said.

            “These are men who risked everything for a cause, which they believed was just and true,” Hicks said. “They left behind them their families, their friends and their lives. In fact, they endured the unendurable. They did this not for greed or jealousy or hatred, but for the sake of love. And for that, they are beyond judgment.”

            The veterans gathered not to pass judgment on the soldiers or those involved but rather to pass judgment on war itself, he said.

            Hicks enlisted in 2003 on the cusp of the war’s outbreak with the intent and desire to fight in Iraq, he said. He avidly supported the invasion and the war before being shipped out. He remembers while in basic training he and his platoon were so eager to take up arms in Iraq that they chanted with joking, but sinister enthusiasm, “One stab! Two kills! Pregnant Iraqi women!”

            But after arriving in the Middle East and experiencing the war personally, he gradually became staunchly opposed to the occupation, he said. He returned to the U.S. and became a poster boy for the veterans’ anti-war movement, like many of the other servicemen who gave testimony in Maryland.

            There was a sense of camaraderie at Winter Soldier that brought the veterans together and acted as a sort of therapy, giving the soldiers a chance to meet with those who had the same experiences and feelings as they did. Emboldened by their fellow infantrymen, men and women hardened by the war were moved to tears and wept openly on stage as they recreated gory scenes they had kept to themselves since returning home.

            Scott Camil, a Vietnam veteran who participated in the original Winter Soldier, said “a certain magic” was present at this Winter Soldier that was also present at the first.

            “Showing the truth about foreign policy is only half of what Winter Soldier is about,” Camil said. “The therapeutic value is the other half.”

            When he and other Vietnam veterans returned from the war, they were forced to help themselves cope with the terrible memories they had brought back home with them.

           “No one would help us, so we helped each other,” Camil said.

            The veterans had faith and trusted in one another because they all shared a mutual understanding, something people who haven’t gone to war could never grasp, he said.

            The Vietnam veterans took the stage in 1971 with long hair, shaggy beards and angry attitudes, he said. But the War on Terror veterans were better organized and came dressed in suits, with clean-shaven faces and peachier demeanors. He felt this will be more effective in reaching the target audience and will reach beyond the traditional anti-war activists, he said.

             “These guys are getting to people we weren’t thinking about,” Camil said.

            The veterans did more than just give accounts of the tragedies and horror stories they witnessed on the battlefield. They also gave testimony regarding the inadequacies of the American military and foreign policy that directly affected them while deployed overseas.

            Soldiers looked back on times when the scarcity of imperative equipment like gas masks and protective body armor left comrades unprotected and vulnerable to enemy attack.

           While speaking at Santa Fe Community College on March 20, Clifton Hicks recounted instances when shortages on the base limited his platoon to one bottle of water and one meal a day. The malnutrition of troops occurred regularly while Hicks was in Iraq, and it is still prominent today, he said.

           Hicks spent only four months in basic training, which was combined with his advanced training as a tanker, before being deployed overseas. He felt the whole process was “incredibly rushed,” and he was not prepared for the realities of the war he would face.

            When Hicks enlisted in 2003, the war had just begun, and his commanding officers had no firsthand knowledge of what their troops were going to encounter. Therefore, it was impossible to adequately prepare the soldiers for combat when no one was really sure of what to expect, he said.

           Hicks said he received the same instruction for tank combat that soldiers in the Cold War were trained for. Nothing prepared him for the urban warfare he would run into in the cities of Iraq. When he first arrived, he was positioned behind and in charge of a .50 caliber machine gun that he wasn’t even strong enough to load or shoot, he said. It took another man to help him fire while on patrol.

           After the testimonies, the Web site of the Iraq Veterans Against the War overflowed with veterans interested in becoming members, and Winter Soldier events on a smaller scale are happening all over the country to follow up on the testimonies.

           Gainesville veterans will share their experiences April 8 at the Presbyterian Disciples of Christ Student Center, hosted by the University of Florida’s Progressive Caucus and Iraq Veterans Against the War.

            The panel will include a mix of male and female veterans with diverse experiences and views on the war, and those in attendance will have a chance to pose questions following their statements. The event will give the average American a chance to hear the side of the story not told by “the press or the elected,” said Terry Griffin, UF political science senior and organizer of the event.

            “We just scratched the surface with this thing,” Hicks said. “But where to now?”

            Scott Camil hopes the event will inspire the young people of the U.S., who often disregard the war because there is no draft, he said. But they are the citizens who will pay for it in the future, both monetarily and through the nation’s international stature.

            “This is your war, and you will have to pay,” Camil said, addressing the future leaders of America. “It will affect your generation more than mine.”