photo

video

Adam  26  |  Washington D.C.               Stationed in Iraq 2004 Adam is a former Marine who volunteered to serve in Iraq in 2004 as a member of the Civil Affairs Group. Adam is an active Board Member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, a leading advocacy group supporting the immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq and improved healthcare and support for returning soldiers.	Photography by Gabriela Bulisova

peace quote

I have been blessed with the freedom of mind to apply my resentment of authority and the use of force to examine my experiences and seek an awareness that I didn’t have then. Peace is not the absence of war, but rather the presence of tolerance and understanding. And war is just one of the things that happens in the absence of peace.

essay: the shield

As a Marine, I was imbued with a sense of self-sacrifice and service. I was also trained to kill. And part of that training is psychological. I was trained to be very callous when I needed to, armed not only with M-16s and K-BARs and machine guns, but also a shield with which to protect my humanity from the horrors I would encounter in the course of serving as a “weapon of our democracy.” When the shield comes up, it is very effective. That shield is what keeps Marines alive. But it is not easy to take down. In Iraq, there was no place to take a break, and there was no time to think that you were safe. The threat of a mortar landing on your head at any time is literally a constant fear. With the shield up for so long, it is difficult to bring it down. It means becoming vulnerable again, and becoming human again. When I came back from Iraq, I would often wake up well before my alarm with a sense of urgency, thinking that I had to be somewhere and not be able to go back to sleep. If someone bumped into me from behind, I would find myself grabbing for the butt of my pistol where it would have been on my hip, not in aggression, but to protect it as we did when amid crowds of Iraqis. When I came to DC, that was when the shield started to come down, and when I got to become human again. I spent my nights at my computer, sobbing uncontrollably. I thought about how I had encouraged my brother to join the Army only months before and I cried. I realized how callous I had been to my own mother about being deployed and being ready to go back and I called her and apologized. This is what it means to be human. This is what it means to be vulnerable. I have spent my entire adult life up to this point carrying around the shield, but I’m done. I hope I never have to even pick it up again.

interview

Question: Why did you join the armed forces? As it says on the form I filled out at MEPS, “I feel a responsibility to take part in the national defense in some way. For whatever short amount of time and whatever miniscule part of it that I am, I would like to do my part and I feel the Marine Corps is the best way for me to do this. I am also joining for the experience and self growth that comes with being a Marine. The experiences are priceless and many can not be had anywhere else.” Question: How would you have described yourself the day before you went to war? The day before getting on the plane I was very excited. I believed in what I was doing and thought that I would be risking my life for a noble cause. Question: What about you has changed the most since that day? Perspective. I have been blessed with the freedom of mind to apply my resentment of authority and the use of force to examine my experience and seek a type of awareness that I probably was not aware of then.  Question: What was the most defining moment of your time at war? One of the squads on patrol to the west of our position got into a fierce firefight. One of the Marines there was wounded badly and we were called to help provide security for an urgent ground MEDEVAC. We drove as fast as possible, slowed down once in the village, then sped up and we came out on the south side exposing the Marines in the back, we got hit with machine gun fire from across the river. I stepped on the gas. I would have been driving faster if I had known where those rounds had struck. We met up with the other vehicles and raced out to where the firefight was going on. The corpsman and two Marines from the Humvee in front of us ran off with a stretcher and soon returned with the wounded Marine, on it. I could not help but notice the corpsman working on the wounded Marine as we were driving pretty close to top speed. Because it was such a spread out base, and the hospital is at the center, it took us at least five more minutes to get there. When we pulled up, I ran out to help and carried one side of the stretcher in. It took four people because it was missing the parts that hold the poles straight. As we were shuffling towards the door of the hospital tent, I was doing what I could to be reassuring. “You’re going to be alright. You made it. You’re going to be fine.” I did not know if that was true at the time, but that is the only thing you can say. We smoked a cigarette and waited anxiously outside. Then we got the word: he didn’t make it. They even had the morgue truck there to take him away right in front of us. It was a truck with a big green box in the back, about six feet high, but I always remember that box as being much taller, looming over me. Apparently, the bullet had entered just below his armpit and settled next to his spine. He died of internal bleeding while the corpsman tried to address the external wound. I doubt there was much else he could have done in the back of a speeding Humvee, but I’ll never know. Question: Now that you have returned, what does peace mean to you? Peace is not the absence of war, but rather the presence of tolerance and understanding. War is just one of the things that happens in the absence of peace.