Homecoming Nightmares
Weill-Greenberg, Elizabeth
Homecoming Nightmares By Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Illustration by Douglas Fraser Hart Viges, thirty, served with the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq. "Anyone who thinks they are going...
...Everyday noises, sights, and smells are now deadly threats...
...I don't know how many civilians we killed, I don't know how many enemy we killed," says Hart, remembering when he and fellow soldiers were ordered to fire on all taxicabs in Samawa...
...The most routine activities triggered such thoughts: "Everything from having a bus pass me, and thinking I should step out in front of it," she says, "or picking up a knife in the kitchen to slice a cucumber, and thinking about slicing myself, to just driving my car, and thinking about how easy it would be to drive it off the bridge...
...She is also the co-publisher of a new independent New Jersey magazine called City Belt (citybelt.org...
...He's not a boogeyman, not a monster...
...She was introduced to the military's misogyny as a nineteen-year-old, when she says she was sexually assaulted by an officer on a two-week training...
...They thought I was incapable of doing things purely because I'm a woman...
...Even though Hart came home to Texas in January 2004, he still hasn't totally left Iraq...
...Abbie says she considers herself more of a veterans' advocate than an anti-war soldier...
...And while no one could have dissuaded her from enlisting, she advises young people to get their college education before signing up...
...I look into his eyes and his face," he says...
...Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg is the editor of "10 Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military," published by The New Press (10reasonsbook.com...
...The Wisconsin National Guard has a zero tolerance policy for sexual harassment or sexual misconduct of any kind...
...When I came home, I knew I was screwed up," she says...
...When I did talk about stuff, it was pretty morbid...
...Abbie signedupfor the National Guard when she was seventeen...
...You get used to guys degrading you...
...I just couldn't console her...
...There was a good old boys' club that ran so deep," she says...
...Lieutenant Colonel Tim Donovan, director of public affairs at the Wisconsin Army and Air National Guard, issued the following statement: "When the 229th Engineer Company returned in from an overseas deployment to Iraq, several serious allegations were made about the conduct of some of the unit leaders, NCOs, and soldiers...
...We also hold our officer and NCO leaders to high standards of personal and professional conduct and, when the confidence we have in our leaders is betrayed by their misconduct or poor performance, we replace them...
...The phone numbers she was given for doctors were disconnected, she says...
...They arrested two young men...
...All they found, Hart said, was a family and a small .22 caliber pistol...
...The sound of a nail gun makes Hart jump behind trash cans for cover...
...It would have to do with death, destruction, Iraq, war, people losing limbs...
...But Iraq has still found him in his Austin home...
...Finally, Abbie decided to see a therapist at her school but still gets her medications through Veterans Affairs...
...I just don't know...
...I didn't have the damnedest idea how to make small talk...
...I just stood there paralyzed...
...Hart applied...
...You're property of the United States government...
...Anyone who thinks they are going to be treated as heroes or valuable people in the military, they're wrong," he says...
...In addition to the usual marks of war-bombings, death, and tedium-Abbie says she also had to contend with corrupt leadership and rampant sexual harassment...
...Will you be able to shoot a kid if you ever have to?' I didn't even know what to say...
...I just don't know...
...Headlights flashing in his rearview mirror suddenly become flares from a roadside bomb...
...During the Americans' hunt for him, an Iraqi told them that his neighbors said something bad about Americans...
...They're property...
...Abbie Pickett, twenty-three, a National Guard soldier and sophomoreatEdgewood College, sees the same bombs and enemyfire in her homeinMadison, Wisconsin...
...At her worst, she thought about suicide thirty to forty times a day, she says...
...But in Iraq Abbie did speak out- and faced the consequences...
...She tried to get psychological help through the military but found it was more of a battle...
...Shortly before we left [for Iraq] there were two other refuelers in my unit...
...Based on a review of the investigation, appropriate corrective actions were taken...
...This is really difficult for me right now, trying to deal with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and go to school," she says...
...They went to the hut and searched everything...
...For months, she couldn't find a psychiatrist...
...But at a water treatment plant outside Baghdad, Hart caught a man carrying explosives...
...The mother was trying to kiss my feet, my cheek, crying," Hart recalls...
...They're all bad guys.'" After Hart came home from Iraq in 2004, he had an emotional explosion and finally told his platoon sergeant, "I can't pull the trigger...
...Hart now works in Texas as a waiter and peace activist with Iraq Veterans Against the War...
...Before deploying to Iraq, she worked teaching three-year-olds...
...She never reported it...
...It's ten times harder than it was before I left...
...One of them sat me down and said, 'We've been talking, and we don't think if it came down to it, you'd be able to kill a kid,'" Abbie recalls, explaining that the soldiers had heard kids sometimes jump in front of convoys...
...He was approved later that year and honorably discharged...
...Eventually, her superiors were investigated and relieved of their command, she says...
...Her officers punished her by sending her out on unnecessary and dangerous missions, she says...
...Such allegations are taken seriously by the Wisconsin National Guard, so an investigation was ordered to determine whether allegations of leadership lapses or misconduct were well-founded...
...The culmination of abuse, war, and isolation left Abbie with all the classic symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder...
...I told my sergeant, 'These aren't the guys.' He said, 'Don't worry...
...Her affection for children was viewed by some as a potential liability in a combat zone...
...His sergeant sent him to a chaplain who told him about conscientious objection...
...He's scared and confused but recruited like me...
...The man escaped from Hart...
Vol. 71 • January 2007 • No. 1
