From the Frontlines
An Iraq war veteran talks about how the G.I. Bill doesn’t stretch far enough, his experience in Iraq, and his struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder.
By Sayeda Fazel
October 7, 2008
Iraq Veterans Against The War join thousands in a march and rally against the Iraq war in downtown Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)With the rising unpopularity of the war in Iraq, supporting the troops has become synonymous with ending the war for many on the left. Some of the most prominent leaders in the anti-war movement are veterans of the battles in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have formed organizations such as Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), VoteVets, and Iraq Veterans for Progress — groups with varying outlooks and agendas but all able to enhance their advocacy with stories from the frontlines. Their testimonials have helped to revive efforts for a change of course on the war at a time when opposition has been dwindling. We spoke to one such soldier, former U.S. Army Specialist and current anti-war activist Edgar Cuevas, about his experience.
Cuevas, a first generation Mexican-American, was born and raised in Burbank, California. Cuevas is the child of a gardener and a housewife who, like many others, immigrated to the United States in the 1970s looking for better opportunities. Since childhood, Cuevas longed to become a teacher, and along the way, he joined the army to help him realize that dream.
“My family is lower-middle class. It was difficult for me to go to school because we only had one source of income and my parents had to pay the bills and for my schooling,” Cuevas said.
A military recruiter convinced Cuevas that getting a higher education could be easier through the Montgomery G.I. Bill. The post-9/11 G.I. Bill is a new benefit providing educational assistance to individuals who served on active duty on or after September 11, 2001.
It was because of this promise of the G.I. Bill that, at 18, Cuevas enlisted into the United States Army. After completing training in Fort Knox, Kentucky, Cuevas was sent on peace-keeping operations in Germany. Then in March of 2003, the United States invaded Iraq. Soon thereafter, Cuevas was one of many soldiers redeployed to Iraq. He arrived for a one year tour in February of 2004 and was stationed in Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit. Cuevas says he was against the war from the start, but admits not knowing much about the situation in Iraq before he went in. His only source of news was his commanders.
Although he joined the military to finance his education, Cuevas urges others to consider their alternatives. “There are so many other things [kids] can do—get financial aid, FAFSA, work. Try harder, strive. After you’ve worked yourself to the bone, pay for your education and you will be so much prouder of yourself and you won’t have to deal with having PTSD, traumatic brain injury, seeing you best friends dying out there. It’s something that people shouldn’t live with for the rest of their lives,” Cuevas said.
Military recruiters paint a less than accurate picture of life in the service, according to Cuevas. “The military will lie to you just like the government has. They only tell you what you want to hear. They only tell you they don’t tell you the consequences of being in the military—dying and fighting, being wounded or maimed. The thing is they’ll pick up anybody nowadays—they feed off of these guys,” Cuevas said.
“When they go into different areas [to recruit] for example, the X-Games, they put up their shop, they set up their Army of One games or the marines put up the wall climb—they’ll use whatever they can to appeal to young people and they try to glorify what they do. But in reality, they hide everything all the consequences that the kids are not aware of. They just say you’ll see new exotic places. Just like in Vietnam, the Army used to say ‘fun, travel, and adventure.’ But today, it’s not like that—you get your little fun, you get your travel, but you might come back in a pine box,” Cuevas said.
As well as going to school to fulfill his unfinished dream of becoming a teacher, Cuevas is taking his own advice: “I’m working my butt off [to pay for school] because the G.I. Bill isn’t enough,” Cuevas said.
“A lot of info wasn’t given to us about why the invasion was happening other than the whole 9/11 connection, they have weapons of mass destruction, you know, the usual things the media feeds the public. But then since we also got the military giving us news—it’s far more filtered than the Associated Press. And a lot of [the soldiers] just believed what was being told to them,” Cuevas said.
“[In Iraq], just two days after taking control of the city of Tikrit, I saw the two casualties my unit—one would of become a triple amputee and the other one died of major head trauma,” Cuevas said.
“[The commanders] were telling us we were gonna come up to a whole lot of confrontation—don’t trust anybody—if you see anyone in the way when your patrolling, run them over. They told us [the Iraqis] are very hostile, they will shoot at us. Always expect everybody to be an enemy. And that’s what we all expected—for everybody to be an enemy—coming at us with weapons and firing at us, trying to kill us,” Cuevas said.
“The great majority of people—and I’m talking about 99.2 percent of the [Iraqi] people—were friendly towards me. And the more time I spent there, the more I was aware that what [the commanders] were telling us was not true. But [at the time], we were in a mindset not to trust anybody, and unfortunately that’s why there was a lot of deaths in the beginning,” Cuevas said.
“I remember the look in their faces when we would patrol through their towns and while we were conducting a raid. I saw fear and hatred in their eyes for the oppressive manner that we were treating them. They weren’t hostile towards me, you know, they were grateful that we took out Saddam, but they didn’t want us there.” Cuevas said.
After serving a year in Iraq, Cuevas’ family at home anxiously waited for him to come home. But Cuevas didn’t come home as scheduled. He got a stop-loss order that prevented him from coming home for another year and a half. When he did return, Cuevas developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and struggled with anger problems.
“I used to blow up for no apparent reason. I blew up at my parents [after] I left my shoes laying about the house. I got pissed off and I stormed out of the house slamming every door on my way out,” Cuevas said.
“I also had flashbacks as if I was patrolling the streets of Iraq while I was in downtown L.A. When I’m at a restaurant, I have to go sit in a corner booth or somewhere up against the wall and be able to look at the exits and entrances—to make sure everything is safe. I don’t really trust people that well. I blame myself over incidents that I have no control over,” Cuevas said. Cuevas is not alone. Recent studies estimate that roughly 20 percent of Iraq veterans suffer from PTSD.
“My best friend has been shot at with a hand gun, short range, in the chest and the helmet. He has PTSD like I do, but he has it far more severe because he was much more engaged. He has gone twice. He’s now in alcoholism, he’s drinking his problems away, and yet the army doesn’t do anything about that,” Cuevas said.
It was over a year before Cuevas decided to get help. He would visit the priest at his local church, and then, prompted by his girlfriend, he turned to an organization called The Soldiers Project, where volunteer therapists offer free psychological treatment to soldiers specifically involved in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Iraq has changed me. ... I have seen some real shit out there and I put myself in the Iraqis shoes, and I have seen the injustice that is occurring there and it angers me a lot, because most of America doesn’t wake up to do anything about it,” Cuevas said.
Once he realized he was not alone, Cuevas, like many other soldiers that returned from Iraq, decided to go public and speak out. He joined IVAW, and joined their efforts to raise awareness. Recently, he helped re-enacted a foot patrol for the public at IVAW’s Guerrilla Theater event in Santa Monica.
“The veterans came in their uniforms that they wore in Iraq and we simulated like we had weapons in our hands, and we had [bystanders] play the roles of Iraqi civilians, and we pretty much re-created what happens in Iraq,” Cuevas said.
The number of anti-war soldiers is increasing rapidly. In fact, more than 2100 active-duty soldiers, reserve members, and guardsmen have already signed a petition for withdrawal from Iraq. Several soldiers, many from Cuevas’ own platoon, have changed their position on the war just in their first tour.
Soldiers who protest proactively offer invaluable insight because they have first-hand accounts of effectiveness of the governmental policies being implemented in Iraq and have been integral in convincing the public that the war isn’t the best way to bring political stability to Iraq.
“Our presence agitates the other countries around who don’t want us there, and instead of having a peaceful nation of Iraq, we’re causing more conflict. If we were to pull out come home they would be able to organize themselves create peace with their neighbors. [The Iraqis] have their differences but they’re willing to work out their differences but the problems is, when the United States gets involved, we try to divvy up everything, and it’s just harming them,” Cuevas said.
“With the training that we’ve given them from six months to about a year and six months, they did pretty well. A lot of these guys used to be former military people. They have the discipline, they have the training, the only thing is they need to be the ones up there policing their people instead of us having to do that for them and not giving them the opportunity to be the leader of their own country. They know how to do things; the thing is we don’t give ‘em a chance,” Cuevas said.
According to Cuevas, a crucial reason to withdraw is that the Iraqis view American soldiers as occupiers not peace-keepers. “We went in there to take out a dictator—yes, and we did that but you know what ended up happening? We created another one—ourselves. We are the dictators—we are telling them what to do, how to live their lives, and to follow our rules. Not only are they in this situation, there 4.2 million [Iraqis] displaced,” Cuevas said.
Sayeda Fazel is a third year student studying English at UCLA and the business manager at Al-Talib. This article was originally published in Al-Talib, part of the Campus Publications Network.
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