The following is a speech delivered by Iraq war veteran and
former Infantry sergeant Kevin Baker at a mass anti-war protest on March
19 in Los Angeles. Baker is a member of the anti-war organization of veteran and active duty service members March Forward! To read more statements from March Forward!, click here.
On this day last year, Spc. Derrick Kirkland, who I served on a tour
in Iraq with, hanged himself in his barracks room. He was found dead on
March 20th.
This date also marks the date of the brutal invasion
and occupation of Iraq by the United States. These two dates now mark
two specific but not isolated atrocities committed by this government.
Derrick
Kirkland was killed by this government—for sending him to a war we had
no reason to fight, then neglecting him when he asked for help.
He
was in Iraq on his second tour and was sent home early because the
pains of PTSD and other issues were too much to bear alone. Kirkland had
tried three times before to kill himself. Despite three suicide attempts,
Army psychologists labeled him a “low” risk for suicide. He was
ridiculed and mocked by his chain of command, who then placed him in a
barracks room by himself. He was there only three days before he took his
life.
As someone who has battled though the Army medical system,
I can tell you that it is not designed to help anybody. In fact, it
sets up barricades to ensure soldiers stay in the military, despite
seeking help. There are only a fraction of the number of psychiatrists
that are needed. Appointments are months apart and treatment is reduced
to nothing more than “checking boxes” to make soldiers legally ready for
another deployment. Kirkland is not an isolated incident. In 2009 and
2010, more soldiers killed themselves than were killed in combat in Iraq
and Afghanistan. Soldiers are killing themselves on an average of one
per day.
If you want to know how much our chain of command cares
about us, just look at what our executive officer Major Keith Markham says
in memos he sends to other officers: “We can accomplish anything we put
our minds to … with an endless amount of expendable labor.” The
“expendable labor” this officer is speaking about is Derrick Kirkland,
and every other soldier who has lost their life to suicide, and in
combat.
Officers build their careers off of the backs of
enlisted soldiers. Officers like Major Markham, General Petraeus, and
everyone in the Pentagon, don’t care about its soldiers—our friends,
loved ones, husbands, daughters, sons and wives. If this government does
not care about its own soldiers then why would we even begin to think
it cares about “liberating” peoples of another nation? This is why we
say ‘this is not our war’ and service members have an absolute right to
refuse orders to Afghanistan and Iraq!
We can stop these wars,
but we need each other to do it. Those of us who mourned Kirkland’s
death, those of us who were sent to die in these wars, we know that this
government cares nothing about us; we’re just the cannon fodder in
their wars for the rich. Those experiences have woken us up, and we are
fighting back, and we will fight back until we stop these criminal wars!
Click here to read the origional statement circulated after Kirkland’s death.
