By Jean-Paul Mari
   Le Nouvel Observateur

   Thursday 27 October 2005 edition

Iraq: The story no American publisher wanted.

IN A JUST-PUBLISHED book, Master-Sergeant Jimmy Massey tells about his
mission to recruit for, then fight in, the war in Iraq. He tells why he
killed. And cracked.
   
   Jimmy Massey is 34 years old. He's originally a Texas boy, raised as a
good Southern Baptist who loves squirrel hunting with his air rifle. After
12 years in the Marines, Jim is a broken man, a veteran afflicted with
Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, a depressive hooked on his medications,
haunted by the nightmare images in which he massacres innocent civilians,
scenes experienced in Iraq when he was nothing but a killing machine. Jim
has cracked, has withdrawn from the service for medical reasons, and has
written a raw and brutal book. Telling the life of a Marine of today,
revealing "how he talks, how he thinks, how he fucks, and how he kills." The
army denies the facts and his former comrades have insulted, rejected, and
threatened him. His testimony ulcerates Neo-Conservative America and shocks
the politically correct. In the United States, no publishing house has dared
to publish his manuscript. Extracts follow.

   The Recruiter

   When you're a recruiter, you have to learn fast. And I rapidly learned
that if I wanted to keep my job, I couldn't allow myself to have any
scruples.

   I went to public schools every day where I was able to contact young
people easily. I had already been given a list of all the students, with
their phone numbers. So I really didn't need the 2002 law - the No Child
Left Behind Act 1 - which stipulates that any high school receiving federal
funds must furnish military recruitment officers with the names, addresses,
and telephone numbers of its students. [...] As usual, I said to myself,
"I'm going to get them, those fuckheads," since, you must understand, a
recruiter has only one thing in his head if he wants to pay his rent:
landing contracts. [...]

   One day in 2000, I was with my warrant officer in the cafeteria of a
little local university. Chief Warrant Officer Dalhouse rushed over to me,
saying "Hey! Chief-Sergeant, I'd like to introduce you to Timmy." I lifted
my head towards Timmy to discover ... a retard! Two hundred and ten pounds
of muscles, the features and the speech of a retard. Upset, I looked at my
new boss and asked him: "Are you shitting me?" He firmly replied: "No,
Chief-Sergeant, you are going to interview this guy. He is seriously
thinking about joining the Marines."

   [...] Timmy was short and massive; he wore blue jeans, work boots, and a
T-shirt in the Andrews High School football team colors. He reminded me of
the Lenny character from Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men." He seriously wanted
to sign up with the Marines; it was obvious. [...] "Now, let's talk about
your handicap. I know it's been harder for you than the average person and
you've already shown a lot of self-confidence by overcoming your
disability." Timmy lowered his eyes; I saw he was a little embarrassed. Then
he raised his head, his eyes glistening with tears, and in a trembling
voice, answered: "You're right, Sergeant, it's been really hard for me.
Once, when I was new, the other guys locked me in a closet. They shoved me
around and insulted me. I was so angry I knocked down the closet door." "-
Timmy, no one will ever bother you again. The Corps will help you acquire
all the self-confidence you'll need to overcome the obstacles you could
encounter in the course of your life." He sent me a look full of gratitude.
[...]

   When a kid told me he had taken Ecstasy, here's the sort of conversation
we'd have: "Listen, guy, are you sure it was really Ecstasy? Maybe it was
Doliprane." When I said that, I'd nod my head up and down. "Yeah, I'm not
sure, in fact." "So you think it was Doliprane?" still nodding my head.
"Yeah, it was Doliprane." [...]

   The War in Iraq

   "You call that pacification? I've got a problem with it," I said in a
nauseated voice. "My friend, you've gotta get a grip. If you keep making
waves, they'll judge you as a war criminal."

   We had reached the military site Al-Rashid on an overcast, dark and
sinister day. [...] When we stopped, I saw ten Iraqis, about 150 yards away.
They were under forty years old, clean and dressed in the traditional white
garment. They stayed on the side of the road waving signs and screaming
anti-American slogans. [...] That's when I heard a shot pass just over our
heads, from right to left. I ran into the middle of the street to see what
was happening. I had barely rejoined Schutz when my guys unloaded their
weapons on the demonstrators. It only took me three seconds to take aim. I
aimed my sights on the center of a demonstrator's body. I breathed in deeply
and, as I exhaled, I gently opened my right eye and fired. I watched the
bullets hit the demonstrator right in the middle of his chest. My Marines
barked: "Come on, little girls! You wanna fight?"

   I acquired a new target right away, a demonstrator on all fours who was
trying to run away as fast as possible. I quickly aimed for the head; I
breathed in deeply, breathed out, and I fired again. One head: boom!
Another: boom! The center of a mass in the bull's eye: boom! Another: boom!
I kept on until the moment when I saw no more movement from the
demonstrators. There was no answering fire. I must have fired at least a
dozen times. It all lasted no longer than two and a half minutes.

   I know that they had also been shot in the back; some of them were
crawling and their white clothes turned red. The M-16's 5.56 is a nasty
bullet: it doesn't kill all at once. For example, it can enter the chest and
come out at the knee, tearing all the internal organs on the way through. My
guys were jumping around in every direction. Taylor and Gaumont hollered:
"Come back, babies!" "They don't know how to fight, those cocksuckers!
Fucking cowards!" They slapped one another on the back, exchanging "Good
job!," but they were frustrated because some demonstrators had succeeded in
getting away. I wanted to keep on firing, I kept telling myself: "Good God,
there must be more of them." It was like eating the first spoonful of your
favorite ice cream. You want more. [...]

   Those demonstrators were the first people I killed. [...] That had a
hell of an effect on me. What an adrenaline, rush, fuck! Fear becomes a
motor. It pushes you. It had more of an impact on me than the best grass I
ever smoked. It was as though all those I had ever hated, all the anger that
was accumulated in me was there in that being; you feel like you're
absorbing life like a cannibal. You're really happy with yourself; you feel
really powerful and everything becomes clear. You reach nirvana, like a
white luminous space. But after a few hours, you come down from nirvana and
find yourself in dark waters; you swim in a pool of mud and the only way to
go back to that other feeling is to kill again. [...]

   After pulling out at dusk, we heard shots, at least a hundred. Lima
Company had opened fire on a vehicle. I learned later that there were three
women and a child inside. As far as I know, there was never any inquiry.
[...]

   Forty-five minutes later, a red Kia Spectra came towards us at around 35
mph. It penetrated the green zone; a few of my Marines let loose a warning
round and the sniper fired on the engine, but the damage didn't keep the car
from continuing into the red zone. The vehicles installed in the rear
immediately opened fire with their 240 Gulfs; we joined in with our M-16s,
targeting the car and firing at least 200 rounds at high speed. The KIA
stopped in a grating around 25 yards from my Humvee, and my Marines pounced
on the vehicle and began to extract the four wounded Iraqis. The occupants,
young men tastefully dressed, were bleeding profusely. [...] Six stretcher
bearers arrived with stretchers and took them away. The survivor came
towards me groaning, a tortured expression covering his face. He looked in
the air, his hands raised: "Why did you kill my brother? We didn't do
anything to you. We're not terrorists."

   I walked away without saying anything to him and sat down inside my
vehicle, devastated. I got out when I heard the Marines and the
stretcher-bearers bringing the Kia's occupants back to the car. "Fuck, what
are you bringing them back for?" "Chief-Sergeant, the chief Medical Officer
said he couldn't do anything for them." I looked at the Iraqis, containing
my anger with difficulty. They were twisting and groaning, dying by inches
and in pain. [...] I couldn't speak. I looked inside the car. Obviously,
there were neither weapons nor explosives there. I was more and more
disgusted.

   The Last Straw

   [...] Captain Schmitt came towards me and asked me, very calmly: "Are
you OK, Chief-Sergeant? [...]" "- No, Captain. I'm not OK." "- Why not?" I
answered without hesitation: "It's a bad day. We killed a lot of innocent
civilians." "- No. It's a good day," he retorted in an authoritarian tone.
Before I had time to answer, he had already moved away from me with a
confident tread.

   Today, Jimmy Massey is no longer a Marine. He lives in a little village
in North Carolina, spends his time making anti-recruitment visits to schools
and militating against the war in the association he founded with five other
soldiers: Veterans Against the War.

   ----

   (*)Kill! Kill! Kill! by Jimmy Massey (with Natasha Saulnier), published
by Editions du Panama, 390 p., 22 Euros.