Former Marine remorseful for killing civilians in Iraq
From AlterNet via the Sacramento Bee. Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey says he and others deliberately killed civilians. On orders.
What does the public need to know about your experiences as a Marine?
The cause of the Iraqi revolt against the American occupation. What they need to know is we killed a lot of innocent people.
You mean you fired machine guns?
Well, this particular vehicle we didn’t destroy completely, and one gentleman looked up at me and said: “Why did you kill my brother? We didn’t do anything wrong.” That hit me like a ton of bricks.
Who gave the order to wipe the demonstrators out?
Higher command.
What kind of firepower was employed?
M-16s, 50-cal. machine guns.
You fired into six or ten kids? Were they all taken out?
Oh, yeah.
Was that the incident that pushed you over the edge, as you put it?
Oh, yeah. Later on I found out that was a typical day. I talked with my commanding officer after the incident. He came up to me and says: “Are you OK?” I said: “No, today is not a good day. We killed a bunch of civilians.” He goes: “No, today was a good day.” And when he said that, I said “Oh, my goodness, what the hell am I into?”