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Paths of Dissent: Soldiers Speak Out Against America's Misguided Wars
American veterans who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan offer invaluable firsthand perspectives on what made America’s post-9/11 wars so costly and disastrous.
Twenty years of America’s Global War on Terror produced little tangible success while exacting enormous harm. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States sustained tens of thousands of casualties, expended trillions of dollars, and inflicted massive suffering on the very populations that we sought to “liberate.” Now the inclination to forget it all and move on is palpable. But there is much to be learned from the immense debacle. And those who served and fought in these wars are best positioned to teach us.
Paths of Dissent collects fifteen original essays from American veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan―hailing from a wide range of services, ranks, and walks of life―who have come out in opposition to these conflicts. Selected for their candor and eloquence by fellow veterans Andrew Bacevich and Daniel Sjursen, these soldiers vividly describe both their motivations for serving and the disillusionment that made them speak out against the system. Their testimony is crucial for understanding just how the world’s self-proclaimed greatest military power went so badly astray.
Gil Barndollar • Dan Berschinski • Joy Damiani • Daniel L. Davis • Jason Dempsey • Erik Edstrom • Vincent Emanuele • Gian Gentile • Matthew P. Hoh • Jonathan W. Hutto, Sr. • Buddhika Jayamaha • Roy Scranton • Kevin Tillman • Elliott Woods • Paul Yingling
Twenty years of America’s Global War on Terror produced little tangible success while exacting enormous harm. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States sustained tens of thousands of casualties, expended trillions of dollars, and inflicted massive suffering on the very populations that we sought to “liberate.” Now the inclination to forget it all and move on is palpable. But there is much to be learned from the immense debacle. And those who served and fought in these wars are best positioned to teach us.
Paths of Dissent collects fifteen original essays from American veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan―hailing from a wide range of services, ranks, and walks of life―who have come out in opposition to these conflicts. Selected for their candor and eloquence by fellow veterans Andrew Bacevich and Daniel Sjursen, these soldiers vividly describe both their motivations for serving and the disillusionment that made them speak out against the system. Their testimony is crucial for understanding just how the world’s self-proclaimed greatest military power went so badly astray.
Gil Barndollar • Dan Berschinski • Joy Damiani • Daniel L. Davis • Jason Dempsey • Erik Edstrom • Vincent Emanuele • Gian Gentile • Matthew P. Hoh • Jonathan W. Hutto, Sr. • Buddhika Jayamaha • Roy Scranton • Kevin Tillman • Elliott Woods • Paul Yingling
304 pages, Hardcover
First published August 2, 2022
10 people are currently reading
2738 people want to read
About the author
Andrew J. Bacevich
37 books372 followersAndrew J. Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations at Boston University, retired from the U.S. Army with the rank of colonel. He is the author of Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War and The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism and The New American Militarism. His writing has appeared in Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. He holds a Ph.D. in American Diplomatic History from Princeton University, and taught at West Point and Johns Hopkins University prior to joining the faculty at Boston University in 1998. He is the recipient of a Lannan Award and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/andrew...
http://us.macmillan.com/author/andrew...
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December 12, 2022
“Military indoctrination is the voluntary surrender of one’s own identity to join a profession that often takes away the dignity of others by force.” “It is the construction of blind faith in the state and the deconstruction of any critical thinking that could stand in opposition to the state’s aims.” “The message was: keep your head down and focus on your warrior tasks and drills. Also: “soldiers are made to win wars, not think about them.” Imagine “seventeen-hour days of exercise, classwork, military rituals, and study.” Be all you can be in the Army: a killer with no discernable conscience or lingering desire to opt out. Imagine dying for no reason that aids your fellow Americans, or even the locals after you’ve invaded. Enjoy being “sandblasted” by helicopters whipping the desert sand after you are wounded. I could be paying for college back home by selling pot, or I could be cannon fodder risking my life daily where I’m clearly not wanted, while thinking I’ve taken the “easy” route. Author #1 Erik had a 25% casualty rate in his platoon: does selling weed give you a 25% chance of losing an eye, a limb, lengthy facial reconstruction surgeries, and crippling PTSD and moral injury? Oh, I forgot, you’re told to not think critically. My bad.
Your battalion headquarters frequently can know there are new IED’s placed last night yet frequently won’t tell its own soldiers – what could go wrong? The real toll: “The price tag for the post-9/11 wars is over $8 trillion.” Only 7,000 US soldiers dead in the line of duty since 9/11 yet 30,000+ suicides since 9/11 by former US soldiers. I can’t wait to finish my tour of duty so I can go home and kill myself. Cue polyester flag waving in the breeze. Moral injury: “the harrowing feeling of having transgressed whether through thought or deed, action or inaction – against your moral code. It is a betrayal of who you thought you were.” Moral Injury and PTSD: two gifts (to non-sociopaths) that keeps on giving. Afghan contractors related that sixty percent of US taxpayer money to them in Afghanistan went to the Taliban in bribes (largely to pass through checkpoints). What is the definition of counterproductive? The joys of seeing bad intel kill three civilians and no bad guys.
Listen to this startling admission (insurgent math) by General Stanley McChrystal when he was senior American and NATO commander in Afghanistan: for every innocent person you kill you create ten new ones. Yum, given civilian casualties you’ve guaranteed your own terrorism spiral. Lockheed-Martin thanks you. Here’s another McChrystal admission, “We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever been proven to be a threat.” A week after saying this an Arkansas National Guard near their base mowed down occupants of an ordinary passenger bus (perhaps for too loudly singing “99 Bottles of Beer of the Wall”) with a M249B machine gun killing five and wounding eighteen civilians. Instead of wild terrorists with untamed facial hair, soldiers were being targeted by “angry farmers and teenagers with legitimate grievances.” Paperwork is easier if corpses are called “enemy” or “unknown”.
One ex-soldier wrote that no one asked about locals - What did they want? Are we respecting their habits and customs? Or how, from their eyes, would they see the US occupation? Why do we never ask their consent? To win the occupation, at least you’d have to treat locals as you would fellow Americans and good luck with that. Or the tragic death of a single local, would be as publicized as the tragic death of a fellow American back home. Many of our soldiers are coming back with a destroyed notion of patriotism and a questioned faith. After service, there’s the desire to do anything that doesn’t make the world worse. Note this military irony: “In efforts to ‘prevent terrorism’ in our country, we commit far larger acts of terrorism elsewhere.” Note that we are also taught terrorism is never a crime, when we do it.
Join the Army – Go around the world inflicting violence on people you don’t know. Said one ex-soldier, supporting our troops to be sent around the world to do this is not patriotism, but betrayal. Says another, “My life was government property.” Said another, that more Iraqis didn’t want them to be there than the actual troops who didn’t want to be there. Press in the armed forces was upping for team spirit, “any attempt at sketching even a minimally accurate portrait of the daily chaos that we observed would be censored, at best.” To save their asses, reporters focused on “the troop’s winningest accomplishments”.
The policy of stop-loss is intelligently also known as the backdoor draft. One ex-soldier wrote here of “a status quo that convinces well-meaning teenagers to die and kill other teenagers they didn’t know, on the order of generals who will never ever remember their names. When we keep our heads down, follow orders, and allow ourselves to be killers or be killed, we lose our humanity.” One ex-soldier wrote that he loved his soldiers, yet knew the war was both unwinnable and unnecessary. This same guy had lost both legs, arm, and ears to an IED. Fear of being a casualty is chronic: “Guys are saying “I hope I only lose a foot” or “maybe it will only be my left foot.” One guy found, if you kill some insurgents they often are replaced by better insurgents. He said, “the soldiers who had died there (Afghanistan) for no gain to our country were forever silenced.” You had the hopelessly corrupt Afghan government against the Taliban. Twenty-one years of media false positives (a.k.a. deliberate falsehoods) about the Afghan War, when it implodes on TV spectacularly like Building 7.
During the Civil War at least 10% served in uniform, same with WWII, where is it now? It’s presently a tiny 1/2 of 1% of the population, while qualified veterans make up 7%. “In the richest country on earth, you may have to kill, or die, for a decent education.” “We shot at noncombatants. We tortured prisoners. We blew up civilian structures. We ran over, mutilated, and took pictures of dead Iraqis. Eighteen-year-olds with machine guns, rocket launchers, and a license to kill, or so we thought.” If you questioned it, you’d be asked if you want “the same fate as (NFL star) Pat Tillman?”
“Baghdadis tell me things had actually been better under Saddam because even tyranny is preferable to chaos.” Many felt when the US removed their tyrant, it removed their self-respect (white paternalizing often does that) and the US was seen as an army of occupation. “It was easier to blame our failures on local cultures than on our lack of interest in actually understanding those cultures.” “It is the unquestioning adoration of the military by much of America that continues to do the most damage.” A big moral problem for recruits is “denying your duty to understand whether the orders you are following are legal, or illegal.” “A private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a war.” On one side you’d have Iraqis fighting for their families, land, life and dignity. On the other side, you’d have US teenagers motivated by health care, tuition, housing, and effective fearmongering.
Most US citizens should wear a button saying, “Apathy through active ignorance.” Veteran Jacob George wrote, “the United States is sending poor farmers overseas to fight poor farmers.” Common view of diplomats, and military and intelligence personnel: The majority of the Taliban isn’t fighting first for religion, but to end foreign occupation. Things no liberal will say: that Obama “escalated the war in Afghanistan, expanded our global drone program, recolonized Africa with US troops, not-so-secretly helped turn Syria into an apocalyptic wasteland, and extended America’s economic warfare against countries like Venezuela.” Juan Guaido “declared himself President of Venezuela when he didn’t like the results of his country’s free and fair presidential election”. Trump and Company simply imitated “our foreign policy behavior in a domestic setting.”
Iraq was 20% Sunni and 70% Shiite under Saddam, yet under him the minority Sunni were more empowered. See the Iraqi Civil War as Sunnis trying to keep that unfair advantage despite knowing they are clearly outnumbered. The US military has amply shown the world that “it is much easier to break a country and its institutions than it is to put everything back together.” Heck, anyone having watched exes break perfectly good dinner plates in anger knows the same thing. “There are huge limits to what a military power can accomplish.” It should be the last resort for solving problems.
Two things slow down the US military: sandstorms and major US holidays; “no one wanted to tell a mother she lost her son on Christmas Day.” It costs about $1 million annually to keep a service member deployed in a combat zone. Spending to make the US even more hated (and who doesn’t cherish their country being occupied?) - what an investment. “Most veterans I know have lost more friends and comrades to suicide than they did to the enemy.”
For those who like sociopathic poetry, here is an actual US armed forces drill chant from this book which some unfortunate recruits must learn to shout while marching:
Left right, left right, left right kill,
Left right, left right, you know I will
I went to the mosque, where all the terrorists pray,
I setup my claymore, and blew ‘em all away!
Left right, left right, left right kill,
Left right, left right, you know I will
I went to the store where all the women shop,
Pulled out my machete and I began to chop!
Left right, left right, left right kill,
Left right, left right, you know I will,
I went to the playground where all the kiddies play,
I pulled out my Uzi and I began to spray!
Teaching your impressionable recruits such disturbing rhymes
In a country already filled with school shootings,
can lead to your impressionable recruits soon making their
own disturbing chants later back at home like:
Left right, left right, left right kill,
Left right, left right, you know I will,
Went to the john, while my kids watched TV
This gun in my mouth is the last thing I’ll see.
Great book. Great to learn how many of our soldiers get the real picture by the end of their enlistment. What is noble about only using negotiation and diplomacy as the LAST resort, while committing war crimes (in bold violation of your oath to the US Constitution) as the first resort? Kudos to Andrew and Daniel putting this really important book together, so that US liberals and flag wavers can get a taste of what US progressives and veterans have been openly saying for decades.
Your battalion headquarters frequently can know there are new IED’s placed last night yet frequently won’t tell its own soldiers – what could go wrong? The real toll: “The price tag for the post-9/11 wars is over $8 trillion.” Only 7,000 US soldiers dead in the line of duty since 9/11 yet 30,000+ suicides since 9/11 by former US soldiers. I can’t wait to finish my tour of duty so I can go home and kill myself. Cue polyester flag waving in the breeze. Moral injury: “the harrowing feeling of having transgressed whether through thought or deed, action or inaction – against your moral code. It is a betrayal of who you thought you were.” Moral Injury and PTSD: two gifts (to non-sociopaths) that keeps on giving. Afghan contractors related that sixty percent of US taxpayer money to them in Afghanistan went to the Taliban in bribes (largely to pass through checkpoints). What is the definition of counterproductive? The joys of seeing bad intel kill three civilians and no bad guys.
Listen to this startling admission (insurgent math) by General Stanley McChrystal when he was senior American and NATO commander in Afghanistan: for every innocent person you kill you create ten new ones. Yum, given civilian casualties you’ve guaranteed your own terrorism spiral. Lockheed-Martin thanks you. Here’s another McChrystal admission, “We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever been proven to be a threat.” A week after saying this an Arkansas National Guard near their base mowed down occupants of an ordinary passenger bus (perhaps for too loudly singing “99 Bottles of Beer of the Wall”) with a M249B machine gun killing five and wounding eighteen civilians. Instead of wild terrorists with untamed facial hair, soldiers were being targeted by “angry farmers and teenagers with legitimate grievances.” Paperwork is easier if corpses are called “enemy” or “unknown”.
One ex-soldier wrote that no one asked about locals - What did they want? Are we respecting their habits and customs? Or how, from their eyes, would they see the US occupation? Why do we never ask their consent? To win the occupation, at least you’d have to treat locals as you would fellow Americans and good luck with that. Or the tragic death of a single local, would be as publicized as the tragic death of a fellow American back home. Many of our soldiers are coming back with a destroyed notion of patriotism and a questioned faith. After service, there’s the desire to do anything that doesn’t make the world worse. Note this military irony: “In efforts to ‘prevent terrorism’ in our country, we commit far larger acts of terrorism elsewhere.” Note that we are also taught terrorism is never a crime, when we do it.
Join the Army – Go around the world inflicting violence on people you don’t know. Said one ex-soldier, supporting our troops to be sent around the world to do this is not patriotism, but betrayal. Says another, “My life was government property.” Said another, that more Iraqis didn’t want them to be there than the actual troops who didn’t want to be there. Press in the armed forces was upping for team spirit, “any attempt at sketching even a minimally accurate portrait of the daily chaos that we observed would be censored, at best.” To save their asses, reporters focused on “the troop’s winningest accomplishments”.
The policy of stop-loss is intelligently also known as the backdoor draft. One ex-soldier wrote here of “a status quo that convinces well-meaning teenagers to die and kill other teenagers they didn’t know, on the order of generals who will never ever remember their names. When we keep our heads down, follow orders, and allow ourselves to be killers or be killed, we lose our humanity.” One ex-soldier wrote that he loved his soldiers, yet knew the war was both unwinnable and unnecessary. This same guy had lost both legs, arm, and ears to an IED. Fear of being a casualty is chronic: “Guys are saying “I hope I only lose a foot” or “maybe it will only be my left foot.” One guy found, if you kill some insurgents they often are replaced by better insurgents. He said, “the soldiers who had died there (Afghanistan) for no gain to our country were forever silenced.” You had the hopelessly corrupt Afghan government against the Taliban. Twenty-one years of media false positives (a.k.a. deliberate falsehoods) about the Afghan War, when it implodes on TV spectacularly like Building 7.
During the Civil War at least 10% served in uniform, same with WWII, where is it now? It’s presently a tiny 1/2 of 1% of the population, while qualified veterans make up 7%. “In the richest country on earth, you may have to kill, or die, for a decent education.” “We shot at noncombatants. We tortured prisoners. We blew up civilian structures. We ran over, mutilated, and took pictures of dead Iraqis. Eighteen-year-olds with machine guns, rocket launchers, and a license to kill, or so we thought.” If you questioned it, you’d be asked if you want “the same fate as (NFL star) Pat Tillman?”
“Baghdadis tell me things had actually been better under Saddam because even tyranny is preferable to chaos.” Many felt when the US removed their tyrant, it removed their self-respect (white paternalizing often does that) and the US was seen as an army of occupation. “It was easier to blame our failures on local cultures than on our lack of interest in actually understanding those cultures.” “It is the unquestioning adoration of the military by much of America that continues to do the most damage.” A big moral problem for recruits is “denying your duty to understand whether the orders you are following are legal, or illegal.” “A private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a war.” On one side you’d have Iraqis fighting for their families, land, life and dignity. On the other side, you’d have US teenagers motivated by health care, tuition, housing, and effective fearmongering.
Most US citizens should wear a button saying, “Apathy through active ignorance.” Veteran Jacob George wrote, “the United States is sending poor farmers overseas to fight poor farmers.” Common view of diplomats, and military and intelligence personnel: The majority of the Taliban isn’t fighting first for religion, but to end foreign occupation. Things no liberal will say: that Obama “escalated the war in Afghanistan, expanded our global drone program, recolonized Africa with US troops, not-so-secretly helped turn Syria into an apocalyptic wasteland, and extended America’s economic warfare against countries like Venezuela.” Juan Guaido “declared himself President of Venezuela when he didn’t like the results of his country’s free and fair presidential election”. Trump and Company simply imitated “our foreign policy behavior in a domestic setting.”
Iraq was 20% Sunni and 70% Shiite under Saddam, yet under him the minority Sunni were more empowered. See the Iraqi Civil War as Sunnis trying to keep that unfair advantage despite knowing they are clearly outnumbered. The US military has amply shown the world that “it is much easier to break a country and its institutions than it is to put everything back together.” Heck, anyone having watched exes break perfectly good dinner plates in anger knows the same thing. “There are huge limits to what a military power can accomplish.” It should be the last resort for solving problems.
Two things slow down the US military: sandstorms and major US holidays; “no one wanted to tell a mother she lost her son on Christmas Day.” It costs about $1 million annually to keep a service member deployed in a combat zone. Spending to make the US even more hated (and who doesn’t cherish their country being occupied?) - what an investment. “Most veterans I know have lost more friends and comrades to suicide than they did to the enemy.”
For those who like sociopathic poetry, here is an actual US armed forces drill chant from this book which some unfortunate recruits must learn to shout while marching:
Left right, left right, left right kill,
Left right, left right, you know I will
I went to the mosque, where all the terrorists pray,
I setup my claymore, and blew ‘em all away!
Left right, left right, left right kill,
Left right, left right, you know I will
I went to the store where all the women shop,
Pulled out my machete and I began to chop!
Left right, left right, left right kill,
Left right, left right, you know I will,
I went to the playground where all the kiddies play,
I pulled out my Uzi and I began to spray!
Teaching your impressionable recruits such disturbing rhymes
In a country already filled with school shootings,
can lead to your impressionable recruits soon making their
own disturbing chants later back at home like:
Left right, left right, left right kill,
Left right, left right, you know I will,
Went to the john, while my kids watched TV
This gun in my mouth is the last thing I’ll see.
Great book. Great to learn how many of our soldiers get the real picture by the end of their enlistment. What is noble about only using negotiation and diplomacy as the LAST resort, while committing war crimes (in bold violation of your oath to the US Constitution) as the first resort? Kudos to Andrew and Daniel putting this really important book together, so that US liberals and flag wavers can get a taste of what US progressives and veterans have been openly saying for decades.
December 29, 2023
This is a fine and often (though not always) insightful collection of personal essays, all of which describe how the authors came to their criticisms of America's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq over the past twenty years. All of the authors are veterans of these wars to one degree or another, and their range of experiences in and interactions with America's military establishment was probably the most informative part of the book to me. There are essays by deeply committed soldiers who fully embraced the bureaucratic realities of managing a global military presence, and came to oppose America's "forever wars" for strictly strategic reasons, their own positive experiences leading them spend a great deal of time explaining the how American generals failed to understand intricacies of counter-insurgency strategy, failed to appreciate and account for the logistics and costs of military technologies, and much more. But there are also essays by soldiers who were never on board with the rationales given for invading Iraq, or even Afghanistan for that matter; included in these essays are stories of the drug abuse, racism, incompetence, sexism, random violence, and massive waste and fraud on the part of their fellow soldiers--and sometimes themselves--while supposedly serving America's security interests and spreading democracy in the Middle East. Some of these authors look back on their time in these conflicts with pride but also deep regrets about all that went wrong; others look back with shame and horror; and others look back just grateful they escaped with their lives and limbs, when so many others did not. Ultimately, the largest point I take from these various multifaceted, but always militarily informed criticisms was simply: George W. Bush's time as president was a moral, a political, and a strategic catastrophe. By ordering the invasion of Afghanistan, and then keeping troops there beyond the immediate collapse of the Taliban, and much worse by ordering the invasion of Iraq, Bush's administration not only led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, but ruined millions of lives, and unleashed pathological regrets and resentments, in the USA and abroad, that may never be put to rest.
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August 24, 2022We already know war is heinous. (Also heinous is that knowing has made no difference.)
This is further intelligent proof by suffering and intelligent experts.
This is further intelligent proof by suffering and intelligent experts.
September 27, 2022
Dissenting Soldiers Challenge the War Machine
A review of Paths of Dissent: Soldiers Speak Out Against America’s Misguided Wars
Edited by Andrew Bacevich and Daniel A. Sjursen
Review by Dee Knight
People who have seen active duty in the US “forever wars” are more and more speaking out. One of them, West Pointer Eric Edstrom, said in Paths of Dissent, the “War on Terror strip-mined my soul. My time in Afghanistan, from May 2009 to June 2010, was defined by the horror of watching good people getting mutilated and dying terrible deaths. It was filled with intense moral anguish… It strained my relationships, destroyed my notion of patriotism, eroded my support for American foreign policy… and made me deeply sad.”
Moral injury has been a killer. Edstrom says “suicide has been deadlier than combat for the military. There have been over thirty thousand suicides among US service members and veterans of the post-9/11 wars” – nearly five times the roughly seven thousand service members killed in them. Right after 9/11, Edstrom asked himself “what will I do about it? My answer then was to join the military. My answer now is different: dissent.”
Jonathan Hutto
Jonathan Hutto was a student leader and president of the Howard University Student Association before graduating in 2003. His plans to become a teacher fell through. “A navy recruiter spotted me… promising me ‘a new lease on life.’ When he got to the part about the Navy repaying student loans, I began to listen…”
Hutto was a reluctant recruit. “My unwillingness to serve as cannon fodder connected directly to the tradition of Black resistance to the Vietnam War.” He said he found that “despite the military’s supposed inclusivity…, it offers no escape from racism and white nationalism. And this racism is directly connected to the acts of aggression and even war crimes committed by the US military overseas.”
Aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, Hutto encountered overt racism at all levels, including name calling, a hangman’s noose, and intense punishment when he took his concerns up the chain of command. After he’d had enough, he went AWOL and headed to Washington, DC. He contacted civil rights icon John Lewis, “who represented the Georgia congressional district where my parents resided.” He also reached out to David Cortwright, author of Soldiers In Revolt, the landmark history of GI resistance during the Vietnam War. Cortwright had become a professor of peace studies at Notre Dame University and president of the Fourth Freedom Forum. He helped Hutto prepare to fight back. Together they made history, as Hutto developed an Appeal for Redress from the War in Iraq, which gathered thousands of signatures from GIs around the globe and caused a major stir in the halls of Washington and in national media. Read the full story in Antiwar Soldier: How to Dissent Within the Ranks of the Military.
Joy Damiani
Joy Damiani “needed money for school; a recruiter got me.” He got her home phone number from a community college list and asked what she wanted to study.” When she said “journalism” he told her “I can get you a journalism job in the army!” She thought “that couldn’t possibly be journalism,” but she went for it, and got a journalism MOS. She called it “a propaganda of omission… We painted only the pictures the generals wanted the troops to see… our team’s task was to tell the story of victory.”
In Iraq, Joy said, “the more I saw the more I realized what the government was doing to its soldiers; I thought we couldn’t possibly be doing anything good for anyone else. I became very bitter.” After her discharge, “people thanked me for my service; I felt sick.” She thought “I’m dying on the inside because you’re not paying attention.” She became aware “the US government has been running a gaslighting operation on the US people. It says we’re united when we’re not. We’re not a democracy, we’re an oligarchy… No money to keep people alive but plenty for killing people.”
About a year after returning from her final deployment, Joy chanced to meet Sonia, another woman vet, who asked “have you ever heard of Iraq Veterans Against the War?” As “neurons exploded” in her head, Joy asked “There’s a group?” A few nights later Sonia brought her a pile of papers. “Words jumped off the printed pages – illegal… unjust… occupation – that I’d rarely heard other soldiers say out loud.” After a few years she said “it finally sank in for me: we are a nation founded on genocide and slavery. We can’t claim the moral high ground.” Once she got involved in activism, she had a community of other traumatized veterans. “But it’s a hard community – people are always killing themselves.” Still, she says “I can never not be a veteran – that’s your identity forever. You’re going to think of that experience every day until you die. It’s hard walking around in this brain.”
When asked what can be done to reduce the trauma, she answers “abolish the military. There’s no way to stop the trauma – we are all suffering because of this oligarchy we live under. Get out into the streets and…! Every time I go out to protest, the riot cops are out, and the soldiers are out. I see confused teenagers like me, attacking us – we’re all on each other’s side… We have to be individual revolutionaries. We have to realize the system isn’t broken, that’s how it was designed to work. It’s always been control the many by the few. It’s basically a war on poor people – it’s always been that way. I would be more comforted if I heard more people talking about it.”
Joy Damiani has become a songwriter and performer, and has a new book coming out, If You Ain’t Cheatin’, You Ain’t Tryin’ and other lessons I learned in the Army. A recent hit song is “It’s alright to not be OK.”
Vincent Emanuele
While growing up in Indiana, Vincent Emanuele “watched and rewatched Rambo, Commando, Navy Seals, Missing in Action, and every other war movie in the hypermilitarized American culture. He “didn’t know the first thing about resistance,… didn’t know anything about the modern antiwar movement.” He learned quickly during his first deployment to Iraq, which ended in 2005. Following a second deployment in 2014, he realized the “Iraqi resistance fighters were always going to control their country – no matter how long US forces stayed, no matter how brutal our attacks became. The Iraqis were fighting for their families, their land, their pride, their dignity. American troops were only in it for healthcare, college money, steady housing, or ideological nonsense. Almost none of us actually believed the people we encountered posed a threat to our homeland. And those who did believe that were absolutely out of their minds, as history has shown.”
Emanuele landed in a two-month VA inpatient drug and alcohol rehab program. “The doctors tried their best to convince the command that I should stay home, but my commanding officers disagreed and forced me to return… Back home, my father and uncle started writing letters to every Senate and House Armed Services Committee member. Soon after, letters, phone calls, and inquiries poured into our unit’s commanding officers.” Still, Marine commanders and NCOs “talked to me about ‘the mission’ and ‘American freedom’ and all the rest.” Emanuele “kept repeating ‘I will not go to the armory, and I will not board an airplane.’ They were going to have to drag my unconscious body to Iraq if they wanted me to deploy a third time.” But “eventually the command acquiesced and offered me a ‘general discharge under honorable conditions.’… They would rather lose a seasoned gunner than allow me the opportunity to bring down unit morale.”
There’s a lesson here. Emanuele tells of traveling most of the country with IVAW from 2006 to 2008. He gave antiwar speeches at union halls, religious services, universities, community centers, town halls, libraries, street corners, parks, and protests. He was interviewed “by every media outlet under the sun, culminating in the 2008 Winter Soldier hearings, when hundreds of veterans converged on Silver Springs, Maryland, for several days of testimony about US war crimes, sexual assaults in the military, drug abuse, and much more. Later that year, about a dozen of us officially testified before the United States Congress.”
Emanuele has remained very active, writing, speaking and organizing both locally with PARC (Politics Art Roots Culture Media), Organized & United Residents of Michigan City, Indiana, and nationally with Veterans For Peace.
Kevin Tillman
Kevin Tillman is Pat Tillman’s brother. Both became professional athletes – Kevin with the baseball Cleveland Indians franchise, and Pat with the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals. They enlisted together in the wake of 9/11, seeing action in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Pat never made it home. He was killed by “friendly fire,” a story related by fellow veteran Rory Fanning in Worth Fighting For: An Army Ranger’s Journey. Kevin says “belligerent US foreign policy not only creates victims in other countries while getting our soldiers killed and injured but inevitably reverberates at home – with violence and corruption replacing political process and the rule of law; with reality subverted by false narratives; with a flourishing of fear, ignorance, and hate. War dissenters understand this, historically and conceptually. That’s why war dissent is reasonable, necessary, and morally sound. In some cases, depending on your ethical framework, it is even obligatory.”
Tillman acknowledges that “if the dissenter has the power to sway public opinion, or provides damning evidence against the US administration, then the price to be paid can be very real. Such people can find themselves classified as ‘enemies of the state.’ This can mean government-backed discrediting campaigns, harassment, and imprisonment.” He mentions whistle-blowers Daniel Ellsberg, Chelsea Manning and Daniel Hale, and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who has languished in a British prison awaiting extradition to the US on espionage charges for publishing information about US war crimes in Iraq.
“All evidence suggests that we as a nation remain a long way off from fixing our foreign policy,” Tillman says. “We are likely to keep reading courageous, clarifying, and insightful pieces of war dissent while American soldiers die, vulnerable nations get destroyed, and the moral rot spreads at home.” But he thinks “in the long term… sustained progress can and will be made, and war dissent will reach critical mass both in America and around the globe – tipping the scales in favor of peace, diplomacy, and accountability… Until then, let us hope war dissenters continue their courageous work of providing transparency, honesty, and optimism to us all.”
Dee Knight is the author of My Whirlwind Lives, a memoir of Vietnam era war resistance.
He is a member of the DSA International Committee.
A review of Paths of Dissent: Soldiers Speak Out Against America’s Misguided Wars
Edited by Andrew Bacevich and Daniel A. Sjursen
Review by Dee Knight
People who have seen active duty in the US “forever wars” are more and more speaking out. One of them, West Pointer Eric Edstrom, said in Paths of Dissent, the “War on Terror strip-mined my soul. My time in Afghanistan, from May 2009 to June 2010, was defined by the horror of watching good people getting mutilated and dying terrible deaths. It was filled with intense moral anguish… It strained my relationships, destroyed my notion of patriotism, eroded my support for American foreign policy… and made me deeply sad.”
Moral injury has been a killer. Edstrom says “suicide has been deadlier than combat for the military. There have been over thirty thousand suicides among US service members and veterans of the post-9/11 wars” – nearly five times the roughly seven thousand service members killed in them. Right after 9/11, Edstrom asked himself “what will I do about it? My answer then was to join the military. My answer now is different: dissent.”
Jonathan Hutto
Jonathan Hutto was a student leader and president of the Howard University Student Association before graduating in 2003. His plans to become a teacher fell through. “A navy recruiter spotted me… promising me ‘a new lease on life.’ When he got to the part about the Navy repaying student loans, I began to listen…”
Hutto was a reluctant recruit. “My unwillingness to serve as cannon fodder connected directly to the tradition of Black resistance to the Vietnam War.” He said he found that “despite the military’s supposed inclusivity…, it offers no escape from racism and white nationalism. And this racism is directly connected to the acts of aggression and even war crimes committed by the US military overseas.”
Aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, Hutto encountered overt racism at all levels, including name calling, a hangman’s noose, and intense punishment when he took his concerns up the chain of command. After he’d had enough, he went AWOL and headed to Washington, DC. He contacted civil rights icon John Lewis, “who represented the Georgia congressional district where my parents resided.” He also reached out to David Cortwright, author of Soldiers In Revolt, the landmark history of GI resistance during the Vietnam War. Cortwright had become a professor of peace studies at Notre Dame University and president of the Fourth Freedom Forum. He helped Hutto prepare to fight back. Together they made history, as Hutto developed an Appeal for Redress from the War in Iraq, which gathered thousands of signatures from GIs around the globe and caused a major stir in the halls of Washington and in national media. Read the full story in Antiwar Soldier: How to Dissent Within the Ranks of the Military.
Joy Damiani
Joy Damiani “needed money for school; a recruiter got me.” He got her home phone number from a community college list and asked what she wanted to study.” When she said “journalism” he told her “I can get you a journalism job in the army!” She thought “that couldn’t possibly be journalism,” but she went for it, and got a journalism MOS. She called it “a propaganda of omission… We painted only the pictures the generals wanted the troops to see… our team’s task was to tell the story of victory.”
In Iraq, Joy said, “the more I saw the more I realized what the government was doing to its soldiers; I thought we couldn’t possibly be doing anything good for anyone else. I became very bitter.” After her discharge, “people thanked me for my service; I felt sick.” She thought “I’m dying on the inside because you’re not paying attention.” She became aware “the US government has been running a gaslighting operation on the US people. It says we’re united when we’re not. We’re not a democracy, we’re an oligarchy… No money to keep people alive but plenty for killing people.”
About a year after returning from her final deployment, Joy chanced to meet Sonia, another woman vet, who asked “have you ever heard of Iraq Veterans Against the War?” As “neurons exploded” in her head, Joy asked “There’s a group?” A few nights later Sonia brought her a pile of papers. “Words jumped off the printed pages – illegal… unjust… occupation – that I’d rarely heard other soldiers say out loud.” After a few years she said “it finally sank in for me: we are a nation founded on genocide and slavery. We can’t claim the moral high ground.” Once she got involved in activism, she had a community of other traumatized veterans. “But it’s a hard community – people are always killing themselves.” Still, she says “I can never not be a veteran – that’s your identity forever. You’re going to think of that experience every day until you die. It’s hard walking around in this brain.”
When asked what can be done to reduce the trauma, she answers “abolish the military. There’s no way to stop the trauma – we are all suffering because of this oligarchy we live under. Get out into the streets and…! Every time I go out to protest, the riot cops are out, and the soldiers are out. I see confused teenagers like me, attacking us – we’re all on each other’s side… We have to be individual revolutionaries. We have to realize the system isn’t broken, that’s how it was designed to work. It’s always been control the many by the few. It’s basically a war on poor people – it’s always been that way. I would be more comforted if I heard more people talking about it.”
Joy Damiani has become a songwriter and performer, and has a new book coming out, If You Ain’t Cheatin’, You Ain’t Tryin’ and other lessons I learned in the Army. A recent hit song is “It’s alright to not be OK.”
Vincent Emanuele
While growing up in Indiana, Vincent Emanuele “watched and rewatched Rambo, Commando, Navy Seals, Missing in Action, and every other war movie in the hypermilitarized American culture. He “didn’t know the first thing about resistance,… didn’t know anything about the modern antiwar movement.” He learned quickly during his first deployment to Iraq, which ended in 2005. Following a second deployment in 2014, he realized the “Iraqi resistance fighters were always going to control their country – no matter how long US forces stayed, no matter how brutal our attacks became. The Iraqis were fighting for their families, their land, their pride, their dignity. American troops were only in it for healthcare, college money, steady housing, or ideological nonsense. Almost none of us actually believed the people we encountered posed a threat to our homeland. And those who did believe that were absolutely out of their minds, as history has shown.”
Emanuele landed in a two-month VA inpatient drug and alcohol rehab program. “The doctors tried their best to convince the command that I should stay home, but my commanding officers disagreed and forced me to return… Back home, my father and uncle started writing letters to every Senate and House Armed Services Committee member. Soon after, letters, phone calls, and inquiries poured into our unit’s commanding officers.” Still, Marine commanders and NCOs “talked to me about ‘the mission’ and ‘American freedom’ and all the rest.” Emanuele “kept repeating ‘I will not go to the armory, and I will not board an airplane.’ They were going to have to drag my unconscious body to Iraq if they wanted me to deploy a third time.” But “eventually the command acquiesced and offered me a ‘general discharge under honorable conditions.’… They would rather lose a seasoned gunner than allow me the opportunity to bring down unit morale.”
There’s a lesson here. Emanuele tells of traveling most of the country with IVAW from 2006 to 2008. He gave antiwar speeches at union halls, religious services, universities, community centers, town halls, libraries, street corners, parks, and protests. He was interviewed “by every media outlet under the sun, culminating in the 2008 Winter Soldier hearings, when hundreds of veterans converged on Silver Springs, Maryland, for several days of testimony about US war crimes, sexual assaults in the military, drug abuse, and much more. Later that year, about a dozen of us officially testified before the United States Congress.”
Emanuele has remained very active, writing, speaking and organizing both locally with PARC (Politics Art Roots Culture Media), Organized & United Residents of Michigan City, Indiana, and nationally with Veterans For Peace.
Kevin Tillman
Kevin Tillman is Pat Tillman’s brother. Both became professional athletes – Kevin with the baseball Cleveland Indians franchise, and Pat with the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals. They enlisted together in the wake of 9/11, seeing action in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Pat never made it home. He was killed by “friendly fire,” a story related by fellow veteran Rory Fanning in Worth Fighting For: An Army Ranger’s Journey. Kevin says “belligerent US foreign policy not only creates victims in other countries while getting our soldiers killed and injured but inevitably reverberates at home – with violence and corruption replacing political process and the rule of law; with reality subverted by false narratives; with a flourishing of fear, ignorance, and hate. War dissenters understand this, historically and conceptually. That’s why war dissent is reasonable, necessary, and morally sound. In some cases, depending on your ethical framework, it is even obligatory.”
Tillman acknowledges that “if the dissenter has the power to sway public opinion, or provides damning evidence against the US administration, then the price to be paid can be very real. Such people can find themselves classified as ‘enemies of the state.’ This can mean government-backed discrediting campaigns, harassment, and imprisonment.” He mentions whistle-blowers Daniel Ellsberg, Chelsea Manning and Daniel Hale, and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who has languished in a British prison awaiting extradition to the US on espionage charges for publishing information about US war crimes in Iraq.
“All evidence suggests that we as a nation remain a long way off from fixing our foreign policy,” Tillman says. “We are likely to keep reading courageous, clarifying, and insightful pieces of war dissent while American soldiers die, vulnerable nations get destroyed, and the moral rot spreads at home.” But he thinks “in the long term… sustained progress can and will be made, and war dissent will reach critical mass both in America and around the globe – tipping the scales in favor of peace, diplomacy, and accountability… Until then, let us hope war dissenters continue their courageous work of providing transparency, honesty, and optimism to us all.”
Dee Knight is the author of My Whirlwind Lives, a memoir of Vietnam era war resistance.
He is a member of the DSA International Committee.
January 4, 2023
Paths of Dissent: Soldiers Speak out Against America’s Misguided Wars is a collection of 15 personal narratives edited by Andrew Bacevich. In these narratives the authors seek to encapsulate the events and struggles that led them to become military “dissenters.” Well written sometimes jarring, these memoirs in miniature are compelling stories, but together they form a comprehensive and cohesive case against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – indeed against all wars of choice.
The authors come from varied socio-economic backgrounds, educational levels, and military experiences. The readers engage with a self-described “grunt” like Buddhika Jayahama who noted that “There are moments in life when the smart thing to do and the right thing to do don’t necessarily align.” He realized this as he felt compelled to do his part to participate in the wars and struggled with his personal responsibilities to his wife and child. But readers also meet Kevin Tillman, a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, who was the brother of the late Pat Tillman, the NFL player who joined after 9/11. Kevin’s experiences lead him to note, with exquisite accuracy, that “This nation has been living off the virtue of the greatest generation most of a century in order to systematically pillage the planet. It’s an insult to everything that generation fought for in the first place.” (230)
Bacevich, whose own son was killed by an IED in Iraq, explained that “Genuine military dissent is patriotic. It expresses a determination to right wrongs, especially policies that victimize US troops without yielding any discernible benefit to the nation. Military dissenters are not self-seeking. Their commitment is to a cause larger than themselves.” (7). Their willingness to cut against the grain of American society and call the military and the American government to account for its failures and wrongdoing infuse their narratives with a certain weightiness and seriousness that we would do well to heed.
Paths of Dissent is a powerful read. However, it does lack a diversity of voices. Only one woman contributed to this book, Joy Damiani. Her story is important, but it is disappointing that more female voices and experiences were not used. Bacevich also included a narrative by Jonathan Hutto, Sr. titled, “A Sailor’s Story.” Hutto explains, in detail, the racism and prejudice he experienced at the hands of his commanding officer and fellow sailors – and the apparent lack of concern of his immediate chain of command. However, while his story is about dissent, it is not about dissent against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, per se, and it seems as if the inclusion of Hutto’s story is a clumsy way to make the book more racially diverse. I do not want to imply that Hutto’s experiences are unimportant or that the need to examine the Navy’s response to the abject racism in its ranks should not be discussed. But in the context of Bacevich’s stated purpose, it seems disjointed and out of place. Hutto’s narrative deserves to be read and seen – and perhaps more books dealing with the current culture of racism and white supremacy in the armed forces should address those very issues.
Ultimately Bacevich’s book is an important addition to the growing literature on military dissent and opposition to American wars of choice by serving military personnel. It is an easy, but important read. And all of these men and women deserve to be heard.
The authors come from varied socio-economic backgrounds, educational levels, and military experiences. The readers engage with a self-described “grunt” like Buddhika Jayahama who noted that “There are moments in life when the smart thing to do and the right thing to do don’t necessarily align.” He realized this as he felt compelled to do his part to participate in the wars and struggled with his personal responsibilities to his wife and child. But readers also meet Kevin Tillman, a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, who was the brother of the late Pat Tillman, the NFL player who joined after 9/11. Kevin’s experiences lead him to note, with exquisite accuracy, that “This nation has been living off the virtue of the greatest generation most of a century in order to systematically pillage the planet. It’s an insult to everything that generation fought for in the first place.” (230)
Bacevich, whose own son was killed by an IED in Iraq, explained that “Genuine military dissent is patriotic. It expresses a determination to right wrongs, especially policies that victimize US troops without yielding any discernible benefit to the nation. Military dissenters are not self-seeking. Their commitment is to a cause larger than themselves.” (7). Their willingness to cut against the grain of American society and call the military and the American government to account for its failures and wrongdoing infuse their narratives with a certain weightiness and seriousness that we would do well to heed.
Paths of Dissent is a powerful read. However, it does lack a diversity of voices. Only one woman contributed to this book, Joy Damiani. Her story is important, but it is disappointing that more female voices and experiences were not used. Bacevich also included a narrative by Jonathan Hutto, Sr. titled, “A Sailor’s Story.” Hutto explains, in detail, the racism and prejudice he experienced at the hands of his commanding officer and fellow sailors – and the apparent lack of concern of his immediate chain of command. However, while his story is about dissent, it is not about dissent against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, per se, and it seems as if the inclusion of Hutto’s story is a clumsy way to make the book more racially diverse. I do not want to imply that Hutto’s experiences are unimportant or that the need to examine the Navy’s response to the abject racism in its ranks should not be discussed. But in the context of Bacevich’s stated purpose, it seems disjointed and out of place. Hutto’s narrative deserves to be read and seen – and perhaps more books dealing with the current culture of racism and white supremacy in the armed forces should address those very issues.
Ultimately Bacevich’s book is an important addition to the growing literature on military dissent and opposition to American wars of choice by serving military personnel. It is an easy, but important read. And all of these men and women deserve to be heard.
November 11, 2022
Has an agenda but not a perspective Americans hear (from this angle) often. Many examples of food for thought.
January 20, 2023
There's a certain catharsis to venting on the Forever Wars, and that's the one takeaway from this book. It's less about true dissent than just venting, something that I can appreciate even I don't agree with all of the perspectives. The collection of contributors includes some very respectable minds who offer a variety of personal observances, experiences, and opinions. Some are better than others. I'll leave it at that.
Overall, while I enjoyed the read, it's value comes in just a handful of chapters, where the writers offer some meaningful commentary on the root causes of our "challenges" with those wars. The rest could be distilled down to a camp fire story over a cigar and a bottle of cold O'Doul's.
Overall, while I enjoyed the read, it's value comes in just a handful of chapters, where the writers offer some meaningful commentary on the root causes of our "challenges" with those wars. The rest could be distilled down to a camp fire story over a cigar and a bottle of cold O'Doul's.
February 7, 2025
With the exception of Colonel Daniel L. Davis, who is the closest America ever came to Michael Wittmann, this is a whingy compendium of Junior G-Men and Johnny-Come-Latelies at best, and possible plagiarists at that.
All of the contributors except for Bacevich joined the military well after Colonel David H. Hackworth publicly announced on ABC in 1971 that America was going to lose Vietnam because it was being led by incompetent officers. That the contributors joined the military nevertheless indicates that either they did not do their research and find Colonel Hackworth's declaration--which was not exactly a secret--or that they were aware of Colonel Hackworth's statement and that they thought that it would not apply to them because they were special.
Now, they have buyer's remorse and proceed to blatantly rip off Colonel Hackworth's speech and his book About Face as if they thought no one would notice. For one thing, although, with the exception of Colonel Davis' section, each an every account in this book is an exact reproduction of Colonel Hackworth's work, Colonel Hackworth's name is not mentioned anywhere.
Also, here Gian Gentile claims that he served with the 4th Brigade, 4th Infantry Division in Iraq, when, in Wrong Turn had declared that he had served in the same failed 10th Cavalry as Andrew Bacevich. In the Navy, an Electrician's Mate on an Aircraft Carrier who claims to be a SEAL gets a video made about him by Don Shipley. Perhaps the Army's standards are more lax. The 4th Brigade, 4th Infantry Division is Medal of Honor winner Clint Romesha's unit.
As well, this book essentially plaigiarises the infamous Franz Halder who blamed the politicians for WWII and said that he never did anything wrong. This book is simply the reine Wehrmacht myth transplanted to the US military and updated for the 21st century. Not uncoincidentally, across several of his books, Bacevich the editor perpetuates his cleverly disguised reworking of the Doclhstosselegend, saying that American civilians are the cause of all that is wrong because they thank Veterans at baseball games.
All of the contributors except for Bacevich joined the military well after Colonel David H. Hackworth publicly announced on ABC in 1971 that America was going to lose Vietnam because it was being led by incompetent officers. That the contributors joined the military nevertheless indicates that either they did not do their research and find Colonel Hackworth's declaration--which was not exactly a secret--or that they were aware of Colonel Hackworth's statement and that they thought that it would not apply to them because they were special.
Now, they have buyer's remorse and proceed to blatantly rip off Colonel Hackworth's speech and his book About Face as if they thought no one would notice. For one thing, although, with the exception of Colonel Davis' section, each an every account in this book is an exact reproduction of Colonel Hackworth's work, Colonel Hackworth's name is not mentioned anywhere.
Also, here Gian Gentile claims that he served with the 4th Brigade, 4th Infantry Division in Iraq, when, in Wrong Turn had declared that he had served in the same failed 10th Cavalry as Andrew Bacevich. In the Navy, an Electrician's Mate on an Aircraft Carrier who claims to be a SEAL gets a video made about him by Don Shipley. Perhaps the Army's standards are more lax. The 4th Brigade, 4th Infantry Division is Medal of Honor winner Clint Romesha's unit.
As well, this book essentially plaigiarises the infamous Franz Halder who blamed the politicians for WWII and said that he never did anything wrong. This book is simply the reine Wehrmacht myth transplanted to the US military and updated for the 21st century. Not uncoincidentally, across several of his books, Bacevich the editor perpetuates his cleverly disguised reworking of the Doclhstosselegend, saying that American civilians are the cause of all that is wrong because they thank Veterans at baseball games.
July 17, 2023
I had an almost constant pit in my stomach while reading this book—a collection of 15 essays from veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who to various degrees criticize the wars, the way they were executed, and the military and political structures that (mis)managed them. It was hard—but necessary—to hear specific experiences these veterans faced. It was hard—but necessary—to come to terms with my own role in the mismanagement of those wars. After all, those wars were ostensibly fought in my name and I was thus responsible for advocating for accountability.
I’m ashamed to admit that the wars were often at the bottom of my hierarchy of political issues I considered when voting. I never wrote to my representatives about the wars or educated myself deeply or consistently about what was going on. That I was only 12 when we started placing troops in Afghanistan does not absolve me of responsibility as far as I am concerned. As I approached and passed voting age I could have stayed informed more consistently or even turned to activism to hold elected officials and general officers accountable. But like most of the rest of the American public at large I was contentedly insulated from the wars unless there were political points to score or unless it came up in oblique film and TV references.
Paths of Dissent offers an immediate and intimate look at the wars through the eyes of veterans who actually experienced them. The parallels to Vietnam are heart-wrenching precisely because we had experience with that quagmire and still walked into another—and just accepted it for two decades. Nearly all of the essays are incredibly well-written—and those few that come across as less professional nevertheless have strong voices and just as affecting things to say as the better written ones. I recommend this book as a tool for dismantling any lingering insulation one may feel from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. It is an important step toward ensuring we demand high levels of accountability in the future whenever we ask our armed service members to fight in our names.
I’m ashamed to admit that the wars were often at the bottom of my hierarchy of political issues I considered when voting. I never wrote to my representatives about the wars or educated myself deeply or consistently about what was going on. That I was only 12 when we started placing troops in Afghanistan does not absolve me of responsibility as far as I am concerned. As I approached and passed voting age I could have stayed informed more consistently or even turned to activism to hold elected officials and general officers accountable. But like most of the rest of the American public at large I was contentedly insulated from the wars unless there were political points to score or unless it came up in oblique film and TV references.
Paths of Dissent offers an immediate and intimate look at the wars through the eyes of veterans who actually experienced them. The parallels to Vietnam are heart-wrenching precisely because we had experience with that quagmire and still walked into another—and just accepted it for two decades. Nearly all of the essays are incredibly well-written—and those few that come across as less professional nevertheless have strong voices and just as affecting things to say as the better written ones. I recommend this book as a tool for dismantling any lingering insulation one may feel from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. It is an important step toward ensuring we demand high levels of accountability in the future whenever we ask our armed service members to fight in our names.
July 7, 2022
I received a free copy of this book through Goodreads Giveaways.
The final chapter sums up this collection of essays very well, it gives the reader the ability to learn and reflect on the past 20 years of American military misadventures.
I’ve previously read a decent amount on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars so the sentiment didn’t come as a surprise, yet one thing did become abundantly clear. The writers of these essays have reflected on their service and where their war(s) fit into the whole of American history much more than I have. With my lack of military service that comes as no surprise I suppose. One thing I can do though it try to learn.
With insights like these and a strong grounding in American history a fair bit of reflection is indeed called for. Every piece left me shaking my head but the pieces that touched on American imperialism really struck a chord with me.
Whether you share the soldiers’ sentiments before or after picking up the book doesn’t matter, what matters is giving their experience and sacrifice it’s due. If you are turned off by the essays because they seem unpatriotic in your view still give them some time in your head, at least hear them out. We don’t have to agree on anything but if we don’t even reflect on opposing views then nothing will ever get better. If there’s one thing we can all agree on is that we and our nation can always do better.
A side note: I recently picked up The Jungle Grows back which argues for continuing America’s role internationally. I think it will make an interesting read as a follow up to this one. It doesn’t necessarily fly in the face of the testimony heard here as a few essays specifically state they agree with our role but the methods need to be better.
The final chapter sums up this collection of essays very well, it gives the reader the ability to learn and reflect on the past 20 years of American military misadventures.
I’ve previously read a decent amount on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars so the sentiment didn’t come as a surprise, yet one thing did become abundantly clear. The writers of these essays have reflected on their service and where their war(s) fit into the whole of American history much more than I have. With my lack of military service that comes as no surprise I suppose. One thing I can do though it try to learn.
With insights like these and a strong grounding in American history a fair bit of reflection is indeed called for. Every piece left me shaking my head but the pieces that touched on American imperialism really struck a chord with me.
Whether you share the soldiers’ sentiments before or after picking up the book doesn’t matter, what matters is giving their experience and sacrifice it’s due. If you are turned off by the essays because they seem unpatriotic in your view still give them some time in your head, at least hear them out. We don’t have to agree on anything but if we don’t even reflect on opposing views then nothing will ever get better. If there’s one thing we can all agree on is that we and our nation can always do better.
A side note: I recently picked up The Jungle Grows back which argues for continuing America’s role internationally. I think it will make an interesting read as a follow up to this one. It doesn’t necessarily fly in the face of the testimony heard here as a few essays specifically state they agree with our role but the methods need to be better.
October 1, 2022
(Audiobook) While most in America might think that everyone supports the troops and their actions, there are just as many who don’t quite buy into the narrative. Some of the biggest dissenters are those who fought and served in the long counterterrorism wars of the 1st two decades of the 2000s. In this series of essays, these veterans relay their experiences, noting what drove them to serve, what they observed and what they saw that soured them on the way the military was running things. Some of the issues are constants, from lack of faith in the actions of supervisors and the highest levels of command to disillusion with the way the military was fighting and engaging in its activities. With Afghanistan and Iraq, it was a sense of “what are we doing?” as several soldiers felt that the war was being fought for pointless and useless aims.
This is not to say that a reader will completely agree or disagree with the authors of these essays. I took issue with one that was solidly on the side of the currently Maduro government in Venezuela as well as espouse the actions of Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange. Still, the perspectives are important, as it reveals that there is more to service than just “Thank you for your service.” With fewer people serving in the military, there is a greater disconnect on what the military is and how it operates. That ignorance is not a good thing, which a work like this can highlight. The rating is the same for whatever version you read, but worth at least one reading/listening.
This is not to say that a reader will completely agree or disagree with the authors of these essays. I took issue with one that was solidly on the side of the currently Maduro government in Venezuela as well as espouse the actions of Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange. Still, the perspectives are important, as it reveals that there is more to service than just “Thank you for your service.” With fewer people serving in the military, there is a greater disconnect on what the military is and how it operates. That ignorance is not a good thing, which a work like this can highlight. The rating is the same for whatever version you read, but worth at least one reading/listening.
March 31, 2023
This is one of the best books I've read in the past few years. Excellent collection of essays by former soldiers that is deeply profound. They have a lot to say and a lot to listen to. You could easily read this book over two or three times. Highly recommended.
One of my favorite chapters was by the soldier who was disturbed at the casual nature the US Army treated Afghan civilian causalities. Also the Major who dissented with the Army's counter-insurgency doctrine and dared to speak out. And the young man who spoke openly about the heavy drug use in his unit. Most searing was the unit in Afghanistan who were all resigned to the fact that they would die or be maimed by the end of their tour of duty. Some spoke of hoping "I only lose my left foot and not both legs like the Lieutenant" or "I hope I only lose my foot and not my whole leg". Pretty well every one wrote of the futility of the war(s) and they didn't see any point in it. At least two guys asked this question, and I think it's profound: why didn't we leave Afghanistan in the spring of 2002 after we'd crushed the Taliban and established a government? Why didn't we declare victory and leave then, instead of the humiliating withdraw 20 years late? Good question to ask; that's the point of the book. To ask questions WHY!
Philip Kuhn
One of my favorite chapters was by the soldier who was disturbed at the casual nature the US Army treated Afghan civilian causalities. Also the Major who dissented with the Army's counter-insurgency doctrine and dared to speak out. And the young man who spoke openly about the heavy drug use in his unit. Most searing was the unit in Afghanistan who were all resigned to the fact that they would die or be maimed by the end of their tour of duty. Some spoke of hoping "I only lose my left foot and not both legs like the Lieutenant" or "I hope I only lose my foot and not my whole leg". Pretty well every one wrote of the futility of the war(s) and they didn't see any point in it. At least two guys asked this question, and I think it's profound: why didn't we leave Afghanistan in the spring of 2002 after we'd crushed the Taliban and established a government? Why didn't we declare victory and leave then, instead of the humiliating withdraw 20 years late? Good question to ask; that's the point of the book. To ask questions WHY!
Philip Kuhn
May 12, 2023
Not bad but not quite fantastic.
Biggest takeaways from the individual chapters?
1. Only 7 percent of today's America is veterans vs around 50 percent after the Civil War and after WWII. Hence the disconnect of "support the troops" while not actually caring to ask what that really should mean. (Update: One or two of the essays touch on the issue of bringing back the draft, either by itself, or as part of a larger universal service program, but this wasn't a focus for most, whether grunts or officers, short-termers or careerists.)
2. Using the military for nation-building lets top brass and top politicos covertly blame each other when it goes wrong.
3. Nobody in Iraq among the brass really did, or wanted to do, counterinsurgency. Ergo, it wasn't actually done, myths aside.
4. There was relatively little mention of the degree of human rights violations committed by US troops in both Iraq and A-stan, overall. Accidentally killing civilians got as much mention as torture and murder. "Interesting" and probably the single biggest reason I didn't 5-star it.
5. It would have been nice for the editors to have had a bigger analysis-driven conclusion. No nation-building was implied, but Bacevich didn't touch on flyspeck military missions, delve further into the draft issue or general military-civilian separation, etc.
Biggest takeaways from the individual chapters?
1. Only 7 percent of today's America is veterans vs around 50 percent after the Civil War and after WWII. Hence the disconnect of "support the troops" while not actually caring to ask what that really should mean. (Update: One or two of the essays touch on the issue of bringing back the draft, either by itself, or as part of a larger universal service program, but this wasn't a focus for most, whether grunts or officers, short-termers or careerists.)
2. Using the military for nation-building lets top brass and top politicos covertly blame each other when it goes wrong.
3. Nobody in Iraq among the brass really did, or wanted to do, counterinsurgency. Ergo, it wasn't actually done, myths aside.
4. There was relatively little mention of the degree of human rights violations committed by US troops in both Iraq and A-stan, overall. Accidentally killing civilians got as much mention as torture and murder. "Interesting" and probably the single biggest reason I didn't 5-star it.
5. It would have been nice for the editors to have had a bigger analysis-driven conclusion. No nation-building was implied, but Bacevich didn't touch on flyspeck military missions, delve further into the draft issue or general military-civilian separation, etc.
May 24, 2023
I learned a lot, I laughed a little, and, oh, how I fumed.
This collection of short memoirs from dissenting veterans of post-9/11 wars was engaging and eye-opening and, at times, infuriating. I say that last not because I disagreed with what they had to say--but instead because I so vehemently agreed with their dissent. You'll find in this volume, should you choose to read it, diverse perspectives and diverse paths that all converge on the same conclusion: the forever wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were baseless, useless, and cost so much more than simply "taxpayer money."
I'm reminded of when my dad used to tell me as a kid that I should only join the military if I needed a fast way to die. I thought he meant I would get killed by a bullet. But this book shows that there are so many other ways you can lose yourself at war, and I now understand that he likely meant something deeper about his own father's transformation into someone unrecognizable to his family during the Korean War. This is what I meant by "eye-opening."
And, needless to say, this is very well-written.
This collection of short memoirs from dissenting veterans of post-9/11 wars was engaging and eye-opening and, at times, infuriating. I say that last not because I disagreed with what they had to say--but instead because I so vehemently agreed with their dissent. You'll find in this volume, should you choose to read it, diverse perspectives and diverse paths that all converge on the same conclusion: the forever wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were baseless, useless, and cost so much more than simply "taxpayer money."
I'm reminded of when my dad used to tell me as a kid that I should only join the military if I needed a fast way to die. I thought he meant I would get killed by a bullet. But this book shows that there are so many other ways you can lose yourself at war, and I now understand that he likely meant something deeper about his own father's transformation into someone unrecognizable to his family during the Korean War. This is what I meant by "eye-opening."
And, needless to say, this is very well-written.
August 30, 2022
Dr. Bacevich does what a concerned citizen should do, he engages the citizenry by asking what will we allow those that govern in our name to do. What should our role as The United States be in the wider world? Do we have an obligation to intervene and if so to what extent? The soldiers who have fought in these recent failed conflicts call into question all of these policies and decisions with the intent of making the reader not just accept the policies but think about the cost and wisdom of them.
December 18, 2022
4.5. I think it is always good to try to learn as much as possible about any topic that affects you and/or your country. I'm a cold war veteran who never served in combat, so reading these combat veterans' views on Iraq and Afghanistan was enlightening. They emphasized points that I agreed with and each brought their own personal story of dissent to the pages of the book. With so few people serving in the military, I think this is a book that should be read by civilians so that they can better understand why people serve, even when they don't agree with the policies of our country.
March 20, 2023
This is a collection of essays by military veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. These essays are shocking, honest and heartbreaking. They all need to be heard. I highly recommend this collection. Although it's difficult to face the facts, I will be rereading this book many times.
Thank you to Henry Holt and Co. For an advanced reader’s edition of this book.
Thank you to Henry Holt and Co. For an advanced reader’s edition of this book.
August 22, 2022
I won this book in a give away! A wonderful and diverse anthology of voices of veterans who oppose America’s endless wars. The material is heavy emotionally, but is absolutely essential reading to be an informed citizen on the true cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
November 27, 2022
I love how this book is written by veterans. Yes they put their lives on the line. But I don't think many people actually know what they think of military service until they've been there or read true accounts like this
January 16, 2024
Difficult truth of war.
I had not read war stories in decades since reading war stories in high school libraries. These are different war stories. I think of myself as a pacifist. I am happy, I read these stories.
I had not read war stories in decades since reading war stories in high school libraries. These are different war stories. I think of myself as a pacifist. I am happy, I read these stories.
July 20, 2022
It's hard to put this book down once you dive in.
August 4, 2022
facinatinglook at the wars from the viewpoint of everyday soldiers. very thought provoking.
October 23, 2022
I have learned so much from this book, and will never look at these wars the same way again.
November 15, 2022
Very powerful testimonies from veterans of Iraq/Afghanistan wars. Sobering and challenging America’s imperialistic and misguided foreign interventions.
January 4, 2023
These truthful essays were very insightful. Great read.
December 31, 2024
A hard read, but a needed one.
February 15, 2025
Brave, honest, and infuriating.
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