[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 100 (Wednesday, July 26, 2006)]
[House]
[Page H5941]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            THE GROUND TRUTH

  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to speak out of 
order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentlewoman from 
California is recognized for 5 minutes.
  There was no objection.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, this evening I saw a film called ``The 
Ground Truth.'' It was about Marines in the infantry who had been sent 
to Iraq. These Marines were from all over the United States of America.
  It began introducing individual Marines, individual soldiers. And 
these individuals knew why they had enlisted. They were trusting their 
decision. They were feeling comfortable that they knew with who their 
enemy was and our enemy was dangerous and the danger was to the United 
States of America. They also knew that joining was their way out. Out 
of their towns, out of their neighborhoods, out of current dead-end 
situations; or up for training and/or education that would not be 
available to them outside of the military.
  Their eyes were clear. Their voices were firm. Their resolve was 
intact. They went off to boot camp.
  Boot camp gave them the steel they needed in their backbones. It gave 
them the practice they needed so they would be able to kill, kill their 
enemy. And they knew that that enemy was dangerous to the United States 
of America.
  Their heads were shaved. Their voices were hard. Their anger was 
stirred. They knew their enemy and they were ready to fight.
  So off they went to war. They went to Iraq or they went to 
Afghanistan. They got there. They went into battle against people, 
Iraqi people, recruits like themselves whom they considered were 
clearly their enemy. But then they found themselves killing children, 
running over them with their vehicles, on command firing on children, 
burning children. And women, one Marine told the story of mistakenly 
shooting a woman just before she waved a white handkerchief to show 
that they she was not an enemy. And men, men who could have been, or 
not, part of the insurgency. Never clear if they were killing innocents 
or if they were fighting the enemy. Their eyes became confused. Their 
voices became uncertain. Their resolve questioning.
  And while they were moving through these emotions from certainty to 
uncertainty, they and their buddies were being physically and mentally 
wounded. Those who were not killed or injured were likely to become 
victims of PTSD, posttraumatic stress disorder. But they did come home 
if they were not killed. They came home with sad, sad eyes. They came 
home feeling like outsiders in their homes, in their communities, 
because they could not share what they had been living with the last 9 
months to 1\1/2\ years. They were confused and they were ashamed by 
what they had done. They were questioning their mission. They were 
embarrassed because their families thought they were heroes and they 
saw themselves as pretty bad people.
  These men and these women, Mr. Speaker, were victims. They did what 
they were trained and commanded to do. In fact, one infantryman in the 
film said that at the end of the day, those who had not killed that day 
were chided by the others in their unit.
  Of course, Mr. Speaker, you can be certain that these young people 
were in desperate need of help. Physical, which is obvious; and mental, 
which is harder to assess because their needs were labeled ``behavior 
disorders.''
  So these individuals joined the military, did their jobs, no longer 
liked themselves when they came home, but came home in great need of 
help to find it was very difficult and sometimes absolutely impossible 
to get the help they needed. One soldier hung himself. Others drank or 
used drugs, acted out in anger, made life impossible for their loved 
ones until they began to patch themselves up and their lives back 
together again, or did not.
  Mr. Speaker, these are only a few examples of what war does to those 
who are trained to kill, who do their job and are left feeling guilty. 
We must end all war. We do not want to put other individuals through 
this.

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