I have thought a lot about U.S. and other war veterans; I
have thought a lot about the meaning and life of one in particular: her name is
Alyssa Petersen. I have never met her, and I do not know that much about her.
But what I think I know about her is important, and I will explain why.
We in the
United States are fortunate that a lot of military veterans have served to
safeguard and protect our freedoms and our way of life. We have fought for our
own rights and independence since the 1700s, when we decided (many of my
ancestors were loyalists or had not immigrated) to throw off the monarchy of
England and fight for self-sovereignty as a new nation made up from disparate
colonies. While we (again, the first U.S. citizens) could be cruel to native
Americans, and many owned humans in the South, and women were not too
empowered, the United States became a government and a land where we empowered
many who did not have a chance to be economically or socially empowered before.
Eventually our land became fair and just for all, to include those born with
physical and mental disabilities. This is the truest measure of a good society.
Protecting the weakest.
Not only
has the United State fought for its own interests and lands, starting with the
native Americans, the French (when American colonists fought with Great
Britain), the British, the Mexicans, the Spanish; we have also lent a hand to
other countries to ensure that they would be free as well. This includes the
Western Powers of World Wars One and Two, the Koreans of their great conflict,
Vietnam, Kuwait, Afghanistan, and many others where we supported the
independence of those who sought to overthrow their oppressors or militant
threats. Even tiny Grenada in the 1980s received our military backing to stop a
would-be authoritative ruler.
The
United States stands for freedom, prosperity, and commerce. Iraq under Saddam
Hussein posed a particular threat to those ideals, and ultimately, we went in
to depose that despot of multiple generations in the Middle East. We have many
people in 2021, both Republican and Democrat and others, certainly non-U.S.
voices, who have summarized that the venture was mistaken and acted on under
false pretenses. No Weapons of Mass Destruction were found. Hussein was not
part of the 9/11 2001 attacks. The status quo of his dictatorship was not evil
enough to get hundreds of thousands of our troops into his land, and expose
many of them to the ills of civil conflict and violent insurgency. I understand
those claims, and I can flesh them out in other dialogues. But this is about
Alyssa, and her significance as a veteran. A patriot, a hero, a voice snuffed
out in the wilderness, but a testament of courage not forgotten. A tragic yet
significant part of our history, as a soldier, as an American, as a human. And a Christian Latter-day Saint,
too.
Alyssa
was an Army Specialist in the U.S. Army in Iraq, in the first year of the war,
a conflict that was not expected to be so virulent against our forces after
removing the brutal regime. Decisions, some ill-conceived, by the United States
lead to a greater anti-Coalition insurgency and threat to our troops than
anticipated by President George Bush and the proponents of the war; reasons for
that can be discussed some other time. But again, this is more about Specialist
Peterson. She was a member of my faith, from Arizona, had served a church
mission in the Netherlands, had graduated from Northern Arizona University in
psychology, and had done well in the Arabic language at the Defense Language
Institute in Monterey, California. After moving to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and
joining the 101st Airborne Division, she went to Iraq as an
interrogator. Here the story goes bad.
The
interrogation techniques used by her team on the Iraqi detainees were upsetting
to her. She tried to protest. From what I know she did what she could as a
lower ranking soldier to stop these harsh sessions, which were humiliating and
torturous to both her and the subjects upon which they were implemented. Some
of the tactics in interrogating the Iraqi detainees left her very much
disturbed and in a position that she could not reconcile. She took her own
life.
Yes, her
life was more valuable than the causes for which she gave it, but she did make
a statement. Surely her superiors and colleagues had to consider this drastic
act and statement that she left behind regarding their methods and motivations.
Like in a film about the Vietnam War, “Casualties of War”, there were
unintended victims who became part of the tragedy and the loss of this
campaign. A valiant young lady’s honor and esteem were violated; her conscience
could not rest on these barbaric and hideous actions by so-called U.S. men and
women in power. She saw through the justifications for torture and abuse, and
she made her position known, albeit in such a sad, tragic way. It did not have
to be that bad. I wish she had gone to prison for her protests instead, she
would have eventually become vindicated in her convictions or moral objections.
Alas.
Alyssa, you were the true veteran
here. You were the American hero trying to do what is right to our enemy and to
us as people. You stood for the right, and in my mind and heart you died for
it. The ghastly and immoral photos from Abu Ghraib confirmed the nastiness and
the losing hand of our military, and Other Government Agencies (OGA), which
often can mean the CIA.
Alyssa was a light, a small candle,
blown out way too early. She became one of the 4 thousand, nine hundred and two
military personnel that died in Iraq from 2003 to 2020, approximately one
fourth of whom perished in non-hostile fashion, which means by accident or
illness, to include suicides. Some of those suicides were provoked by the ills
and gut wrenches of the war itself.
As a Specialist in the United
States Army serving full time duty in the Middle East on this auspicious and
mostly peaceful Veteran’s Day, as an interrogator and an Arabic linguist, as a
returned missionary and a person of morals and conscience, as a human being and
as soldier I salute you, junior-enlisted Specialist Peterson.
Your light, as the light of
hundreds of thousands of other victims from prior wars and conflicts from the
Revolutionary War till now, is remembered. I do not know where your grave is,
but someday I may find it like I have found the graves of thousands of Civil
War dead across the eastern seaboard of the United States, or seen the
memorials and markers of countless others across the world.
Happy Veteran’s Day. Solemn
Veteran’s Day. A day to remember many who gave us hope to live into the future.
They gave all that we might have
all that we have.
We love
you and miss you, whether we know your names or not.
Our
hearts and prayers belong to you and your families, and we are they.
