CUNY’s Iraq Vets Seeking New Purpose in Activism
by MStar
Lehman College senior Desmond Mullins
speaks to protestors in New Orleans.
In the days following the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, there was an upsurge of patriotism in the United States that engulfed many able-bodied men and women of military age. As a result, these men and women joined the United States military in large numbers in order to combat terrorism. In contrast, the men and women who joined before Sept. 11, 2001, had a very different motivation. They were predominantly poor, and used the military as a ticket to a college education. The City University of New York provided a bargain for these students who served in the National Guard or reserve, giving them an affordable education and flexibility for their military service. However, after serving honorably in Iraq, many of these CUNY students have returned to a university that gives the bare minimum of support, in terms of facilitating the transition back into college life, getting medical and mental health attention, and connecting with other student veterans. Consequently, these students need increased assistance from the CUNY system, at least in finding other veterans who can form a community of support.
The basic problem, as told by Iraq veterans interviewed for this article, is the dearth of information on how many students have served in Iraq and where those students are. Hunter College junior Fernando Braga joined the military for financial reasons on Sept. 9, 2001, and served from March 2004 to January 2005 in Iraq at Camp Cedar II, south of Al Nasiria, as a unit-supply specialist. Braga put the number of CUNY students killed in Iraq at a minimum of five, with at least three casualties coming from Borough of Manhattan Community College. Stemming from this lack of information, CUNY students are left with only four resources: their individual initiative, the Veterans Administration official at each college, the efforts of individual professors, and the community provided by Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), whose New York chapter head is Jose Vasquez, an Anthropology Ph.D. student at CUNY Graduate Center. Individual initiative is highly dependent on the information provided by the other three resources. Thus, if an Iraq veteran does not receive adequate information and help from a college’s VA administrator, a friendly professor, or IVAW, there is no support for students who might be dealing with, among other things, the horrible effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The effects of PTSD may include nightmares, depression, unprovoked aggression, and suicidal tendencies.
Most important, many, if not all Iraq veterans, are presented with a Catch-22 upon leaving Iraq. In order to expedite their journey home, a soldier typically lies to the military doctors during a 30-second interview regarding the soldier’s mental and physical health. After returning home, the psychological symptoms of PTSD, in addition to the physical injuries sustained in Iraq, cause many veterans to seek help from the VA Hospital, if they can find it. Yet, if they do seek help from the hospital, they confront the high probability of stopping their military career because the record of mental and physical illness will limit their opportunities. Since the solder lied to the military doctor to get home more quickly, the military can claim that the mental and physical illnesses were not caused by the combat experiences. As a result, many Iraq veterans in the CUNY system face a very bleak future of limited, or no help for their mental and physical traumas, which in turn alienates them from friends and family. With no support system, these veterans often turn to various coping mechanisms, including drugs and alcohol.
Iraq vets in New Orleans setting the foundation
of the first of one hundred new homes.
The isolation of Iraq veterans in the CUNY system presents a challenge to them in the classroom. Most students do not mention that they have served in Iraq. The students who do mention their service in Iraq are mainly those who feel that their service has spurred them to oppose the war. Lehman College senior Demond Mullins, who served in Iraq in the infantry from Fall 2004 to Fall 2005, is increasingly active in anti-war protests and marches. His Iraq service became a catalyst for him to examine his moral standing as a human being, and to prevent other people from suffering as he did. Likewise, Michael Harmon, a student at Borough of Manhattan Community College, suffered from depression after serving a year in Iraq as a combat medic for 1/67 armor 4th Infantry Division from April 2003 to April 2004. He has since become very active in IVAW.
The responsiveness of CUNY to its Iraq veterans varies from college to college, depending largely on whether the VA representative is a separate position or combined with other administrative positions at the college. Fernando Braga noted a consensus among veterans that Borough of Manhattan Community College is among the worst in terms of providing support for veterans, while Baruch, Lehman, Hunter, and the other four year colleges are much better. This is evidenced by the experiences of Mullins, who experienced a very easy transition back in to college life at Lehman, and Gustavo Agosto-Dafonseca, who also had an easy experience. Agosto-Dafonseca has done 24 months of active duty, and he has 18 months left of drill training in the Army Reserves in Fort Drum, N.Y. He served in Iraq for 11 months, three weeks, from Jan. 13 to Dec. 26, 2005. He returned to Baruch College with four incomplete grades at the upper sophomore level. He sayid Baruch was very supportive, including professors and the VA coordinator. He was able to extend the incomplete grades until the end of spring of his sixth semester.
Anti-War Activism
After they have returned from Iraq and resumed civilian and student life, the singular challenge to these veterans is how much they integrate their combat experience with their identity. One of the veterans who has not chosen to engage in anti-war activities is Gustavo Agosto-Dafonseca. He has always treated the military as a hobby, as a side part of his life, not as a key part of how he defines himself. He entered in 2000, at age 17 with parental consent, and was the first person in his family to join. His main motivation was obtaining money for college. He was told by the recruiting officer that at most he would serve a six-month peacekeeping mission in Bosnia. Yet, at that age he was circumspect about the role that he wanted the military to play in his life. “The mistake many young soldiers make, unfortunately, is to become dependent,” he said, especially if they are young. They get food, clothing, and shelter, and typically go from an $8/hour job to a $15,000 signing bonus. In contrast, Agosto-Dafonseca said, “I wasn’t blinded by the money,” even though he had wanted to join the military since watching Desert Storm on CNN.
Agosto-Dafonseca said he didn’t need to join, even though a lot of enlistment decisions come from “needing the military” because a soldier has no other options in life, no idea of college options, and receives full financial aid in the military. Thus, while Agosto-Dafonseca is not an activist, not against military service, and not against people serving in the military, he is against “irresponsible enlistment.”
Many of the soldiers Agosto-Dafonseca served with were in the National Guard unit, in contrast to the active duty soldiers who see combat 24 hours a day. His comrades joined the military mainly as a response to 9/11. The reserve and National Guard are filled primarily by soldiers who are there part-time, and typically they are college students. Thus, in the Tikrit area where he served, he said many of his fellow soldiers were disappointed that their expectations of fighting terrorists had not become reality. Gustavo did not see any of his colleagues killed. He served in a 15-person unit doing movement control, or logistics, which meant monitoring all military vehicle and air craft that were coming into and out of his area of responsibility. He worked in a division command center with general officers.
Since Agosto-Dafonseca completed his Sociology major at Baruch before he went to Iraq, he was able to be an observer. Thus, he thinks of his experience there as “more observer than participant.” This was partly an effort to retain his sanity, and partly an effort to be desensitized but understanding. His colleagues were in the 18 – 24 year old demographic, fellow college students who had interrupted their college experience.
Agosto-Dafonseca succeeded in maintaining his detached perspective, and so he has not felt a need to engage in any anti-war activities. He is honoring his contract with the military, which ends in 2008. The contract stipulates that any anti-war activity will be met with punitive measures.
In contrast, Mullins and Michael Harmon have immersed themselves in anti-war activities as the main way to give their lives a sense of purpose and meaning again. Mullins appears in a documentary on Iraq veterans called “The Ground Truth”, which he sayid is a very truthful, honest depiction of the experiences of troops in Iraq. The “honesty is fierce, it’s raw” because it shows that most soldiers in combat turned out to be against the war. Mullins has devoted his life to anti-war activities because he feels he compromised his morals and his virtues by allowing himself to be sent to Iraq. Before he was sent to Iraq, he says he had difficulty being a civilian, including being a boyfriend, a son, and a student. After he returned from Iraq he felt abandoned. This is common because “lots of soldiers have trouble finding purpose,” and many have trouble taking control of their own lives. Thus, taking classes at Lehman College offered not only structure but a sense of purpose, a way to focus his life so that he could understand the role he played in what he now recognizes as the Military-Industrial Complex. He started to read “The Power Elite,” by C. Wright Mills, while serving in Iraq. After he became a student again, he started learning about military industrial complex theory. He now intends to go to graduate school in order to augment his activist activities.
Mullins joined the military because he otherwise couldn’t afford a college education. He was “just like [an] average undergraduate student” before serving in Baghdad from Fall 2004 to Fall 2005. He never voted because he didn’t feel like he had much of a say, even though he found politics interesting. In contrast to his previous civilian life, “Iraq showed how small I am, this is only life I have.” So Mullins is on a mission to make amends for his prior complacency.
After returning from Iraq, Mullins isolated himself and fell into a depression from which Lehman College and activism rescued him. He had difficulties with his girlfriend, family, and friends because of his PTSD. He would squeeze his ex-girlfriend during the night and would start crying without knowing why. He would feel disoriented all of a sudden. He wouldn’t talk sometimes. He was less affectionate, more callous. He developed the attitude that the petty things people worried about as civilians couldn’t compare in magnitude to the horrible things he saw in combat. He also felt that, given the number of close calls and near misses he had with death in Iraq, his luck had run out, and so he was simply waiting to die. The VA Hospital offered him medication for his symptoms, but he didn’t take any. Instead, he decided that “activism is most therapeutic.”
The turning point came when Gail Perry-Ryder, an Adjunct Lecturer in the Department of African and African American Studies at Lehman College, gave Mullins the contact information for IVAW. The IVAW, in conjunction with the small class sizes at Lehman, helped lift Mullins from his depression and even gave him hope. The small class sizes facilitated more personal attention from professors, even though CUNY lacks any type of institutional support for Iraq veterans. Mullins has taken his activism to higher levels in the past six months, from appearing in the documentary to marching from Mobile, Ala., to New Orleans, La. The march helped raise awareness about the connection between limited reconstruction of the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina compared to the expensive reconstruction projects in Iraq.
All of the veterans interviewed for this article agreed that CUNY could do much more to help its Iraq War veterans, especially because the Veterans Administration has faltered so badly in providing the support that it is obligated to provide. Agosto-Dafonseca and Mullins both mentioned that budget cuts at the VA had limited the VA’s ability to provide needed support. If CUNY could take up the slack, even by simply helping Iraq veterans find each other through a list-serve or database, that would go a long way toward filling a great need, Mullins said. The veterans say they are very willing to put an effort into establishing a CUNY-wide organization that will help them develop a cohesive community. Right now, that community doesn’t exist.
Patriotism
When asked whether they were patriotic, many of the veterans replied that they did not believe in blind, uninformed patriotism, yet they all love their country. “Patriotism is an ugly word,” Mullins said. “Aside from feelings of pride that one should have in their nation and a sense of responsibility, Americans especially should be more discerning in terms of their nation, and the administration of its policies. Supporting the President because he is President is meaningless. If patriotism is supporting the best interests of the nation, then yes, I’m a patriot with my whole heart. I was never a blind patriot of the U.S. I’m a black man. That’s a mouthful already. Look at American history, there isn’t much for me to feel patriotic about.” Mullins said his level of patriotism remains the same, but he has a great deal more interest in politics and policy. Most important, Mullins said Iraq gave him the ability to make positive changes, because now “I fear nothing.” He said he feels a responsibility to fulfill a destiny. “I have a fervent desire to acquire knowledge now. Scholarship validates activism.”
Similarly, Michael Harmon feels that all patriotism has been sapped out of him, and now the only thing that replaces it is anti-war activism. “I have NO patriotism and NO faith in the direction this country is going. … People just don’t care because it doesn’t affect them personally. Activism is the best thing I have ever got involved in and it has made me smarter and more informed.” Michael found two veterans who also served in Operation Iraqi Freedom though the documentary “The Ground Truth.” Other than those, has hasn’t found a veteran community because of what he calls “the apathy that plagues this country.”
Thus, right now Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) is the only place where Iraq veterans in the CUNY system are likely to find a community, and a way to heal through activism. Jose Vasquez, the New York head of IVAW, and a 4th year, Level 2, Anthropology graduate student, comes to activism from a 14-year history in the military. He has not gone to Iraq even though he was officially sent because he claimed to be a Conscientious Objector. As his claim is still pending,. he has left military life, where otherwise he would now be a Sergeant First Class. He started out loving the military, and aimed to become a Master Sergeant, but the rupture came on Sept. 11, 2001, when he started hearing comparisons of the terrorist attacks to the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the start of America’s entry to World War II. At the time he had made a professional transition to Emergency Medical Technician, and was a senior at City College with an Anthropology major. However, he is married to a Japanese woman, and had recently completed a book about the effects of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. He decided that he did not want the United States to go down a similar path to the nuclear destruction of other cities after the terrorist attack.
The key problem with the military, Vasquez said, is that the demographics have changed completely since World War II. Most soldiers in the past had at most a GED or high school diploma. Now, the soldiers may be college undergraduates, master’s students, or even have a Ph.D. By giving enlisted soldiers access to higher education, mass media and the Internet, these soldiers are more likely to have opinions that contradict the decisions of officers. Consequently, Vasquez offered a scathing opinion of the situation in Iraq and the responsibility of the United States Congress. He noted that the U.S. military is very well equipped to do the invading part, but guerilla warfare has not changed over thousands of years. As a result, successful occupation of a foreign country requires intense oppression, especially since it is impossible to distinguish civilians from combatants. However, even if there were more troops, the underlying pretense of the invasion undermines it. Agosto-Dafonseca agreed that only cultural awareness will make a difference, not more troops. The U.S. has taken power by leveling the Iraqi infrastructure, and setting up a political structure that does not include all voices. Thus, the insurgency is a political uprising, and there needs to be dialogue with the insurgency. The best outcome in Iraq is a scheduled withdrawal to avoid making Iraq dependent on the U.S. Vasquez argued that the U.S. congress must reassert itself vis-à-vis the president, and this includes impeaching the president for war crimes. “The executive branch has come in like the Mafia and taken over. Impeachment would be justice served. George Bush is a war criminal. The war of aggression against Iraq is the biggest war crime in a long time.”
