War Causes Air Force Chief Master Sergeant to Change Course

By Sarah Olson
t r u t h o u t | Report

Tuesday 24 April 2007

Jeff Slocum is a 41-year-old chief master sergeant in the United States Air Force. He's spent the last 21 years in the military and has been stationed in Europe, Korea, Honduras and the Middle East. He's now an engineer at Pope Air Force Base near Fayetteville, North Carolina. He loves his work, has enormous faith in the military and believes in serving his country. Until recently, he planned to spend his entire life in military service. But the events in Iraq have forced Slocum to question the viability of that plan and ultimately to change his life course.

"First and foremost, we should never have gone into Iraq," says Slocum, sitting in a cafe in Fayetteville, a town filled with unbelievably picturesque fountains and a central square that, before it housed restaurants and a coffee shop with wireless internet access, was home to the area's slave auction. "I felt betrayed by the commanders who said they'd find a way to make this war work, when they knew it wasn't practical. This was a betrayal of the men and women who are fighting in Iraq."

Slocum says he used to rely on Fox News and Rush Limbaugh for information. He thought President Bush was "folksy and sincere" and voted for him in 2004. But even when Slocum was stationed at a NATO office in Europe during the build-up to the Iraq war, he says he could feel a palpable shift in attitudes towards the US after the invasion of Iraq. He says he felt his country was betraying the trust and good will of the rest of the world. After seeing such scorn in the eyes of his colleagues, he began to question the US decision to invade Iraq.

It wasn't until he started talking to his Aunt Peg that he began to make sense of these observations. Peg encouraged him to see Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 911," a movie Slocum found so shocking that he watched it twice. She was also willing to discuss its ideas afterwards, and pointed him towards alternative news outlets. Now Slocum cites people like US Army 1st Lt. Ehren Watada - the first commissioned officer to refuse orders to deploy to Iraq - as military role models.

"I was going to be in the Air Force for 30 years," says Slocum, who just filed his retirement paperwork and expects to be released by October 1, 2007. "This is about fundamentally changing what I'm doing with my life. It's about getting out of the Air Force so I can advocate more strongly for peace and an end to the Iraq conflict."

Chief Master Sergeant Slocum signed the Appeal for Redress back in February. The Appeal is a petition asking Congressional representatives to remove US troops and bases from Iraq promptly. Correspondence with political representatives is explicitly protected by military law. The Appeal provides a safe and legal way for active duty members of the military to voice their frustrations with the ongoing war. Nearly 2,000 active duty members of the military have signed the Appeal for Redress thus far.

"The Appeal for Redress is very specific," Slocum says. "It says that we're in a losing situation in Iraq, and we're not doing a good job taking care of those who have been grievously harmed in Iraq and who will need care for the rest of their lives."

As Chief Master Sergeant Slocum soon found out, speaking against the war is infectious: once you start, it's hard to stop. The electronic signature on the Appeal for Redress became the first of many actions Slocum would take to voice his personal opposition to the Iraq war.

Slocum joined a growing number of ordinary citizens who loved their country and believed in their leaders, and who are now making extraordinary shifts in their relationship to the democratic process. Many have taken action beyond the protected communication of the petition. Signers of the Appeal have marched in demonstrations against the war. They've held press conferences, and their protests have been covered in every major media outlet in the country. In signing the Appeal, many know their lives will no longer be the same, and, like Slocum, many have found that their ethics compel them to make radical shifts in their life's direction.

Opposing military policy while still enlisted isn't easy. "I've gotten some considerably negative feedback. Many people of my rank believe what I'm doing is totally contrary to effective leadership," says Slocum, adding that some have told him he should have been hanged along with Saddam Hussein. As a chief master sergeant, Slocum holds the highest-ranking noncommissioned position available in the Air Force, and he believes he must live up to this position by showing leadership.

"You can protect the institution of the military through silence," he says. "To protect the men and women fighting this war, you have to speak up. There is no courage or honor in silence." Preserving speech rights for members of the military is one of Slocum's goals.

"People are told that we volunteered, and therefore we have a duty to blindly follow orders. But that's not true," Slocum explains. While military personnel agree to certain limited restrictions on speech, the Uniform Code of Military Justice permits GIs to express most personal views, as long as they're off base, off duty and out of uniform. But while this looks good on paper, Slocum believes members of the military are routinely silenced.

"From the very founding of this nation, patriotism was going against the grain for the greater good of the country," says Slocum. "A true patriot is not afraid to look out for the best interests of the nation and its citizens. Today, we are using patriotism to subdue people, to convince them to not exercise their rights. Are we really serving the citizens well by being in Iraq? I think the truth is no, we're not."

How can an institution based on ideals such as integrity and service continue to support a mission that may not be in the public's best interests? This is a moral and ethical conundrum Chief Master Sergeant Slocum never expected to face.

"A lot of people are numb or just not willing to accept that we are in a situation not unlike Vietnam. How could our government take advantage of us like this again?" asks Slocum, who says the honor, dedication and loyalty of military service members is being abused by continuation of the Iraq war.

Roughly 2.1 million members of the military have served in some phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Even when you include military families, only about four or five percent of the US public has been personally touched by the Iraq war. Slocum believes the public is disengaged from the war in large part because no one they know is fighting it. In addition, Slocum says, the American public has been encouraged to avoid thinking critically about the conflict or the troops fighting it. "This administration says that when times are tough, we should all go shopping."

But with increasing numbers of American and Iraqi casualties, a burgeoning civil war, an exhausted military serving for longer and more frequent tours of duty with few resources, Slocum believes this is precisely the time when Americans must be most engaged.

"There's story upon story from people who say, 'I can't believe I'm going back for my third or fourth tour,'" Slocum says. "They are all saying they have the same problems, on the same streets, as they had when they left."

When Slocum retires in October of 2007, he will do so with regret. "I love the Air Force, and I believe in what I do. If I didn't care, I wouldn't be speaking out," he says.

"I was frustrated that so many people in significant leadership positions remained silent about the war," Slocum explains. "I began to ask: How can I most significantly contribute to the welfare of the people I work with? People are dying. Families have been torn apart. This war is sucking the life out of our military. I cannot stay silent. I need to say that I am concerned enough to put my reputation at risk to point out that this war is wrong."

Slocum is joining the ranks of a growing number of patriotic Americans who entered the military to serve their country, and who have come to believe they have an obligation to speak out against the ongoing war in Iraq. It's easy enough for city-dwelling hipsters to speak against the Iraq war, but for Chief Master Sergeant Slocum and thousands like him around the country, an earnest objection to the war has caused him to leave everything he has known for the past 21 years and to re-envision the scope of his entire life.

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Sarah Olson is an independent journalist and radio producer based in Oakland, California. She can be reached at solson75@yahoo.com.