and sacrifice that it demands of its Winter Soldiers. I am proud to call myself one of them today.


JAMES GILLIGAN: My name is James Gilligan. I served a four-year and a two-year contract honorably for the United States Marine Corps. While on active duty, I achieved the rank of corporal and was promoted in the Individual Ready Reserve to the rank of sergeant. I was deployed in Kuwait and later in the initial assault five years ago to Iraq for Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 with the 2nd Marine Division, 2nd Combat Engineer Battalion, H&S Company, CEB Main, and served as a member of the Nuclear-Biological-Chemical Reconnaissance team for the Combat Engineer Battalion Main. Later in the same month of returning home, I deployed to United States Naval Base, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with 3/6 Weapons Company, CAAT platoon. I was assigned to the joint operations center and later on the fence line. I personally observed Camp X-Ray from the outside and later once inside. In 2004, I was deployed with the same unit to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.


I have testimony on all three deployments to be entered into the record. However, today, in a message of solidarity with IVAW, we’re only going to talk about and speak about Iraq. I am also a number of that 120 a week. I, in 2007, tried to take my life, as well. I feel deep regret and remorse for what we’ve done in Iraq and on the global war on terror. This is my testimony.


Kuwait and Iraq, 2003, the initial invasion was to be a mechanized breach, or a “mick lick” [MCLC]. It’s a tub of C-4 on a high-tension rope with a detonation cord inside. It fires on a rocket over a minefield and is used in counter-landmine warfare to make a lane which trucks can drive through. We practiced this maneuver twice in Kuwait and never performed it.


It was on the oral history review DSIT AE 015 conducted January 14th of 1991, an interview between Major Dennis P. Levin of the 130th Military History Detachment and Major Walter Wilson, Jr. S-3, 1st Battalion, 504th Infantry. It was quoted right away.


Major Levin: “The primary focus of this interview is the training relative to the Iraqi strong point that was constructed on the Ali Range. And I am interested in what preparation you had before the training operation, and then if you could just kind of take me through the operation as it went.”


Major Wilson replied back with: “The main preparation we did, other than issuing a formal operations order, was to rehearse it twice before we actually conducted the attack. And also we had about two officer professional development classes on the Iraqi strong point and what it consists of, and how we would envision taking it down.”


This tactic was in the works prior to the invasion twelve years later. We were issued the same warning orders, and instead of breaching under fire, we breached the country twice by road, the second time by UN security car through UN—back to Kuwait and back onto the Iraqi roads. This was all due to the incompetence on the leaders of the convoy commander. I am sure, without fail, that we were the only unit in history to have ever invaded a country and invaded it all in ten minutes twice.


It was then that we drove on through the day and continued unhindered for most of the next two days, while American air power pounded the hell out of Iraqi armor and buildings with depleted uranium rounds. The amount of destruction was tremendous, and we watched once while in a traffic jam as a pair of Apaches laid rockets and gunfire into the heart of a city a few kilometers in the distance. Without a doubt, I have been in and around buildings destroyed by depleted uranium rounds, as well as vehicles, armored personnel carriers, tanks and corpses.


During the invasion, we were also exposed to severe sandstorms, which meant that we were breathing in sand for days, sand that more than likely contained depleted uranium. I went for forty-seven days without a shower in the initial invasion, and I could buy a PlayStation 2 game in a post exchange before I could even shower, because our contractors were already making bases and had a routine supply line, while we were sleeping out in the open. Almost daily, I found Iraqis who spoke English, whose questions were who we were and how long we were to be there.


Today is the Conscientious Objector Day, May 15th, and the day that honors those who choose not to fire their weapons. They do go to combat sometimes by force of their command. We were just a week before the flight to Kuwait when I saw my first sergeant chew someone out about his CO status. I heard the first sergeant say, “What if those f-blank ragheads came into your home and raped your daughter and tortured and murdered your wife?” I was shocked to hear the bravery in the young lance corporal’s voice as he told the first sergeant, “No, I don’t know what I would do. Why? Would we do that to them?”


Destroying Iraqi property was such a pleasure for some, but for me one day it was orders. I was ordered to take Lance Corporal Jerome with me as security, and I received orders via inter-squad radio to destroy a civilian’s pickup truck. I slashed as much as I could, and I kicked in the windshield for good measure. It was later with regret that I thought that this might have been this man’s livelihood.


Looting during the initial invasion was rampant. Nearly everyone had something: rugs, pens, pictures, you name it, anything you could find that would fetch a price. Later, I had to surrender to US Customs officials, military liaison, my pins with Saddam’s head on the design. They wanted them back, because all uniform items were to be confiscated for the rebuilding and reconstituting of the Iraqi army. Meanwhile, we were running over guns and blowing up weapons caches. Slides. Those that

__________________
When An Elder Passes On To Higher Life , Its Like One Of The Library Have Shut Down