BOOKS: Comrades in Arms | William T. Hathaway

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From the Book Radical Peace: People Refusing War, By William T. Hathaway

Radical Peace is a collection of reports from antiwar activists, the true stories of their efforts to change our warrior culture. This chapter was contributed by an ex-soldier.

World News Trust

Feb. 7, 2014

Comrades in Arms

William T. Hathaway

Hi Mr. Hathaway,

I got your letter (forwarded) asking for information for your book. To answer your first question, Yes, I'm enjoying living in Holland. I'm becoming the little Dutch girl -- the little Black Dutch girl, but that doesn't bother people here. They're very tolerant and internationally minded.

As for the rest of your questions, at first I didn't think I could answer them. They reminded me too much of an essay test in school. Plus it's not exactly pleasant to remember back on all this stuff, you know. I'm trying to leave it behind and start a new life.

But I kept thinking about it and finally decided I would forget the questions and just write about what happened. Like you said, people should know about this. Don't give anybody my address, though. The army still wants to put me in prison.

Compared to a lot of people, I had it easy in Iraq -- on a huge base with a Burger King, cold beer, video games, movies, air conditioned trailers, baseball games. About once a month we got mortared or rocketed and had to dive into the bunkers and maybe every other time somebody got killed, but there were thousands of us, so usually you didn't know them even though you felt bad for them.

Although it wasn't very dangerous, we had to work our tails off, shifts of 12 on, 12 off, seven days a week -- you felt like a zombie. I was a data entry clerk, sitting in front of a computer typing stuff in. My eyes were fried, and I was on meds for migraines. When you weren't working, all you wanted to do was forget everything. When you were working, you wanted to forget it even more.

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