Follow us on social

Meet the veterans who chose 'paths of dissent'

Meet the veterans who chose 'paths of dissent'

They sacrificed for their country in Iraq and Afghanistan but these individuals want you to reconsider whether they ever should have.

Analysis | Military Industrial Complex

One of my heroes, Major General Smedley Butler, said “We Americans who will protect our flag should have a voice in where it is flown.” The two-time Medal of Honor recipient and author of War is a Racket exemplifies the model of a dissident soldier. 

Voices of today’s soldiers, all veterans of the Global War on Terror, have been collected in a new anthology, Paths of Dissent: Soldiers Speak Out Against America’s Misguided Wars, edited by (Ret.) Maj. Danny Sjursen and (Ret.) Col. Andrew Bacevich, President of the Quincy Institute.

The book shares fifteen individual stories of how soldiers — in some ways big, in some ways small — dissented from what their high command, their government, and in many ways society expected of them as they advocated to bring our troops home.

Their perspective should come as no surprise. “War dissent is committed by those with a deep love for the country and its soldiers, for honesty, justice, humanity, and the rule of law. They bring light to situations clouded by secrecy, lies, and propaganda,” relates contributor Kevin Tillman, whose family is intimately familiar with the government’s secrecy, lies, and propaganda.

For several years, polls have demonstrated that veterans support military withdrawals from the Middle East at higher percentages than the civilian population. We witnessed firsthand the failures of nation-building, the ineffectiveness of raw military power to solve political problems, and the lack of coherent strategy or victory conditions.

As contributor Matthew Hoh discloses, “The entire U.S. government, including our military, intelligence, and diplomatic corps, was — and is — full of people who don’t believe in America’s endless wars, don’t believe in our supposed reasons for fighting them, and don’t believe that the sacrifices and costs are worthwhile.”

What Paths of Dissent achieves is giving a human face to those polls.

Each veteran writes in their own unique style — some very casual, others much more academic — with each new chapter a refreshing change from the one before it. Others who have served will recognize many moments in the book related to their own experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Encountering “waste, fraud, and abuse” is a common moment. Daniel L. Davis witnessed how military contractors falsified weapons test results so they could continue fleecing the U.S. taxpayer for billions, all under the nose of a Pentagon leadership content to keep the money flowing. Gil Barndollar recalls overseeing the construction of a schoolhouse in the remotest part of Afghanistan, so shoddily put together by local contractors that it stood a better chance of collapsing on the children’s heads than educating any of them.

The unglamorized carnage of war and counterinsurgency is another familiar theme. Dan Berschinski walks us through the day he lost his legs to an IED only a month into his deployment. Erik Edstrom describes an eighteen-year-old private in his platoon, “lying on his back, bones broken, blood pouring from his lacerated lips” from an antipersonnel mine blast, coughing blood onto his uniform as he pleaded, “I want to come back to the platoon, sir.” And Joy Damiani, tasked with creating a military-issued newspaper, describes a page of casualties whose “font size shrank in every issue, the list stretching into two and then three columns as the months heaved on.”

Lastly is realizing how your fellow Americans see you and your service, both during deployment and when you return. Buddhika Jayamaha compares the chattering commentariat (“peddlers of self-serving delusions”) back home to the “spiritual leaders” and clerics of Iraq, happy to bloviate about a situation where they have no skin in the game.

Elliott Woods says the men he served alongside “came home to a country that thanked them for their service but had little interest in understanding what they had actually done overseas or what they had left behind.” Jason Dempsey refers to this disposition as “respectful indifference” to “an institution applauded at sporting events but never questioned about what it does overseas.”

Paths of Dissent is addressed explicitly to that respectful but indifferent public. The book is not just an account of the Global War on Terror, but a plea for its immediate end. But for veterans, reforming American society may prove as difficult as trying to win in Afghanistan.

Several of the contributors lament how the connection between citizenship and public service has been severed by the elimination of the draft and the creation of an all volunteer force. In a country where less than 1percent of adults are on active duty and debt-spending replaces taxes, what incentive do most Americans have for caring about our wars? About the lives of our soldiers?

But despite the gargantuan task, in chapter after chapter these veterans describe the actions they’re taking to make a more conscientious citizenry, whether through writing, educating, or organizing. “[I]f you’re supposedly trying to stop a war, then you should be willing to sacrifice as much as those who are fighting it. If not, why bother?” asks Vincent Emanuele.

We labor tirelessly so that our brothers and sisters in uniform may be spared the consequences of our government’s bad choices. That’s patriotic dissent, and it’s why you must read this book.

Thanks to our readers and supporters, Responsible Statecraft has had a tremendous year. A complete website overhaul made possible in part by generous contributions to RS, along with amazing writing by staff and outside contributors, has helped to increase our monthly page views by 133%! In continuing to provide independent and sharp analysis on the major conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, as well as the tumult of Washington politics, RS has become a go-to for readers looking for alternatives and change in the foreign policy conversation. 

 

We hope you will consider a tax-exempt donation to RS for your end-of-the-year giving, as we plan for new ways to expand our coverage and reach in 2025. Please enjoy your holidays, and here is to a dynamic year ahead!

(Shutterstock/Leena Robinson)|(Shutterstock/Leena Robinson)
Analysis | Military Industrial Complex
Romania's election canceled amid claims of Russian interference
Top photo credit: Candidate for the presidency of Romania, Calin Georgescu, and his wife, Cristela, arrive at a polling station for parliamentary elections, Dec. 1, 2024 in Mogosoaia, Romania. Georgescu one the first round in the Nov. 24 presidential elections but those elections results have been canceled (Shutterstock/LCV)

Romania's election canceled amid claims of Russian interference

QiOSK

The Romanian Constitutional Court’s unprecedented decision to annul the first round results in the country’s Nov. 24 presidential election and restart the contest from scratch raises somber questions about Romanian democracy at a time when the European Union is being swept by populist, eurosceptic waves.

The court, citing declassified intelligence reports, ruled that candidate Călin Georgescu unlawfully benefitted from a foreign-backed social media campaign that propelled him from an obscure outsider to the frontrunner by a comfortable margin. Romanian intelligence has identified the foreign backer as Russia. Authorities claim that Georgescu’s popularity was artificially inflated by tens of thousands of TikTok accounts that promoted his candidacy in violation of Romanian election laws.

keep readingShow less
Palestinians Israel
Top photo credit: Palestinians take part in a "Great March of Return" demonstration, on the Gaza-Israel border, in east of Gaza city in the Gaza Strip. 07 December, 2018. Palestinian Territory, Gaza City (Shutterstock/hosny f. Salah)

Why the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has endured

Middle East

The retiring United Nations envoy for the Middle East peace process has insightfully identified a major reason the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians continues to boil and to entail widespread death and destruction.

In a recent interview with the New York Times, Norwegian diplomat Tor Wennesland criticized the international community for relying on short-term fixes such as improving quality of life in occupied territory or diversions such as seeking peace deals between Israel and other Arab states. The crescendo of bloodshed during the past year underscores the ineffectiveness of such approaches.

keep readingShow less
US military syria SDF
Top photo credit: A U.S. Soldier oversees members of the Syrian Democratic Forces as they raise a Tal Abyad Military Council flag over the outpost, Sept. 21, 2019. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Andrew Goedl)

US forces still fighting inside Syria amid power vacuum

QiOSK

A surprise offensive by Islamist, al-Qaida-linked group Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) has forced President Bashar al-Assad out in Syria. In turn, the U.S. is ramping up its long-term involvement in a country already devastated by years of war.

According to a Sunday statement by President Joe Biden, the U.S. has made haste to strike a freshly post-Assad Syria 75 times, allegedly hitting ISIS targets with B-52 bombers and F-15 fighters. “We’re clear-eyed about the fact that ISIS will try and take advantage of any vacuum to reestablish its credibility, and create a safe haven,” Biden explained. “We will not allow that to happen.”

keep readingShow less

Trump transition

Latest

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.