"I Killed Innocent People For Our Government"

In an interview with Sacramento Bee writer Paul Rockwell, Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey a 12-year veteran of the U.S. Marine Corp. gives us a perspective of a soldier who was given orders to kill innocent Iraqi's for our government.

Q: Who gave the orders to wipe the demonstrators out?
A: "Higher command."

<snip>

"Yes, I killed innocent people for our government. For what? What did I do. Where is the good coming out of it? I feel like I've had a hand in some evil lie at the hands of our government. I feel just embarrassed, ashamed about it."

<snip>

One day after he and his platoon buddies "lit up" a car full of innocent Iraqi's killing all but one of them.
"Later on I found out that was a typical day. I talked to my commanding officer after the incident. He came up to me and says: "Are you OK?" I said: "No, today is not a good day. We killed a bunch of civilians." He goes:" No today was a good day." "And when he said that, I said oh my goodness, what the hell am I into?"

<snip>

"I blame the president of the U.S. It's not the grunt. I blame the president because he said they had weapons of mass destruction. It was a lie."

http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/story/9316830p-10241546c.html

************************************************************************************Here we have a soldier with a conscience and more than likely post traumatic syndrome. His military programing gave him the ability to kill by the order of his command. Is there any doubt that the treatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib was dictated by the order of higher command?

When will the higher ups be held accountable as well as the ones who committed the horrible acts on the poor innocent people.

I hate being an American at times and this is one of those times.

to a higher degree of culpability to say the "grunts" are blameless is disengenuous.

Did anyone ever accept "just following orders" from low level Nazi camp workers?

The "only taking orders" thing was primarily about generals taking orders from Himmler or Hitler, Colonels taking orders from Generals, etc..

Few nazi grunts were tried for anything (some, but not a lot considered the vast numbers that must have been culpable) because back then the global military culture was still such that if a grunt disobeyed a direct order his co was as likely as not to just shoot him.

If you personally met someone who told you that as a "grunt" they helped shove people into the gas chambers would you be repulsed by them - or would you think "just following orders".

Personally if I ever meet someone and become aware that they helped bash, torture or rape an Iraqi prisoner I'd tell them I thought they were vile and get the hell out of their general presence ASAP