Veterans Share Iraq and Afghanistan War Experiences
More than 200 veterans and active-duty service members of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan gathered outside Washington, D.C. this week to do something few of them had ever done publicly before: testify, in their own words, about what they saw and did while deployed.
Echoes of Vietnam, Four Decades Later
The four-day event, called Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan, ran from March 13 through March 16 at the National Labor College in Silver Spring, Maryland, timed deliberately to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It was organized by Iraq Veterans Against the War, a group founded in 2004 that has grown to more than 700 members across 49 states, Washington, D.C., Canada, and military bases overseas, according to background from Haymarket Books, which later published a compiled written record of the testimony.
The name and format are a deliberate echo of history. In 1971, Vietnam Veterans Against the War organized the original Winter Soldier Investigation in Detroit, where veterans testified publicly about war crimes and atrocities they witnessed or took part in during that war — testimony largely ignored at the time by major media and Congress alike. “We’re basically following the tradition of resistance in the military by gathering veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan to testify about our eyewitness accounts in those two wars,” IVAW board chair Camilo Mejia explained in an interview with Democracy Now! ahead of the event. Mejia, a former Army staff sergeant, was himself the first US soldier to publicly refuse to return to Iraq, a decision that led to nearly a year in military prison.
Testimony Meant to Rebut the “Few Bad Apples” Narrative
The organizers’ central argument is that incidents like the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal and the 2005 killing of an entire family of Iraqi civilians in Haditha were never isolated aberrations, carried out by what military and political leaders have often characterized as “a few bad apples.” Instead, IVAW argues, these events reflect a broader pattern embedded in what the group has called “an increasingly bloody occupation,” shaped by the rules of engagement, the psychological toll of prolonged deployment, and command decisions made far above the individual soldiers who carried them out.
Nearly 50 veterans delivered formal testimony over the course of the four days, according to an account published by Revolution newspaper, organized around thematic panels covering topics including rules of engagement in combat, racism and its role in dehumanizing Iraqi and Afghan civilians, the strain the wars have placed on military families, and the fight veterans continue after returning home for adequate healthcare and mental health support. Video and photographic evidence accompanied much of the testimony, and panels of scholars, journalists, and veterans’ advocates provided additional context between individual accounts.
Among those testifying: a former Marine sergeant who completed three tours in Iraq between 2003 and 2006 and now heads IVAW’s Los Angeles chapter; a former paratrooper with the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division who was granted conscientious objector status after returning from deployment; and a National Guard sergeant who served thirteen months in Iraq after nine years in uniform. Each account differed in its specifics, but organizers say a common thread ran through nearly all of them: a growing gap between the official narrative of the wars and what soldiers on the ground actually experienced and, in some cases, were ordered to do.
Reaching an Audience Beyond the Room
Organizers extended what they described as a blanket invitation to Congress to attend, hoping lawmakers might give this generation’s testimony the same weight Congress gave Vietnam veterans’ Winter Soldier testimony in the 1970s. To reach audiences well beyond the roughly 350 people in the room at any given time, the event was broadcast live on Pacifica Radio and on Free Speech TV, with additional streaming available through IVAW’s own website and Berkeley’s KPFA — ensuring that testimony delivered in a college gymnasium outside Washington could reach listeners and viewers well beyond the Beltway press corps that has historically shaped the public narrative of both wars.
For Mejia and other organizers, the goal extends beyond documentation alone. “This event is going to empower soldiers to follow their conscience, whatever that means for them,” Mejia said ahead of the hearings, framing Winter Soldier not simply as historical testimony, but as an attempt to expand the space available for active-duty service members and veterans alike to speak — and act — according to what they witnessed, rather than the version of the wars presented in official briefings.
For more coverage of veterans and the anti-war movement, see our related piece on activists organizing against U.S. foreign military bases, or browse our full International archive.