<Begin Segment 21>

TI: I want to go back to, at what point you decided in your mind that going to Iraq was the wrong thing for you. So can you talk about that and when that was, or that moment when you decided?

EW: I think there was, there was still a point where I was willing to go, even though I was just so dismayed about what was going on, and disenfranchised, and really felt that we had been betrayed. I still was thinking, you know, my duty as an officer and a soldier is to my fellow soldiers, my fellow officers in the military, and I need to go despite my personal beliefs. But for me, the greatest threat that I saw, and the reason I needed to stand up is because nobody was holding those responsible for this deception accountable. And because of that, those in power said, "Well, we must have a mandate from the people, we must have a mandate from God. So we're going to continue to do this," continue these actions, continue what they were doing in Iraq, on Iran and Syria, and all over the world. And the only, they were only just paying us lip service in terms of changing course, and they were not going to change course. They were, in fact, staying the course as they have said, and nobody in Congress was willing to hold them accountable. None of, very few people were willing to stand up against them. [Interruption] For the most part, as I say today, the vast majority of the American people are so disinterested and detached from the war because it doesn't affect them personally. And that, I believe, is a disservice to the American troops.

I am jumping ahead again, but one of the criticisms when I came out publicly and made my decision to refuse, people say, "Oh, well, he, he signed up, he volunteered, he should go." And a lot of people view the army as that, that it's, the army or the military is something exclusive from American society, that they volunteered, so that's "their thing." And then the same thing happens with people in the military, say, they kind of view themselves as the protectors, as some kind of elite class beyond American society, so they are excluding themselves. So you have this detachment from the war that the soldiers are fighting. And that, in a democratic society in which the military serves the people, is very dangerous, and it's a disservice to both the soldiers and the American people.

TI: So, so what I'm thinking is, I'm going back to the factors. When you... I guess, yeah, at the point you were thinking about this and deciding, it sounds like you, you wanted to make big changes, you wanted people to take notice. I mean, was that your intent? Did you think that by, by refusing and being the first officer to do so, that it would cause the effect that it did?

EW: No, that was not my initial goal. My initial goal was I decided that I cannot be silent about this. [Interruption] And neither as a member of the military would I enable it. So I wasn't going out and trying to make this big statement, I just said, "For my part, I will not be a part of this, and I will get out of the military and I will speak out against it." So that's when I submitted my letter of resignation, and I said basically the same things, that we have members of our government, members of this administration have committed a crime in Iraq. What we're doing in Iraq I believe is illegal and immoral, and I as an officer who's sworn an oath to the Constitution and the people, will not condone or enable this, and I respectfully ask for my resignation, or ask to be resigned. And that's pretty much what I said, and I knew just for saying those things, I would be going, maybe I would be going to prison for that. [Laughs]

TI: Just for, for, but just trying to resign. I mean, that...

EW: Just stating those things in my letter of resignation.

TI: Got it.

EW: Which was kind of like an informal communication to my commanding officer.

TI: And what was the reaction from that letter?

EW: It was like, whoa, this is out of left field. Who is this officer coming up to me and saying these kind of things? He is apparently very misguided. And so they tried to talk me into staying, persuade me and saying how much of a stellar officer they thought I was, and that we're, "You, Lieutenant Watada, have a duty to your soldiers and a commitment to the people to go, and you can't refuse that commitment or turn it down." Not even really addressing the things that I was talking about. And when I finally did say, "You know, for me, our system of checks and balances do not exist anymore," and my commanding officer looked at me and said, "I don't believe that." He said, "I think things are going just fine." And so for me, you know, that's where he was coming from. For him, there were no problems. It was a policy of orders, going to war, and those reasons were justified. I mean, he strongly felt that we were going there because of 9/11.

TI: And so when you talked to him about the things that you, you researched and read about, how did he respond?

EW: He just said that, "You're listening to too many liberal talk shows." He says, "You're only," I told him that I read, I read both sides of the political spectrum, and he says, "I do, too." And I did not believe that because I just think that, unless you already have a preconceived notion in your mind, and you're just gonna go through denial. I cannot see just the facts alone, not the commentary or the op-eds, just the facts alone, how anybody could not see there was something wrong in our government, in our country. And to not at least give me the benefit of the doubt, I mean, there was no benefit of the doubt. It was, "You are wrong, Lieutenant Watada, you're misguided. And unless you come around, or just simply say, just get rid of your personal beliefs, you're gonna be punished for this."

TI: So, so he denied your request, or would not accept your letter of resignation. And so then what happened?

EW: He at first said that, "I have talked to my boss," his commanding officer, and, "I told him that I don't want you in my unit anymore. I don't want you coming, going to war with me." And this is all very strange, because he changes his tone almost every time that I talk to him. First of all, he, he believes that I'm sincere, and then he tells me, "I don't want you in my unit." And then we go on this month-long pre-deployment training in California at the National Training Center, and I say, "Well, what's going to happen to me?" Obviously, as an officer, commanding officer, you're training your soldiers to go to war, and you have this officer who doesn't believe, and for some reason or another you don't like him, you don't want him in your unit, but you tell him to come with you anyway, to train your soldiers, to train with you. And so here I go on this month-long, very important exercise, and I'm training with them. Which I said I would, I said I would do anything it takes, "I will train my soldiers up to that point, but if you force me to do something that I believe is immoral and illegal, I will have no choice, and it is my oath to refuse that order." But they still wanted me to come anyway. So I went along with them, and I went to the National Training Center in California, and then we came back, and I didn't have any communication for about two weeks on what was going to be done with me. Finally, when I did find out, they wanted me to stay in the unit and move into a, kind of like a safe position in which they said, "You wouldn't have leave the wire, you wouldn't have to carry a weapon." I said, "Whoa, I'm not a conscientious objector, I'm not a pacifist." I said, "It's this war itself that I'm against, and you're still asking me to come along and take part in this war." I had even referred to it as an administrative position, and which, one of the majors got mad that I had said that and said, "You are in a combat position, a combat arms position," so there you go. It's not even, what they were trying to do is label me as a conscientious objector and kind of pacify me and say, "We'll you're going to be safe. Don't worry about getting killed."

TI: So they're trying to, like, sweep it underneath the rug a little bit. Like, "Don't, we're going to put you in a place where you won't have to worry as much, and just be quiet."

EW: Right. Because they didn't want to go through the work of trying to relocate me to a different unit, which I don't understand. I mean, you have an officer in your ranks who is strongly against what you are trying to do, who does not believe in what you are trying to do, yet you want him to come with you anyway. Even at one time before, you said, "I don't even want you in my unit. You're kind of like a disgrace," something like that. You want him to come with you anyway. So getting all these mixed signals, and then the whole brigade, about 3,500 soldiers were going to go on this thing called block leave where they, everybody takes two weeks off at a time. It was just before our deployment, so that's why they were giving this time off to the soldiers. And they said, "No, you're not going to get any of your leave, you stay here with the unit, with the rest of the guys who aren't going to deploy to Iraq, and you think about what you're going to do. If you still decide that you're not going to go, we're going to start legal proceedings against you." And when I heard that, that's when I got civilian counsel, civilian legal counsel. But that's what they told me. It's very mixed signals. At one point they say, "We don't want you in the unit," and the next say, next day, "Stay in the unit." And at the next point, "You're not going to get your leave because you're not going to go to Iraq," and then at the next point they're going to say, "We still want you with us and you're sincere," and all that.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.