Tuesday December 13, 2005
War veteran to share his views
PUTRAJAYA: Iraq war veteran Jimmy Massey will be sharing some of his heart-wrenching experiences as a soldier at the Perdana Global Peace Forum, scheduled for Dec 15 to 17 at the Putra World Trade Centre in Kuala Lumpur.
“I have flashbacks and nightmares. I am not the same man I was before I went to Iraq. I don’t enjoy the activities I used to. I don’t like to go out of the house sometimes due to paranoia. My experiences (in Iraq) changed every single aspect of my life,” he said in an e-mail interview.
Massey has to take six different kinds of medication daily in order to function “somewhat normally.”
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HIS STORY: Massey showing the book he has written called ‘Kill!, Kill!, Kill!’ in Paris last year. In it he recounts the horrors of his ordeal as well as the traumas he suffered after the war. — AFPpic |
He recalled the incident that made him quit.
“We were at a checkpoint and we shot into a car full of unarmed civilians. Three of the four occupants were fatally wounded.
“The fourth occupant screamed at me and asked why I killed his brother and that they weren’t terrorists. He pointed his finger in my face and told me that I killed his brother, and that I was responsible for his death.
“That incident has been forever etched in my memory,” he reminisced.
Massey has been travelling around the world to talk about the atrocities he witnessed and participated in Iraq. He also wrote a book entitled Kill!, Kill!, Kill!.
“I have made it my life’s mission to tell the people of America and abroad exactly what happened to me over in Iraq,” he added.
He lauded Malaysia’s initiative in promoting peace, adding that not only Americans but the international community also needed to unite to put an end to the war.
Some of the issues that he will bring up at the forum pertain to violations of the Geneva Convention and the growing peace movement within the US.
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