“I don’t think that’s a good way to fight a war, just to blow the shit out of a country, kill a bunch of innocent people, and then charge into another country that has nothing to do with it”

Nicholas Przybyla participated in the invasion of Afghanistan and is one of the founding member of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW). He spoke to Traveling Soldier’s Sgt. Martin Smith (ret’d) at the March 19th rally in Fayetteville, N.C. home of the 82nd Airborne.

Smith: Can you tell me your name, rank, and where you served?
Przybyla: My name is Nicholas Przybyla. I was an E3 in the Navy. I served on the U.S.S. Peleliu with the Peleliu Amphibious Ready Group, 13th Marine Special Operations Capable. We did the first initial invasion of Afghanistan from 2001 to 2002.

S: Why are you here today?
P: I’m here to stop the war I guess, trying to put an end to it and let people know what’s going on is total bullshit. I had a top secret clearance and every day we would receive intelligence briefings twice a day, and it came down towards the end of our deployment that we had killed about twenty suspected terrorists, members of the Taliban. We got about seven hostages onboard and the total deaths of civilian casualties was about three thousand – most of them were children – and I just don’t think that’s a good way to fight a war, just to blow the shit out of a country, kill a bunch of innocent people, and then charge into another country that has nothing to do with it. Towards the end of our deployment the intelligence briefings that we got said that the 13th Marines had Osama bin Laden and all his buddies cornered in the Tora Bora Mountains, and it was only a matter of time before we uncovered them. After we were relieved, we were relieved by the [Bomb Homer Shard] Amphibious Ready Group. They went in and did the same thing that we did, have him even more cornered and after that they just let him go. All the troops were pulled out and sent to Iraq over bullshit when the real person that was responsible for September 11th was set free. That’s a fact. That’s the true intelligence, military intelligence that I received on a day to day basis and they say according to our intelligence the real threat was Iraq. Well I remember receiving those intelligence briefings and that’s not the truth at all and I’m starting to think that’s all a fact and my personal opinion is that I think the Bush administration wanted bin Laden to go free so that they could scare the rest of the country and just keep them scared and move into Iraq and not be questioned about it.

S: Did you know anything about Afghanistan before you went over there?
P: I joined during peacetime – the whole “Navy let the journey begin” thing – I came from a real shit hole in the Detroit area pretty much an abandoned industrial town because all the automotive companies pulled out so we didn’t have any money. I joined the military to try to give my parents a chance to retire. We got to Darwin Australia on September 11, so we were the first troops deployed to Afghanistan and we didn’t hear very much about it. The most vivid thing I can remember is just to show you how much the troops are brainwashed. When the planes hit the towers we heard that New York and Washington had been attacked and lots of Americans were dead. There wasn’t any remorse on the ship, of course they were a couple of exceptions, but the majority of troops though on board were celebrating because they finally got a chance to go to war.

S: What would you say to someone that might be thinking of joining the military today?
P: I would say don’t do it. It’s not worth it. I joined the military and now like I said before sometimes I get people that come up to me and say thank you for your contribution thank you for protecting us and I think that’s kind of stupid because we weren’t protecting them at all. Our National Guard is gone. America’s weaker than it’s ever been on a home front attack, and it’s completely pointless to go to Iraq and die over something that serves no purpose. It’s completely insane.

S: Why did you choose to join Iraq Veterans against the War?
P: I think the main reason why I joined is because what happens is after you’re involved in something like that and you know that people are dead from a direct result of you and the rest of your fellow soldiers, and sailors, marines and airmen being there that it just tears you apart inside and I think it’s my duty to try and counter-recruit and get people to stop joining up so that they don’t have to deal with this the rest of their lives. It’s been about four years since it happened to me, and I still think about it every day. I don’t want that for the rest of the year. Look at what Vietnam did. You walk down the street and look at the homeless and almost every single one of them is Vietnam-era age, and it’s all happening again.

S: What do you know about the soldiers that fought in Vietnam?
P: My good friend’s father was a Vietnam veteran and the last thing that he worked really hard after he got out of the military the last thing he wanted to do was have his son join the military, but his son went ahead and did it instead. The day before his son left to go into the forces, the first time he told us about his tour in Vietnam and he said he just couldn’t explain how horrible it was walking through the jungle constantly, just covered in sweat, for nothing coming across your buddy and he’s got his mouth sewn shut and when you cut the stitches to open his mouth his testicles come out of it.

S: Can you describe your Military Occupational Specialty?
P: My Military Occupational Specialty was photography. All the people from the different branches in service go to the same photography school in Fort Mead, Maryland. One of the courses of training is combat photo investigative photography accident photography. They trained us for a reason, but when we got to the Middle East and people were coming on board – prisoners of war, injured people, accidents, and stuff like that. We were taking pictures to be translated and to be sent back to the United States and Military Police would come up and erase them from our cameras. And they did that because they were being told to do that. Obviously, I don’t think that our Commander-in-Chief and all his buddies in office want our people seeing those kinds of images.

S: Have you heard about the military recruiters being kicked off some of the campuses around the country?
P: No, I haven’t but I go to a community college in Los Angeles and I see recruiters there on a weekly basis and usually for the most part they’re guys that have just joined. They don’t know what they’re talking about so you can’t hold it against them, because they’re going through the same brainwashing that we all went through when we were in there. So what I like to do is put on my cammie jacket and go stand right next to them and while they’re passing out pro-join the service documents I hold out documents of peace from Iraq Veterans against the War. I think that I’ve successfully counter-recruited at least five people.

Page 3-->