Day 17 - Defending a Defamation

With a deployment comes many stresses unfamiliar to civilians back in the States. There are things we have to deal with and work through that many wouldn’t be able to comprehend unless they too were in the same situation. Times get hard and people may have feelings that they want to vent out. With most other situations, there is a time and place for this to be done. A prime example of where not to make such comments is in an office environment where many people try to promote the well-being and success of the Iraqi people. Not only does this prove to be harmful to the work environment, it tends to negate any strides we as a nation have made.

One day as I was sitting in the office working on a report as the individuals behind me were talking about an issue that had occurred not too long beforehand. For the privacy of this person, I will omit his name, rank, or branch of service. He had been deployed for 11 months and was weeks away from returning home. The entire duration of his time here, he had complained about why we were here, our mission that we were to undertake, and the way the people of Iraq were not worth our efforts. He had not been able to interact with any of the population, letting his biases dictate his judgements.

As they began to talk about the incident of the Iraqi throwing a shoe at President Bush, this individual began to go off on a rant. During this time period, he continued to say how the people of Iraq were not worth our efforts. Hurling insults and demeaning phrases just as fast as the Iraqi journalist threw his shoe, I began to grow agitated. We were in Iraq for a reason – publicly insulting the people of this country was not one of the reasons.

After a few minutes of letting his rants and raves continue, I took of my headphones and turned to the individual. Sternly yet respectably, I pointed out the errors of what he was doing. I let him know he was in no position to pass judgments on that Iraqi man, nor any other people of Iraq. Not once had he gone outside the wire to interact with the people. Not once had he been around a native of this country, listen to their side of the story, get their feelings of the war. His opinions were based on the information being passed around in the media. Working in the office we did, he of all people should know the vast majority of the information in the media being circulated is incorrect or full of biases.

As I laid out the facts of the situation, citing several references we both had access to, he gave me a look of disbelief. Once I was done, he turned to me and asked “Why do you care about these people? They haven’t done anything for you”. Little did he know the people of Iraq have been an inspiration to me. They had shown me things I would never have known prior to this deployment. As mentioned previously, I began to see them as people rather than terrorists. Not all people of this country are tools of evil as the media so often portrays them to be. Even in the US we have criminals. Does that mean the entire population back home should be frowned upon? Every country, every state, every person has their faults. This, however, is not grounds to judge the population as a whole. Explaining one of my encounters with an Iraqi, he began to understand my point of view, my stance, and what I based my judgments on.

Later that day, after quietly researching the information I had given him earlier, he came to me to apologize. Realizing he was wrong in both in information and his actions, he retracted all of his comments. Defaming a person based on personal biases or misinformation is, in my opinion, one of the worst ways to hurt someone, to hurt the efforts of others, specifically the mission of the US military in Iraq. Since the event occurred, he has been less eager to judge and more eager to research prior to making comments that would defame someone. With one person’s perspective impacted by my words and my actions, I feel as if my purpose here in Iraq is clear. Not only am I here to fight a war amongst thousands, but to spread the knowledge that many lack, promoting a better environment for all.