Local soldier who refused redeployment speaks in Auburn
Brittany Whitley | Opelika-Auburn News
Matthis Chiroux, pictured here Sunday outside the Auburn Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, says he will continue his fight to be heard.
Staff Writer
Published: July 5, 2009
Matthis Chiroux, the Auburn native who refused redeployment to Iraq last year citing moral objections, took the podium at Auburn Unitarian Universalist Fellowship on Sunday morning to speak about his trials and tribulations during his service and since he refused redeployment.
Chiroux said he refused deployment to Iraq because he believes it is an illegal occupation and that the Army fosters a culture of abuse and torture.
Now, after obtaining a general discharge, Chiroux is still speaking out against the Iraq War.
He told the congregation Sunday there’s “a Fourth Reich movement right here on our shining society on the hill.”
Before receiving redeployment papers, Chiroux served for four years as an Army journalist in Japan, Germany, the Philippines and Afghanistan. He said his job was to disseminate propaganda.
“I did very high-level propaganda,” he said. “We were targeting members of Congress … The military is maybe one of the greatest public relations hoaxes ever in this country.”
On Sunday morning, Chiroux admitted to mistakes in the past, including run-ins with the law as a juvenile. He said those run-ins landed him in court and, subsequently, in the Army. Once in the Army, he said he was taught how to punch someone in a way that it would kill that person and how to stab someone to do the same.
“I was taught how to kill people like everyone else,” he said. He said racism and sexism were encouraged.
Chiroux said the Army told him, “These aren’t people. They’re Haji. Hajis killing and mutilating your buddies.”
He said the Army used religious fears against detainees in interrogations.
Chiroux also said that while deployed, he and other Army members solicited prostitutes in the Philippines and Japan.
In June 2008, Chiroux did not show up for redeployment.
“They never came for me,” he said.
He received a letter giving him two options — a dishonorable discharge or a hearing to defend himself against the dishonorable discharge.
“I went to this hearing. I sat before this board and I defended myself,” he said.
Chiroux said he told the board that he was not a coward. He said he told them that the Iraq War was a criminal occupation. He said soldiers in Iraq were being forced to commit war crimes.
He received an honorable discharge.
“I haven’t so much as lost my G.I. Bill,” he said. Chiroux still receives G.I. benefits, including funds to attend college.
The Auburn native said he would continue to fight until the “criminal occupation” is concluded.
“I never stopped standing and I never stopped fighting,” he said. “The struggle will be eternal, but I have a fighting chance now. It’s on our children’s backs that these occupations will be waged. I consider the truth to be divine and consider human life to be the same.”
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http://freedomedium.com/2009/07/obama-signs-executive-order-barring-release-of-his-birth-certificate/
Before we engage, let us look at the true cost to our people and our country. Is this war necessary? should be the ongoing question. Would diplomacy be the better course of action?
July 17, 2009
Vets’ Mental Health Diagnoses Rising By JAMES DAO
A new study has found that more than one-third of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who enrolled in the veterans health system after 2001 received a diagnosis of a mental health problem, most often post-traumatic stress disorder or depression.
The study by researchers at the San Francisco Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the University of California, San Francisco, also found that the number of veterans found to have mental health problems rose steadily the longer they were out of the service.
The study, released Thursday, was based on the department health records of 289,328 veterans involved in the two wars who used the veterans health system for the first time from April 1, 2002, to April 1, 2008.
The researchers found that 37 percent of those people received mental health diagnoses. Of those, the diagnosis for 22 percent was post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, for 17 percent it was depression and for 7 percent it was alcohol abuse. One-third of the people with mental health diagnoses had three or more problems, the study found.
The increase in diagnoses accelerated after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the researchers found. Among the group of veterans who enrolled in veterans health services during the first three months of 2004, 14.6 percent received mental health diagnoses after one year. But after four years, the number had nearly doubled, to 27.5 percent.
The study’s principal author, Dr. Karen H. Seal, attributed the rising number of diagnoses to several factors: repeat deployments; the perilous and confusing nature of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, where there are no defined front lines; growing public awareness of PTSD; unsteady public support for the wars; and reduced troop morale.
Dr. Seal said the study also underscored that it can take years for PTSD to develop. “The longer we can work with a veteran in the system, the more likely there will be more diagnoses over time,” said Dr. Seal, who is co-director of the mental health clinic for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans at the San Francisco veterans medical center.
The new report joins a growing body of research showing that the prolonged conflicts, where many troops experience long and repeat deployments, are taking an accumulating psychological toll.
A telephone survey by the RAND Corporation last year of 1,965 people who had been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan found that 14 percent screened positive for PTSD and 14 percent for major depression. Those rates are considerably higher than for the general public.
“The study provides more insight as to just how stressed our force and families are after years of war and multiple deployments,” said René A. Campos, deputy director of government relations for the Military Officers Association of America. “Our troops and families need more time at home — more dwell time, fewer and less frequent deployments.”
The study was posted Thursday on the Web site of The American Journal of Public Health.
couldn’t care less about the birth certificate. OBAMA is a puppet being controlled by the same people who controlled bush.
wake-up,
You have no idea what my views are regarding any of the things you have been ranting about. You might be surprised.
The point is that this comment section is about Matthis Chiroux & the con job he is doing on anyone who will listen. It is not about all the conspiracy theories that you have been trying to shove down peoples’ throats. Man, you have bought into each and every one of them too, haven’t you?
I recall you saying something about Ron Paul & what a fine candidate he would be. Do you know what Ron Paul said when his constituency asked him to stand up about the usurper’s birth certificate? I believe he said something to the effect that he would be laughed out of Congress. Yeah, he’s a real patriot alright.
You really need to go somewhere else to spew your irrational nonsense. No one here is interested.
God bless America!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ro1WL5ketWg
you did respond thought. and by the way you stop passing out the webpages. You know what happens when you assume don’t ya? By the way I never called you a dipsh*t. I believed you called me one though, just like a confused soul you think you can persuade the now unsilent majority. Were waking up jr because we are tired of having you views spit out with out any rebutle. I thought you were Mathis because you believes are just as (*&( up as his. Believing what you read and not what you see will and does get people in trouble, so keep believing Elvis is alive and America is the worlds problem and not the solver and I’ll see you on the flipside.
you people started being jerks attacking me personally for the comments i posted.
because my views did not line up with yours YOU attacked.
do you honestly think your grade school insults affect me in any way? i couldn’t care less.
i find it interesting how you respond when your view of reality is threatened.
none of you are open minded in the least. none of you question your government. none of you have any idea what you’re talking about. you cant disprove any of my arguments nor can you prove any of yours.
you’re sad.
wake-up,
Ever hear the phrase “You can catch more bees with honey than vinegar?“
Course not. Did you get your training from ACORN? I hear they are always looking for obnoxious, rude, ill-mannered, jerks.
Hey, then you could be on the inside looking out at all of us poor ignorant fools. You’d fit right in.
God bless America!
once again dip sh*ts. I AM NOT MATTHIS. never met him. i have no contracts with the corrupt u.s. government. i receive no benefits nor do i expect to.
keep believing 2+2=5
www.infowars.com
Just answer me this wake_up. Do you still use the benefits that you think you earned from this murdering machine called the Army, ie The United States Of America, that you failed to live up to your end of the contract on?
I bet you do, yet you sit here and still bad mouth it. I guess a real education in America is failing, or your up bringing was horribly wrong to even think that is right. Regardless of what came out of the military hearing, if it is so bad and demonizing why would you still want the benefits?
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