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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Reader Reactions
wake_up_sleeper,
I don’t believe I have ever in my 46 plus years on this earth heard anyone so full of bullsh*t as you. Man you are on the verge of needing committing to a state mental hospital, no offense intended.
I guess I am just a mirage? LMAO!
The goverment just says I exist just to justify my irritating fools like you!
I am just a part of your mind and immagination that you wish didn’t exit,I am a conspiracy, I am just a nightmare and you wish that I would just vanish.
Maybe you need to go talk to your shrink ie. (your professors, pastors, and/or gurus), lay on his couch for a while and tell him all about the ficticious characters you have going on in your mind.
A**hole, Roosevelt had us in WWII before Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt commited to Great Britain our resouces so that Hitler would not overtake Britain.
Really man, YOU need to WAKE UP, sounds like you are hooked up to a perpetual tank of nitrous oxide.
Dude, you need to check out whatever’s in your bong, cause you are smokin’ some weird sh*t for sure! Have you been reading to much Plato? Danta’s Inferno? Do you see people running around you or have you any immaginary friends, I’m sure you do cause you are SHOT OUT!
If you by chance have a degree, you might want to hire a good lawyer and sue for a refund of your tuition cause you got ripped man! You could hit the jackpot on the punitive damage side man, cause you are out of this galaxy!
Are you by chance related to Wacko Jacko, Ever been to never never land, like playing with little boys? Just curious?
pearl harbor was allowed to happen to justify the entry of america into WWII.
911 (whether allowed to happen or made to happen) justified 2 wars in the middle east, the patriot act, warrantless wiretapping, torture, and the constant loss of our liberties and freedoms.
you’re the lost souls.
hopeless.
Also just one more thing. Without the men and women in those uniforms in Iraq and Afghanistan the rest of the world might find out that there are more cowards like you in the U.S. and invade, (Smart Guy), but I guess you too busy posting and reading bullcrap stories on google or wherever to notice. Lots of luck, lost sole!
Will you please stop bantering on a war you have no personal experience in and just fade away? Go back to Mommy and Daddy and hve them fix you a nice warm glass of cocoa and go to bed kid. You’re so lost I don’t know where to begin. I bet you believe Elvis is still alive too!
Some of you on here are so well “educated” that you would not know the truth if it hit you like a freight train in the face.
I guess Pearl Harbor was an inside job too?
Even more ignorant is the argument some of you offer up that the hijackers of 911 are still alive and well.
Evidently while you were getting so educated you must have been huffing some strong fumes or smokin’ some weird sh*t.
It’s crying shame that men and women have faught and died to give you idiots the liberty you have to spat off at the mouth the brainwashing you learned from some radical, idiotic professor or some cult preacher!
Like I mentioned previously, some of you are so D*mn “educated” that you have not an ounce of sense.
Back to the idiot who this article is all about, He belongs in a military stockade doing hard labor for a long time.
To all of you who enlisted or were drafted, and DEPLOYED!, Thank You from the bottom of my heart for your sacrifice and service. I greatly appreciate the freedom & safety that has been afforded to me and my family.
To you educated/enlightened jerks, why don’t you go to the middle east and become a “towel head or camel jockey” I am sure you could find a better purpose in life than what you have now!
to marty morgan:
it is you who is confused, friend. i am not narrow minded. thats why i’m on this side of the debate. american honor has nothing to with it. 9-11 was an inside job and the war shouldn’t have started. we entered the war based on lie after lie after lie. where are the “WMD’s”?
on the fbi’s web page found here:
http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terbinladen.htm
bin ladin is wanted in connection with the embassy bombings in ‘98. there is no mention of 9-11.
mohammed atta is still alive. along with many other supposed 911 hijackers.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/sep/02/september11.usa
without 9-11 there would be no war in iraq. people are oppressed in many countries all over the world by genocidal dictators, but we don’t invade those countries. look at north korea. we know they have “WMD’s” but we aren’t invading n.korea.
9-11 was the BIG LIE.
to auburn2008:
look into merck. look into dr. maurice hilleman. there’s your aids and cancer. he admits it.
look into baxter who distributed avian flu in their vaccines.
look into gardasil.
look into dr. carley
www.drcarley.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RInjqa04njg
do some research so you actually know what you’re talking about.
thiomersal, aluminum sulfate, mercury, formaldehyde…all in vaccines.
“Vaccines, all vaccines, are immune suppressing; that is they depress our immune functions. The chemicals in the vaccines depress our immune system; the virus present depresses immune function, and the foreign DNA/RNA from animal tissues depresses immunity.“
“we are trading a total immune system depression (our only defense against all known disease - including millions of pathogens) for a temporary immunity against one disease, usually an innocuous childhood disease. Therefore, the trade is not at all fair. Mullins puts it this way, “Are we trading mumps and measles for cancer and AIDS.“
to Kaboy09:
no liberal media for. no media at all for me. that part of whats wrong with you people. you’ve been conditioned and programmed by the media. FIXED NEWS, BSNBC, hollywood, the music and fashion industries. you’re all sheep in a flock.
i would suggest you read plato’s “the republic”
learn, research, question…
No change of HEART from me.
You are the type crazy person that
adheres to the Liberal Media, they are
NOT there for YOU, either.
We need more Marty Morgans, real
AMERICANS…that talk RIGHT, THINK RIGHT, willing to go and do the RIGHT
THING..you other two Cowards..
Hope you get your wel fare checks.
So you think the US Gov’t is responsible for “creating aids, cancer, and autism” and spreading it all around the world. WOW! That has to be the greatest conspiracy theory I’ve ever heard. I’m pretty sure there was cancer and autism long before there was a US Gov’t.
That’s too much you are defiantly riding the crazy train.
You mean there are TWO of you! What is this world coming to? You are narrow minded and seem to have the 2 issues confused. One is American honor, which obviously, you have none of, and the other is the war in Iraq. And by the way, I am glad that you would have taken jail over the Military, cause God knows, that I do not want you participating in the act of watching the backs of anyone put in harms way, mine included. I would rather take my chances! If our forefathers had felt the way you do about duty to our Mother Country, we would not be having this conversation. Do you actually believe that each person in each previous war from WW 1 to present, agreed with going to another countries soil to die? You and Matthis wouldn’t have gone then either, and just think where this Country would be if we had not gone.
watch “the obama deception”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaQNACwaLw
watch “endgame”
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1070329053600562261
watch “loose change”
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3719259008768610598
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