How war led to a ten year prison sentence for Andrew Chambers.
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People often talk of the daydreams that soldiers have while at war. The dreams of returning home to their wife and kids, reunions with brothers and sisters, a beer at the bar with old friends. But few talk about the dreams of going to war. In 2003 I joined the United States Army—after we were already engaged in two wars. Everyone in basic training knew we’d be going to war. We weren’t draftees, we were volunteers. We had volunteered to fight, to kill, and to die. We daydreamed about leaving that wife, kids, and job behind, going off to war. We daydreamed about spending time with our new friends. Writing those emotional letters home. Killing the enemy. Saving our friends. Fighting for something worthwhile. Being something more than we were back home.
“Find a veteran and listen to his story … a lot of us just need someone to talk to.”
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The problem is, that like most parts of life, things never happen as we expect or hope. War happens, people die, things are seen, and then we begin having daydreams of coming home. But home isn’t what we expected either.
For Andrew “Sarge” Chambers, his journey back home ended with a ten year prison sentence for attempted man-slaughter; and it led a judge to declare, “Your service in Iraq makes you a threat to society.”
What follows is Andrew’s powerful story of coming home and how the dream of war led to the nightmare of reality.
“Find a veteran and listen to his story … a lot of us just need someone to talk to.”
In our new War & Veterans section here at GMP we’ll be doing just that. Giving a place where veterans, and family-members of veterans, can simply talk and share their stories.
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About Andrew: Andrew “Sarge” Chambers proudly hails from Pickerington, Ohio. He served in the U.S. Army and has maintained the habit he acquired there of cursing just a bit too much. Throughout his service, Sarge was also able to maintain and hone his sense of honor and kindness, but the experience did slightly alter his sense of humor. While categorically not a morning person, when he is able to finally pry his eyes open, he always thinks to himself that he would rather be fishing. Most of his days are filled with coaching softball, Garth Brooks songs and thoughts of the family he hopes to be able to start soon. He is taking the stage to tell his story, parts of which can be seen in the documentary Operation Resurrection: The Warrior Returns. After TEDxMarionCorrectional he will work on his next unique thing.
–photo: Truthout.Org/flickr
I think it would be worth examining how training methods have changed over the years. I remember seeing a talk given by a psychologist who works with the US military to design training methods. He explained that the brass were concerned by the statistics submitted after WWII that showed a significant number of soldiers were not aiming to kill. They changed training routines, and by Vietnam, this number was increased to something like 98%, but it created a dramatic increase in post traumatic stress and other mental health issues. By seeking out these high kill ratios, military command forget they… Read more »
Sounds fascinating. If you have any links to the talk or articles please share!
We have a gun problem in this country because of dumb judges like this. You see, years ago, dumba$$es that pulled knives, ran around spouting their opinions to strangers, road raging, or generally behaving in an unacceptable or threatening way to society would get their a$$es beat, just like this dumb punk did. But when you take away the much-needed a$$ whoopins, unchecked those fools end up getting a gun and killing people. I’m sure the punk’s beating is imperceptible today, but the ‘impression’ that Andrew Chambers left on him will probably keep him in check for several decades. Attempted… Read more »
I wouldn’t say it’s a gun problem. I’d say it’s much deeper than that, in my opinion. It’s not about going tit-for-tat. The military doesn’t just teach us how to kill, they also teach us how to strategize. It seems that what you’re talking about, in a sense, is more a culture issue. A gun-culture, violence-culture, unjust-culture; to fix issues like that it takes strategy not muscle. But as far as sentencing goes, it does seem ridiculous, especially if you read more into the story. But I think the main point of the story seems to be larger than what… Read more »
The society that I know, that is my reality, doesn’t want you to be animals on the battlefield either. The atrocities our US military commits in the name of “war” or “defeating the enemy” are unjust and also terrible. The first minute of this video – his initial call and response – were terrifying to me. The fact that we take 18 year old young men and women and brainwash them into thinking this is OK – that kill or be killed is GOOD, anywhere, is incredibly disturbing. The fact that people volunteer to be trained this is incredibly disturbing… Read more »
Million bucks says the judge didn’t serve.