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Podcast: “I wanted to lay my rifle down.” – Hart Viges
Hart Viges
by Courage to Resist
https://couragetoresist.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/CourageToResist_Podcast_Hart_Viges.mp3
Podcast: “I wanted to lay my rifle down.” – Hart Viges
Hart Viges is a veteran of the second Gulf War. A self-described patriot, Hart transformed from a highly motivated soldier to chaplain’s assistant and eventually, conscientious objector, after serving 11 months in Iraq. He has continued to share his experiences as a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War (About Face: Veterans Against the War), Veterans For Peace, and through his counter recruitment work in high schools.
“I was highly motivated in basic training, highly motivated. I took every part of suffering as part of what I would expect.”
This Courage to Resist podcast was recorded and edited by Matthew Breems. Production assistance, Stephanie Atkinson. Executive Producer, Jeff Paterson. This episode brought to you in collaboration with the GI Resistance Working Group of Veterans For Peace.
“I can’t start a conscientious objector application now. I’m going to look like a total idiot and traitor. It’s time to grow up. Own your responsibilities, do what you said you would do, suck it up.”
Help Keep These Podcasts Coming
If you appreciate these podcasts, and you’d like to enable us to keep making them for you, please donate today.
DONATE
Transcript
Hart Viges:
And he asked me if I’m a conscientious objector. And I, those words just sounded right to me and I said, “Yes,” not really knowing what a conscientious objector is. I was like, “Yes, that sounds right. Anything other than what I am now, I can’t be.”
Matthew Breems:
Welcome to the Courage to Resist podcast. Since 2005, Courage to Resist has worked to support military resistance to illegal and unjust wars, counter-recruitment, draft resistance and the policies of empire. I’m your host, Matthew Breems. This episode brought to you in collaboration with the GI Resistance Working Group of Veterans For Peace. Hart Viges is the podcast guest today. Hart served in the Airborne during the second Iraq conflict. His time there observing the occupation and dehumanization of the Iraqi people persuaded Hart to become a conscientious objector. Hart went on to become a voice for peace. He attended high school job fairs as an anti-military activist and participated in speaking tours throughout the country.
Hart, welcome to the Courage to Resist podcast. Thank you so much for taking your time to be on here and to share your story of resistance. Let’s dig in and get some background on you. Tell us about the years leading up to you joining the military and what was your main motivation for doing it at that stage of your life?
Hart Viges:
I was working in restaurants the years up to 9/11 and basically I just wanted to play my bass and get in a band and party and have a good time. And 9/11 happened and really changed everything. September the 12th, I was in the recruiting station asking for infantry and my recruiter had pictures of all the paratrooper, Airborne and I was like, “Well, I’ll do that too.”
Matthew Breems:
Were you a part of a military family where this was a tradition for men to join up?
Hart Viges:
Both my grandfathers were Army Air Corps, Air Force career. My dad and my two uncles were Air Guard out of Arizona. My dad spent years in Vietnam and Spain and France and the United States being part of the Air Guard. So they were all out by the time I was growing up, but everybody had a uniform in the closet, which fascinated me as a kid. So yeah, there was definite military family.
Matthew Breems:
So September 12th rolls around. This was just a purely patriotic move for you or was there anything beyond that?
Hart Viges:
I was a patriot. I was a registered Republican , Rush Limbaugh-listening patriot. Yeah, I was a easy sell, easy sell. I was like, “How soon can I go in?” Halloween, November 1st went off to Ft. Benning, Georgia for my basic and AIT, infantry.
Matthew Breems:
Tell us about some of your early time in the military. Was it shocking to you? Is there anything that caught you off guard or that you had problems with or were you like you said, an easy sell and it went down quick?
Hart Viges:
I was highly motivated in basic training, highly motivated. I took every part of suffering as part of what I would expect.
Matthew Breems:
How long were you in before you actually end up getting deployed over to Iraq?
Hart Viges:
Valentine’s Day was our deployment day. My anniversary to deploy to Kuwait was Valentine’s Day 2003. That March, we went into Iraq. There were some elements ahead of us. We were going to jump into Baghdad Airport, but third ID was ahead of schedule and had already took Baghdad. So our jump got scratched and we drove in this longest convoy–I never seen a convoy that was as wide as the sea because you saw trucks all the way front of you and all the way back of you–to As-Samawah in the south.
Matthew Breems:
Just walk us through what a typical day looked like for you during your first week or two in Iraq.
Hart Viges:
When we got to As-Samawah they put us in this trash mound, trash yard, but with sand built on top of it like a dump that got covered over with a bunch of sand. You don’t want to dig through that sand. You find all sorts of crazy stuff, but they put us there and waiting for days. The flies were so heavy. The only times you could eat was right before the sun came up in the morning and then right after the sun went down. We were outside the town of As-Samawah and we watched the lines of infantry roll in, and then we’d get the fire missions and we would fire off mortars. We fired off a lot of rounds and so a lot of “big booms”. I was on the 50 Cal.
I was the 50 Cal gunner on back of an unarmored humvee. So I just sat up there. I didn’t…Sometimes I’d help prep the rounds, but I wasn’t the gunner or the Sergeant, but I just stayed on that 50 watching my sector. Did a lot of watching my sector. And then when we moved into As-Samawah, seeing all the burnt vehicles and the armored, Bradley armored, it was a scout. So it was a humvee we heard over the radio, got hit by a rocket. On the radio, we’re hearing all this screaming and….uh wilding out. I wanted so badly…we need to go in there and we had to stay our position. We were mortars and we’re hearing the radio of taxi cabs. The enemy using taxi cabs to move around. Any taxi cab was a orange and white car painted orange and white. The town lit up, everybody’s firing at the civilian cars and shit.
Matthew Breems:
What started to happen in you… What did you experience that started to change your perspective on the war and why you were there?
Hart Viges:
We escorted some contractors to a water treatment plant. This is about maybe like an hour outside of Baghdad and palm trees, farming area. It was like a little oasis community. Started asking people questions. Well, somebody says, “This person says something bad about the U.S.” So we go there and toss the place. I find a little .22 caliber pistol and we proceed to take the family’s military-aged men. And I knew those guys weren’t the guys with the RPGs that we ran into earlier, because I knew because I was staring at those guys’ faces, its like you don’t forget that face ever.
And the mother was really begging at our feet crying, pleading with us, and I knew what we were doing was wrong, but I just held it in and I owe that mother a lifetime of trying to make right by this. They got taken to the most likely […] at Baghdad Airport at the time. We did a lot of that too of detainees in our FOB (forward operating base), would be collected at our FOB and we’d take them to the airport. That was probably the most I’ve interacted with the locals, just sitting in a room with about eight or nine men and women, made sure if they wanted a meal, even if you could tell like the guards before who we were relieving. They were total assholes to them and who knows what, but I make sure everybody got MREs, water, cigarettes. There was usually a couple gentlemen there that spoke English.
They would translate for us, our conversations. This woman was saying a lot to me, about me and I was like, “What’s she saying?” And he said that, “She says you are a good man. You’re a good man. Make sure cigarettes and food.” I remember the previous guard was like, “She threatened us with a grenade at a gas station. F her.” I’m like, “Okay, you know, did she have a grenade?” “No, she just said it.” I was like, “Okay. This is not cool either.” You see those gas lines there in Baghdad at the time and people were waiting days. The lines would literally go around neighborhoods, down highways. It was crazy. The American troops, we don’t wait for anything. We will just roll in, move those cars, refill our trucks. Yeah. If you’ve been waiting for a couple of days, you’d be angry too and say you want to throw grenade at these troops that are just disregarding you. We made their people feel small.
Matthew Breems:
What were the next steps for you as you start to humanize the enemy and see firsthand the horrors of war? What did you start to do differently?
Hart Viges:
Nothing. At that time, nothing. Not a Goddamn thing. I wanted to lay my rifle down. I wanted to, but I had to make sure that everyone went home safe. So many times that I tried to really walk a really tight line of not being weak, but not being disrespectful.
Matthew Breems:
In the end, how long did you end up staying at Iraq?
Hart Viges:
About 11 months. It was almost a year before we came back. We came back January 20th, 2004. My change really doesn’t happen until I go on leave. We’re there Ft. Bragg for like a week or two and then I went up to Washington, California too. Got to see an uncle and cousin in Southern California and then up back to Washington, friends. That’s where I joined and I saw the movie, “The Passion of the Christ”. Really those two things, that whole period there just had me, really gave me the motivation and the ammunition to go back and try to figure out what the hell I was going to do. I still had no point, no idea of how I was going to go about anything. I just went back and tried to put on a mask. And I put myself in the hospital. I had these sharp pains in my chest.
I felt like I was having these heart attacks where my left arm was going numb and sharp pain in my chest. I… debilitating. I go check in with the hospital and they said the protective sac around your heart is being inflamed. Are you stressed out? “Yeah. Shot at, IED, mortared, car wreck.” Yeah, but I put on, I was like, “No Airborne! Infantry!” Well, they give me a two week period of not having PT, no physical training. Can’t smoke me either. So I’m real happy when I take it to my platoon Sergeant saying, giving a piece of paper like “I can’t get smoked, no PT, You take it easy.” And he said, “Why are they giving you this?” And I said,” I’m stressed.” And he was like, “Are you stressed?” And I just, I started crying. “They’re going to fuck me, Sergeant! They’re going to fuck me.” He reacted really, really cool and was like, “What? What? Why? Why?” Trying to ask me these questions, calming me down. I’m like, “I can’t do it. I can’t pull the trigger. I don’t want to kill anyone.”
He sat me down and really played the fatherly role. I have so much respect for Sergeant Stone. So much respect. Tried to calm me down and told me that war affects people different ways. Would you like to go talk to the chaplain? I’m like, “Yes. I want to talk to the chaplain.” So I continue my nervous breakdown in front of a chaplain. He asked me if I’m a conscientious objector. Those words just sounded right to me. And I said, “Yes.” Not really knowing what a conscientious objector is. I was like, “Yes! That sounds right! Anything other than what I am now, I can’t be.” He said, “Why don’t you go think about it?” So I go to the computer and I am searching “conscientious objector”. I find “Veterans for Peace”, and become a member. They, behind my back, my platoon Sergeant, my first Sergeant, went to whoever made a bigger decision, and moved me from my mortar platoon to chaplain’s assistant. That was the news waiting for me when I got back at the end of the day, from Googling all this stuff.
Matthew Breems:
Essentially to get you taking out of a position where you’re not going to see action.
Hart Viges:
Yeah. Maybe the chaplain can ease Hart out and justify this whole war thing. There was a lot of that, proselytizing. I also went to the Peace House. Oh my gosh, the Fayetteville Peace House is a huge credit too. I went there. I talked to the nice gentleman–the manual for conscientious objection–that was the only manual that I ever read in the Army, full on just digging into it. I was up there writing, answering my 20 questions and making copies. Got a storage unit off post and put copies in there and some other stuff. I had copies of my paperwork off post so just in case if my shit got stolen–which, there had been–I was advised to make copies, and hide them away because other people who tried conscientious objectors had their paperwork stolen.
10 months later, I got honorably released as a conscientious objector. They delayed my paperwork–once. I called the Congressman from San Angelo, Texas, a Republican. You know, combat vet applying for a conscientious objection, they delayed my, the time that they needed to send off my paperwork. I was like, “Can you look into it?” Just wrote. They always say “Write a letter to your Congressman.” You don’t really expect much out of it, but that weekend I drove to Texas, went to a concert. On my way back, I’m driving, I’m in Louisiana when I get the call like, “Where are you?” And he said, “Well, there is a civilian here from Congress looking into your paperwork.” And they sounded scared, they sounded scared. And I was like, “Well, I can’t, I’m drunk. I can’t drive right now.” Man, it was the first time I felt power. Real power. They definitely got my paperwork moving smoothly after that.
Matthew Breems:
Did you become an activist at this point or was this just a personal journey for you?
Hart Viges:
I think it took me about a month or two there in Austin and VFP sending me emails about a rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina. And I’m like that’s just where I came from Ft. Bragg, Fayetteville, North Carolina. So I drove back and got a hotel room and went to this rally in March. As I walk up to the staging area, Michael Hoffman, one of the founders of IVAW runs over to me. Yeah. That’s where I fall in love with Veterans for Peace and Iraq Vets Against the War. It’s part of a historical first meeting after the founding. We were a speakers’ bureau at first. When Crawford (TX) popped off with Cindy Sheehan, I was living in Austin just down the street so I spent a good amount of time there in Crawford, which ballooned into a bus tour from Crawford to D.C. and I was a part of the central tour and we talked in Little Rock, Memphis, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, St. Louis all the way to D.C. Talking to news crews, to people in churches, to people in universities, people in community centers.
Matthew Breems:
Do you try to still be active in more recent years, speaking out against our military engagements across the globe or has your activism taken a new turn for you?
Hart Viges:
I’d say it’s a bit of a new turn. I haven’t spoken in front of a crowd in a long time. Tabling in high schools during lunch periods and college career fairs with a very interactive, informative table is where I feel like I’m really hitting the Military Industrial Complex at its key supply of human labor. There’s the money and the people who join. Going after the money is a bit difficult. It’s a bit hard, harder targets. Yeah, if you could get into a high school where we have equal access as military recruiters and have honest conversations. I’ve convinced multiple, like 12 right there, at that moment, you hear them and say, “I don’t want to join anymore.” Take away three DEPs, delayed entry program kids, during the college career fair and have the Army recruiters just giving you the stink eye because you just had three of their confirmed kids unconfirm themselves legally and point to us. “They told us I’m not legally bound to join a delayed entry program. You’re lying to me. I know you are.” Man, you don’t feel any more powerful than that.
Matthew Breems:
Well, Hart, as we wrap up our time here, do you have any closing thoughts or comments or words of wisdom you’d want to share?
Hart Viges:
Oh man, well, patience, timing and highlight these evils of war, racism, greed, sexism, and ecocide while uplifting ideals of peace, liberation, equity, justice, and education. Communication is our tool. Spoken word is our tool. You learn to speak, do that well because I put down the rifle. Matthew, man, this has been great conversation. Thank you so much.
Matthew Breems:
Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate you taking the time, sharing your story. Thank you so much. This podcast is a Courage to Resist production recorded and edited by Matthew Breems with special thanks to executive producer, Jeff Paterson. Visit couragetoresist.org for more information and to offer your support.
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Hart Viges
by Courage to Resist
https://couragetoresist.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/CourageToResist_Podcast_Hart_Viges.mp3
Podcast: “I wanted to lay my rifle down.” – Hart Viges
Hart Viges is a veteran of the second Gulf War. A self-described patriot, Hart transformed from a highly motivated soldier to chaplain’s assistant and eventually, conscientious objector, after serving 11 months in Iraq. He has continued to share his experiences as a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War (About Face: Veterans Against the War), Veterans For Peace, and through his counter recruitment work in high schools.
“I was highly motivated in basic training, highly motivated. I took every part of suffering as part of what I would expect.”
This Courage to Resist podcast was recorded and edited by Matthew Breems. Production assistance, Stephanie Atkinson. Executive Producer, Jeff Paterson. This episode brought to you in collaboration with the GI Resistance Working Group of Veterans For Peace.
“I can’t start a conscientious objector application now. I’m going to look like a total idiot and traitor. It’s time to grow up. Own your responsibilities, do what you said you would do, suck it up.”
Help Keep These Podcasts Coming
If you appreciate these podcasts, and you’d like to enable us to keep making them for you, please donate today.
DONATE
Transcript
Hart Viges:
And he asked me if I’m a conscientious objector. And I, those words just sounded right to me and I said, “Yes,” not really knowing what a conscientious objector is. I was like, “Yes, that sounds right. Anything other than what I am now, I can’t be.”
Matthew Breems:
Welcome to the Courage to Resist podcast. Since 2005, Courage to Resist has worked to support military resistance to illegal and unjust wars, counter-recruitment, draft resistance and the policies of empire. I’m your host, Matthew Breems. This episode brought to you in collaboration with the GI Resistance Working Group of Veterans For Peace. Hart Viges is the podcast guest today. Hart served in the Airborne during the second Iraq conflict. His time there observing the occupation and dehumanization of the Iraqi people persuaded Hart to become a conscientious objector. Hart went on to become a voice for peace. He attended high school job fairs as an anti-military activist and participated in speaking tours throughout the country.
Hart, welcome to the Courage to Resist podcast. Thank you so much for taking your time to be on here and to share your story of resistance. Let’s dig in and get some background on you. Tell us about the years leading up to you joining the military and what was your main motivation for doing it at that stage of your life?
Hart Viges:
I was working in restaurants the years up to 9/11 and basically I just wanted to play my bass and get in a band and party and have a good time. And 9/11 happened and really changed everything. September the 12th, I was in the recruiting station asking for infantry and my recruiter had pictures of all the paratrooper, Airborne and I was like, “Well, I’ll do that too.”
Matthew Breems:
Were you a part of a military family where this was a tradition for men to join up?
Hart Viges:
Both my grandfathers were Army Air Corps, Air Force career. My dad and my two uncles were Air Guard out of Arizona. My dad spent years in Vietnam and Spain and France and the United States being part of the Air Guard. So they were all out by the time I was growing up, but everybody had a uniform in the closet, which fascinated me as a kid. So yeah, there was definite military family.
Matthew Breems:
So September 12th rolls around. This was just a purely patriotic move for you or was there anything beyond that?
Hart Viges:
I was a patriot. I was a registered Republican , Rush Limbaugh-listening patriot. Yeah, I was a easy sell, easy sell. I was like, “How soon can I go in?” Halloween, November 1st went off to Ft. Benning, Georgia for my basic and AIT, infantry.
Matthew Breems:
Tell us about some of your early time in the military. Was it shocking to you? Is there anything that caught you off guard or that you had problems with or were you like you said, an easy sell and it went down quick?
Hart Viges:
I was highly motivated in basic training, highly motivated. I took every part of suffering as part of what I would expect.
Matthew Breems:
How long were you in before you actually end up getting deployed over to Iraq?
Hart Viges:
Valentine’s Day was our deployment day. My anniversary to deploy to Kuwait was Valentine’s Day 2003. That March, we went into Iraq. There were some elements ahead of us. We were going to jump into Baghdad Airport, but third ID was ahead of schedule and had already took Baghdad. So our jump got scratched and we drove in this longest convoy–I never seen a convoy that was as wide as the sea because you saw trucks all the way front of you and all the way back of you–to As-Samawah in the south.
Matthew Breems:
Just walk us through what a typical day looked like for you during your first week or two in Iraq.
Hart Viges:
When we got to As-Samawah they put us in this trash mound, trash yard, but with sand built on top of it like a dump that got covered over with a bunch of sand. You don’t want to dig through that sand. You find all sorts of crazy stuff, but they put us there and waiting for days. The flies were so heavy. The only times you could eat was right before the sun came up in the morning and then right after the sun went down. We were outside the town of As-Samawah and we watched the lines of infantry roll in, and then we’d get the fire missions and we would fire off mortars. We fired off a lot of rounds and so a lot of “big booms”. I was on the 50 Cal.
I was the 50 Cal gunner on back of an unarmored humvee. So I just sat up there. I didn’t…Sometimes I’d help prep the rounds, but I wasn’t the gunner or the Sergeant, but I just stayed on that 50 watching my sector. Did a lot of watching my sector. And then when we moved into As-Samawah, seeing all the burnt vehicles and the armored, Bradley armored, it was a scout. So it was a humvee we heard over the radio, got hit by a rocket. On the radio, we’re hearing all this screaming and….uh wilding out. I wanted so badly…we need to go in there and we had to stay our position. We were mortars and we’re hearing the radio of taxi cabs. The enemy using taxi cabs to move around. Any taxi cab was a orange and white car painted orange and white. The town lit up, everybody’s firing at the civilian cars and shit.
Matthew Breems:
What started to happen in you… What did you experience that started to change your perspective on the war and why you were there?
Hart Viges:
We escorted some contractors to a water treatment plant. This is about maybe like an hour outside of Baghdad and palm trees, farming area. It was like a little oasis community. Started asking people questions. Well, somebody says, “This person says something bad about the U.S.” So we go there and toss the place. I find a little .22 caliber pistol and we proceed to take the family’s military-aged men. And I knew those guys weren’t the guys with the RPGs that we ran into earlier, because I knew because I was staring at those guys’ faces, its like you don’t forget that face ever.
And the mother was really begging at our feet crying, pleading with us, and I knew what we were doing was wrong, but I just held it in and I owe that mother a lifetime of trying to make right by this. They got taken to the most likely […] at Baghdad Airport at the time. We did a lot of that too of detainees in our FOB (forward operating base), would be collected at our FOB and we’d take them to the airport. That was probably the most I’ve interacted with the locals, just sitting in a room with about eight or nine men and women, made sure if they wanted a meal, even if you could tell like the guards before who we were relieving. They were total assholes to them and who knows what, but I make sure everybody got MREs, water, cigarettes. There was usually a couple gentlemen there that spoke English.
They would translate for us, our conversations. This woman was saying a lot to me, about me and I was like, “What’s she saying?” And he said that, “She says you are a good man. You’re a good man. Make sure cigarettes and food.” I remember the previous guard was like, “She threatened us with a grenade at a gas station. F her.” I’m like, “Okay, you know, did she have a grenade?” “No, she just said it.” I was like, “Okay. This is not cool either.” You see those gas lines there in Baghdad at the time and people were waiting days. The lines would literally go around neighborhoods, down highways. It was crazy. The American troops, we don’t wait for anything. We will just roll in, move those cars, refill our trucks. Yeah. If you’ve been waiting for a couple of days, you’d be angry too and say you want to throw grenade at these troops that are just disregarding you. We made their people feel small.
Matthew Breems:
What were the next steps for you as you start to humanize the enemy and see firsthand the horrors of war? What did you start to do differently?
Hart Viges:
Nothing. At that time, nothing. Not a Goddamn thing. I wanted to lay my rifle down. I wanted to, but I had to make sure that everyone went home safe. So many times that I tried to really walk a really tight line of not being weak, but not being disrespectful.
Matthew Breems:
In the end, how long did you end up staying at Iraq?
Hart Viges:
About 11 months. It was almost a year before we came back. We came back January 20th, 2004. My change really doesn’t happen until I go on leave. We’re there Ft. Bragg for like a week or two and then I went up to Washington, California too. Got to see an uncle and cousin in Southern California and then up back to Washington, friends. That’s where I joined and I saw the movie, “The Passion of the Christ”. Really those two things, that whole period there just had me, really gave me the motivation and the ammunition to go back and try to figure out what the hell I was going to do. I still had no point, no idea of how I was going to go about anything. I just went back and tried to put on a mask. And I put myself in the hospital. I had these sharp pains in my chest.
I felt like I was having these heart attacks where my left arm was going numb and sharp pain in my chest. I… debilitating. I go check in with the hospital and they said the protective sac around your heart is being inflamed. Are you stressed out? “Yeah. Shot at, IED, mortared, car wreck.” Yeah, but I put on, I was like, “No Airborne! Infantry!” Well, they give me a two week period of not having PT, no physical training. Can’t smoke me either. So I’m real happy when I take it to my platoon Sergeant saying, giving a piece of paper like “I can’t get smoked, no PT, You take it easy.” And he said, “Why are they giving you this?” And I said,” I’m stressed.” And he was like, “Are you stressed?” And I just, I started crying. “They’re going to fuck me, Sergeant! They’re going to fuck me.” He reacted really, really cool and was like, “What? What? Why? Why?” Trying to ask me these questions, calming me down. I’m like, “I can’t do it. I can’t pull the trigger. I don’t want to kill anyone.”
He sat me down and really played the fatherly role. I have so much respect for Sergeant Stone. So much respect. Tried to calm me down and told me that war affects people different ways. Would you like to go talk to the chaplain? I’m like, “Yes. I want to talk to the chaplain.” So I continue my nervous breakdown in front of a chaplain. He asked me if I’m a conscientious objector. Those words just sounded right to me. And I said, “Yes.” Not really knowing what a conscientious objector is. I was like, “Yes! That sounds right! Anything other than what I am now, I can’t be.” He said, “Why don’t you go think about it?” So I go to the computer and I am searching “conscientious objector”. I find “Veterans for Peace”, and become a member. They, behind my back, my platoon Sergeant, my first Sergeant, went to whoever made a bigger decision, and moved me from my mortar platoon to chaplain’s assistant. That was the news waiting for me when I got back at the end of the day, from Googling all this stuff.
Matthew Breems:
Essentially to get you taking out of a position where you’re not going to see action.
Hart Viges:
Yeah. Maybe the chaplain can ease Hart out and justify this whole war thing. There was a lot of that, proselytizing. I also went to the Peace House. Oh my gosh, the Fayetteville Peace House is a huge credit too. I went there. I talked to the nice gentleman–the manual for conscientious objection–that was the only manual that I ever read in the Army, full on just digging into it. I was up there writing, answering my 20 questions and making copies. Got a storage unit off post and put copies in there and some other stuff. I had copies of my paperwork off post so just in case if my shit got stolen–which, there had been–I was advised to make copies, and hide them away because other people who tried conscientious objectors had their paperwork stolen.
10 months later, I got honorably released as a conscientious objector. They delayed my paperwork–once. I called the Congressman from San Angelo, Texas, a Republican. You know, combat vet applying for a conscientious objection, they delayed my, the time that they needed to send off my paperwork. I was like, “Can you look into it?” Just wrote. They always say “Write a letter to your Congressman.” You don’t really expect much out of it, but that weekend I drove to Texas, went to a concert. On my way back, I’m driving, I’m in Louisiana when I get the call like, “Where are you?” And he said, “Well, there is a civilian here from Congress looking into your paperwork.” And they sounded scared, they sounded scared. And I was like, “Well, I can’t, I’m drunk. I can’t drive right now.” Man, it was the first time I felt power. Real power. They definitely got my paperwork moving smoothly after that.
Matthew Breems:
Did you become an activist at this point or was this just a personal journey for you?
Hart Viges:
I think it took me about a month or two there in Austin and VFP sending me emails about a rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina. And I’m like that’s just where I came from Ft. Bragg, Fayetteville, North Carolina. So I drove back and got a hotel room and went to this rally in March. As I walk up to the staging area, Michael Hoffman, one of the founders of IVAW runs over to me. Yeah. That’s where I fall in love with Veterans for Peace and Iraq Vets Against the War. It’s part of a historical first meeting after the founding. We were a speakers’ bureau at first. When Crawford (TX) popped off with Cindy Sheehan, I was living in Austin just down the street so I spent a good amount of time there in Crawford, which ballooned into a bus tour from Crawford to D.C. and I was a part of the central tour and we talked in Little Rock, Memphis, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, St. Louis all the way to D.C. Talking to news crews, to people in churches, to people in universities, people in community centers.
Matthew Breems:
Do you try to still be active in more recent years, speaking out against our military engagements across the globe or has your activism taken a new turn for you?
Hart Viges:
I’d say it’s a bit of a new turn. I haven’t spoken in front of a crowd in a long time. Tabling in high schools during lunch periods and college career fairs with a very interactive, informative table is where I feel like I’m really hitting the Military Industrial Complex at its key supply of human labor. There’s the money and the people who join. Going after the money is a bit difficult. It’s a bit hard, harder targets. Yeah, if you could get into a high school where we have equal access as military recruiters and have honest conversations. I’ve convinced multiple, like 12 right there, at that moment, you hear them and say, “I don’t want to join anymore.” Take away three DEPs, delayed entry program kids, during the college career fair and have the Army recruiters just giving you the stink eye because you just had three of their confirmed kids unconfirm themselves legally and point to us. “They told us I’m not legally bound to join a delayed entry program. You’re lying to me. I know you are.” Man, you don’t feel any more powerful than that.
Matthew Breems:
Well, Hart, as we wrap up our time here, do you have any closing thoughts or comments or words of wisdom you’d want to share?
Hart Viges:
Oh man, well, patience, timing and highlight these evils of war, racism, greed, sexism, and ecocide while uplifting ideals of peace, liberation, equity, justice, and education. Communication is our tool. Spoken word is our tool. You learn to speak, do that well because I put down the rifle. Matthew, man, this has been great conversation. Thank you so much.
Matthew Breems:
Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate you taking the time, sharing your story. Thank you so much. This podcast is a Courage to Resist production recorded and edited by Matthew Breems with special thanks to executive producer, Jeff Paterson. Visit couragetoresist.org for more information and to offer your support.
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