Evan says that he found the Army to be "a pretty socialist institution," in which people are encouraged to protect their friends as a way to motivate them to kill. But, he says, "I was willing to kill without that." Why? As revenge for 9-11, he says, and as an expression of hatred that Evan says he harbored even before 9-11. He remembers reading Readers Digest as a kid and learning about "terrorists who want to kill us." In the end, Evan says he did not shoot anyone. But he prepared packets of information on targets, including maps to their homes, photos of them, the reasons they were targets, and what was to be done to them (kill/capture, exploit, source, etc.) Artillery officers, who Evan says are "notoriously stupid," became a targeting cell, and whatever he told them ("This guy is bad. This is where he lives.") they would work from to plan bombings and raids.
My impression from speaking with Evan Knappenberger is that what turned him against war and militarism, even more than the SNAFU experience in Iraq, even more than the gradual exposure of the lies that launched the war, and more than the "socialism" within the military, was coming into contact with radical inequality of wealth and power within the Army, mirroring our society at large.
On a two-week leave, completely exhausted, in the middle of his year in Iraq, Evan flew back to Charlottesville, Virginia. On the last leg from Atlanta, he was one of two people in uniform on the plane. The other was a JAG general with a gold watch and a leather briefcase but no combat patch. Evan, in contrast, hadn't had a shower in a week, and it showed. Apparently the two of them regarded each other with mutual contempt. While on leave, Evan attended a jobs fair in Crystal City for people with security clearances like his. At lunch time, he says, lots of officers came over from the Pentagon looking for high-paying jobs. "I was the lowest ranking person in the room. And the thing that really shocked the hell out of me: You go six months in Iraq and the highest ranking person you see is a colonel. And I'm in a room full of generals and sergeant majors of the army and chief warrant officer fives, and not one of them had a combat job in the whole big ball room -- not one of those m----- f------ had been in a combat zone for 30 days to get a combat patch -- or if they did they weren't proud of it. And these were the people making the decisions and making my life hell -- and that had a lot to do with turning me against the war."
Another factor was the unfairness of the policy of stop-loss. The Army had messed up Evan's paperwork when he had shipped out, delaying him, and as a result his date for completing his contract just barely made it into the group the Army chose to hold over for additional "service." To avoid being stop-lossed, Evan cut a deal with his commanders that would allow him to be honorably discharged for minor misbehavior. However, a brand new division commander gave Evan a general discharge, eliminating his GI Bill and other benefits. Evan says it took him three years to get any disability coverage from the V.A.
Evan still has PTSD, as well as a skin problem he attributes to toxic chemicals and garbage burned in open pits in Iraq by the U.S. Army. On tower guard duty adjacent to such a pit, Evan says he lost his sense of smell and coughed up a black substance. "That whole year was like a nightmare," he says. "Getting mortared every night. Rockets coming in. The first couple of times I got shot at on guard duty I had no idea what was going on. . . . I thought it was bats. . . . I got so used to getting mortared. I was at the airport getting ready to leave and was in the portapotty when a siren went off. Then there were booms and after the last boom dirt clods falling on the portapotty. I walked out, doing up my belt, and there was a major and a sergeant major under a truck face down in the mud. And the guy screams at me: 'Get to the bunker!'" Evan's response was a casual "Whatever. It's over now."
In April of 2007, Evan Knappenberger came back to Charlottesville. He says he'd been dating long distance and had a bad break up on the phone while driving. He just kept driving for three months, living out of his car and spending his Army money. He ended up in Bellingham, Washington, where he met a woman at a peace vigil and married her in October. The marriage has "almost been ruined a few times by PTSD."
Evan has done a lot of antiwar activism in Bellingham, including helping AWOL soldiers make it to Canada. He built and did guard duty on a tower in Bellingham and then in Washington, D.C., to protest the stop loss policy. I organized a press conference for his mother in Charlottesville.
Evan was nothing if not outspoken. This included informing an Ohio couple that their son was dead, despite a government coverup and propaganda campaign. In 2004 Iraqis produced a video of a U.S. soldier, Matt Maupin, held hostage, and then another of him being killed. According to Knappenberger, the DIA used facial pattern recognition and a study of the blotches on his uniform and was 100% certain that Maupin had been executed. But the military told the media to suppress the video, and the U.S. media complied. Maupin's parents campaigned for Bush's "reelection" in the swing state of Ohio in '04 because "John Kerry wants to leave Matt behind," even though Knappenberger says the government knew that Matt was dead. As part of the public relations push, Maupin was repeatedly promoted in rank, and his pay was placed in an account for when he was found.
Evan saw the video in 2006. In 2007 he told a Washington Post reporter who filed a FOIA and was told the information was classified. So, in September 2007, Evan says he told Maupin's parents, who were reluctant to believe him. An hour later, an Army intelligence officer called Evan and threatened him with jail. According to Knappenberger, he replied, "If you tell the parents I won't have to. If you don't I will." Meanwhile, says Knappenberger, "the poor dad was putting together a team to go find Matt." Maupin's dad, Evan says, told him "I've got Andrew Card's number. I'm calling him right now." Two weeks later he was allowed to watch the video at the Pentagon.
One's heart breaks for those parents and so many others like them, and for the vastly greater number of Iraqis whose loved ones have been killed by U.S. loved ones. One's heart breaks for Evan Knappenberger as well. He says he is committed to nonviolence, but it is a process he is working at. He grew up in a violent culture and was trained to use and value violence. Since getting out of the Army, he has repeatedly been accused of threatening violence. He recounted to me an incident in which he threatened President Bush with violence. He has threatened rightwing war supporters with violence in blog posts. Evan's been hospitalized twice for PTSD. He's had an on-again off-again relationship with antiwar groups like IVAW (Iraq Veterans Against the War).
During what Evan describes as a "really bad breakdown" in January 2009, he showed up at the V.A. hospital in Seattle. It was full, and he was told to come back Monday. He called a senator, and had an appointment within an hour. Within another hour, he says, he was loaded up with antidepressants and on the street. Four weeks of antidepressants later, he had a worse breakdown that landed him in jail following an attempted suicide and what he says was an unfounded charge of "unlawful imprisonment" of his wife, which he pled to a misdemeanor.
Despite everything our society places in the way of it, Evan Knappenberger has obtained an associate's degree and is working on a bachelor's. After a troubled but useful contribution to Occupy Charlottesville (he says he quit, others say they evicted him), Evan is headed back to Bellingham to work on his marriage and his mortgage payments. I wish him well and thank him for speaking out.
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