B: First question - what’s your name, what unit were you with in Iraq?

R: My name is Alex Rybov, I’m 21 years old. I served with Romeo Battery, Fifth Battalion, Tenth Marines, and we were in Iraq. We crossed the border March 20th and went back into Kuwait on May 9th.

B: When did you start to question the stated reasons for the war - weapons of mass destruction, liberating the Iraqi people, and Iraq’s links with Al-Qaeda?

R: I questioned it somewhat before we went, but it was more of a … I just kinda thought about it and thought past. Our First Sergeant who was in the Marine Corps for about 20 plus years gathered us around before we went and told us, “you’re not going over there to be heroes or topple Saddam, or to get weapons of mass destruction.” He said, “you’re going over there for oil.” And some of the guys that have been in the unit for a while like myself, just kind of shrugged and figured that the way the military was and the way the government was it was just kind of the next step. Some of the younger guys were taken aback by it - this isn’t what we’re told on the news, and stuff like that.

But when I really started to seriously question the reasons for the war and the war itself was after I had returned from Iraq, and everyday just watching the body count rise on the news, on CNN, both on the U.S. side and on the Iraqi side. And after a while I just quit watching the news because it was the same thing every day. I could not watch the news and still know that at least a few Marines or soldiers were going to die over there. And it made me realize that we had no business even going into Iraq. From the beginning it’s been such a waste of life on both sides. We never found weapons of mass destruction. And Iraq obviously was not an imminent threat because we took the capital in about three weeks.

Really it was when I came back that those realizations really hit me.

B: What happened to the sergeant who told you that it was about oil?

R: He did his job, he took care of us when we were in Kuwait and Iraq. When we returned with us to the States he was with our unit for awhile and afterwards he was transferred over to a different unit. I guess he had done his time with us. And as far as I know he’s still in the Marine Corps somewhere.

We had a sergeant major that was in charge of our battalion. First of all, our unit was the only one out of our battalion from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina to go to Iraq. We were attached to Fifth Battalion, Eleventh Marines from California. About a month ago when I went down to Camp Lejeune to visit the last unit I was in, because they were about to go to Iraq, I found out that that sergeant major who had also been in the Marine Corps twenty plus years and commanded 500 marines in Iraq and did a pretty good job of it - I found out that he hung himself sometime after when we returned from Iraq. This really threw me off because he did not seem like the type of man that would do that. He seemed calm, collected. He would get angry at times but it was for appropriate reasons, like somebody had a CD player out for some reason. That’s obviously not for a combat environment, even though we weren’t shooting at that time.

The reason I was given for why he hung himself was because his second wife left him. But even without knowing the facts, I think I can say that I believe there were underlying reasons behind it, most likely the things he saw in Iraq and something along those lines so it’s just really disturbing.

B: How do active-duty troops and Iraq vets that you’ve talked to feel about the war now? Have you seen a big change since last year?

R: Yeah, definitely. Even the troops that decide not to speak out or not to become active - there’s definitely a lot of anger that exists towards the Bush administration and the war itself. ‘Cuz the troops realize that they we were sent over there for nothing, that we killed people, we had our own people killed, and it hasn’t made any kind of difference. We still don’t have any kind of control in Iraq, and really we have no right to even be there from the beginning. So the general sentiment amongst troops, even though they don’t speak out - whether it’s because it’s just not their thing to become active in the peace movement or because they still have time left in the service and they don’t want to risk losing their GI Bill and things like that - they definitely disagree with the Bush administration and what’s going on in Iraq today.

B: So what do we do now in Iraq?

R: Really this - taking aside from the fact that we shouldn’t have been there to begin with - what we need to do know is to bring our troops home because Iraq is a lose-lose situation as it stands. It’s either we lose what we’ve lost so far, or we lose even more. We don’t even have control of most Iraqi cities like Ramadi, Fallujah. The U.S. troops are being pushed out of city after city everyday, and pretty much the reason that’s given on the news for why we can’t pullback is because the Iraqis will have a civil war and things like that. That’s really more of a reason to maintain support for the war. Because the Iraqi people - I’ve seen statements from clerics and religious leaders in Iraq that the people listen to, that the people trust, and they’re saying that this is exactly what the U.S. and coalition forces want them to do is fall into civil war if the troops leave. And if the Sunnis and Shiites can come together for demonstrations and things like that, I think the Iraqis can form their own government with coalition forces out of there.

And also as far as rebuilding their country, we’ve pretty much contracted out every phase of rebuilding their country. Like let’s say this company will do oil wells, this company will do water, stuff like that - why not just give the Iraqi people the means and the resources to rebuild their own country? First of all, they’re not these savages that they’re made out to be sometimes on the news - there’s engineers, there’s doctors - they’re a developed society, although we’ve destroyed a good portion of it.

Also, with all these hostages both U.S. and foreign that are being taken by the resistance - none of that will happen if it is Iraqis who are rebuilding the country. It would really serve them absolutely no purpose to capture their own people and demand some type of ransom.

B: Who do you think is really behind the resistance?

R: While I believe that some of the resistance is made up of Saddam loyalists, some terrorists, things like that, I believe the majority are made up of just regular Iraqi people, just everyday citizens that have watched their friends and families die in either intended or non-intended incidents where U.S. troops have fired on them or bombing raids have gone of course or something like that. Some of these people, really I believe, have nothing to live for because what would the average American do if their entire family was destroyed. I know that if something like that happened to me, I would pick up arms and go after the enemy or whoever perpetrated the killings. So that’s part of the problem in Iraq that we don’t - or at least our government and the military - doesn’t fully understand the Iraqi people and what they’re doing to them. For every Iraqi civilian that people see killed, most likely two or more Iraqis decide, “to hell with this, I’m gonna pick up a weapon and try put an end to the occupation of my country,” ‘cuz that’s really what we’re doing. I believe the same thing applies - but people don’t want to admit it - if a foreign force were to invade our country, every person who has a shotgun in their house or a hunting rifle or something like that would be out in the street fighting this foreign force. That is what is happening in Iraq.

B: As a founding member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, can you tell me what the organization is all about? How can people join, donate, etc?

R: O.K. Our primary mission is to get our troops that are in Iraq brought home now. Because day after day, more and more are getting killed, it’s senseless, we’re not getting anywhere. Also, we’re here as support for U.S. troops that are returning from Iraq who have all these things running through their mind, need somebody to talk to, need somebody to find out questions about VA benefits, other benefits. And also we’re trying to make sure that when the troops come home, the benefits that the government has promised them are bestowed upon them, that they’re given proper health care, that they’re given their GI bill, things like that. We have a website, it’s www.ivaw.net. On the website there’s our mission statement, there’s brief biographies about the founding members, there’s a place to donate to our organization, and there’s some articles and links to other organizations we work with like Veterans for Peace, Military Families Speak Out.

B: The media is constantly talking about how the military is stretched too thin, and 40% of the troops in Iraq are National Guard and Reservists. What do you think of a possibility of a draft in the next 4 years? Would it make much of a difference between Bush and Kerry in terms of the military being stretched thin?

R: As far as a draft, I feel that if Bush is elected would be likely a lot sooner than four years, just because of the fact that the military is stretched so thin. The military was not meant to be used this way. Not just invading a country for economic gain, but so many troops are being sent over there that - not just reservists and National Guardsmen - but the fact that a lot of these units that have been in Iraq at least once come back for a few months and are sent back over again because of sheer numbers, because they’re needed in Iraq. The draft would be the only way for them to really replenish the ranks and to have enough troops in Iraq, and to replenish the National Guard and things like that. People talk about, “what if a terrorist attack happened,” something along the lines of September 11th, honestly if that happened and the National Guard was needed, I believe that there aren’t enough of them left in most areas to carry out the tasks they’re supposed to be doing, which is pretty much homeland security, which is protecting the U.S., in things like a terrorist attack, or some kind of natural disaster or emergency. Most of these guys in Iraq, they’re obviously not able to do that. We’ve really weakened the nation as far as our security and safety instead of strengthening by sending troops to Iraq.

Also, I want to add something on that, as far as whether a draft would be instituted if Bush or Kerry is elected, I believe that if Kerry is elected he will see that we elected him for a reason, and that’s to get the troops out of Iraq, to fix the situation over there. And I believe that he’ll think twice before making similar decisions to what Bush has done because he’ll realize that the people will not stand for it. So that’s my opinion on that one.