by Matthew McCue
You can cover a soldier with night vision, Kevlar, GPS tracking
systems, advanced infantry weapons, put him in a Bradley fighting
vehicle, and send him in to battle but without his or her personal
force and motivation the equipment reveals itself for what it is:
lifeless machinery.
If I tell you of my experience in combat
surely you will be able to read a story with more bravado, more blood,
more adrenaline, and more pain.
I can tell you that to kill you have to shut off a piece of your heart,
and to see another soldier die will shatter what is left of it. To
function you have to become immersed in the machine that is killing you
and keeping you alive at the same time. You have to bring life to the
machine.
Rather than thinking of Iraq as the place where my heart was broken and
my mind was controlled I prefer to think of Iraq as the place where I
discovered the key to my freedom.
I witnessed many unforgettable things in Iraq but the aspect that
changed my life more than any other was the way the farmers kept
working and selling their produce through the chaos.
Farmers have a quiet power that made me realize that I could not
accomplish anything good for the world with my M16 in hand. It was in
Iraq eating fruit that I realized that I needed to find a new way to
think. It was also in Iraq that I learned to hide how I felt.
I returned to Fort Hood, Texas and spent the next seven months training
kids how to kill. At night I would find myself in my room listening to
anti-war music as I prepared for the next day of training.
When my time was up and I left, I had no clue what to do. After many
trials, I found myself in Pahoa, Hawaii. I came to volunteer on a five
acre permaculture farm owned by a friend of a friend. It was there that
I stopped being a soldier.
I learned about the concept of sustainability and how to compost. I saw
so many beautiful plants and learned so much I was almost overwhelmed.
I was secretly still afraid of getting mortared or running over an
Improvised Explosive Device (IED) as we would drive into Hilo.
It was there that I applied for the Center for Agroecology and
Sustainable Food Systems. Because of my lack of experience and formal
education I really had no idea if they would let me into their
six-month apprentice program, but in April 2006 I found myself setting
up my two-person tent on the edge of one of the fields.
It took about three seconds for me to realize that I had found a very
special place. I spent the next six months with the smartest group I
have ever worked with and ended up in a heated discussion about every
day. My most frequent debate partners were the people I loved the most.
Just about everyone knew more about horticulture than me. Everybody
taught me something.
I would still go to sleep afraid of mortars but the joy of the present
and anticipation of the next harvest made the past seem to loosen its
grip on my life. I learned more from six months on a college farm in
Santa Cruz than four years in the Military.
Sometimes I feel that the torment that has plagued me during and after
my time in Iraq was just the plowing of the field of my heart before
the deep rooted seed of peace and sustainability could grow within my
soul.
The quiet power of farming has overtaken me and I no longer live in fear.
------------------------------------
McCue is an Iraq War veteran turned farmer and member of Farm Not
Arms. He is now teaching Agriculture for the PeaceCorps in Niger,
Africa.
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Copyright (C) 2007 by the American Forum. 10/07
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