Former Marine tells grim episodes

by Kyle Odegard, Gazette-Times, May 7, 2009

Soldier-turned-student now speaks as anti-war activist

Casey Campbell | Gazette-Times

Benji Lewis gives a talk about his experiences in the United States Marine Corps, and his decision not to return when called back on involuntary redeployment, during a presentation at Oregon State University on Tuesday.

Benji Lewis was willing to go to jail rather than be involuntarily deployed to Iraq for a third tour, but on April 16, he received news that the Marines canceled his orders.

Yet the 23-year-old Corvallis activist continues to speak against the military.

On Tuesday, about 15 people at Oregon State University listened to Lewis blast the Iraq War.

The Linn-Benton Community College student painted a bleak picture of a devastated country where infrastructure repairs were ignored, civilian casualties were accepted and disillusioned soldiers sometimes faked their location rather than patrol crowded areas where insurgents probably had planted roadside bombs.

“For every bad guy you kill, you’re killing 15 of the people you’re there to liberate,” said Lewis, who served on an infantry mortar team.

At the siege of Fallujah, soldiers fired at a woman approaching them, thinking she might be a terrorist. Lewis said she sought help for her sick baby, which had stopped crying. They sent her back into the combat zone with a bottle of water.

Lewis described indoctrination at boot camp, where soldiers were forced to chug water and stand in a field until they urinated on themselves.

During training, rock music blared as violent combat scenes were shown, and the same heavy metal cranked from speakers as his unit raced to combat.

After his second tour, Lewis served as an urban combat trainer, but realized he couldn’t do much with the young soldiers — because of their conditioning, the Marines had quick trigger fingers, which would lead to more civilian deaths.

Lewis served two tours in Iraq with the Marines, but was discharged in 2007. Despite that, he had made an eight-year commitment, and in October, he learned he was being considered for involuntary reactivation under the military’s 2001 Individual Ready Reserves Provision.

He said he didn’t know why his orders were canceled, but he believes that enlistment and retention has grown because of the recession. About 600 other Marines’ involuntary reactivations also were canceled, and Lewis said the Marines probably are seeking to avoid a public relations mess.

Lewis said he is about halfway through a tour of about 20 speaking engagements across the state. He is scheduled to speak at an anti-war concert at 7:30 p.m. May 17 at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship on Circle Boulevard, and to join a panel of activists at noon May 18 at the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library downtown.

Kyle Odegard can be contacted at kyle.odegard@lee.net or 758-9523.