From "The Faith of George Bush" to refusing to fight in Iraq — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:01[Music]
2. 0:08welcome back to the real News Network
3. 0:09I'm Paul J in Washington and we're
4. 0:11talking with Josh steber about his
5. 0:14journey from religious school where he
6. 0:16studied a book called The Faith of
7. 0:18George Bush to joining the Army going to
8. 0:21Iraq and then applying for conscientious
9. 0:23obor status thanks for joining us again
10. 0:26sure thank so talk about that day or the
11. 0:27few days or whatever leading up to that
12. 0:30application for conscientious obor
13. 0:32status this must have been quite
14. 0:34dramatic yeah well I actually didn't
15. 0:35know what conscientious objection was
16. 0:38until I got back from Iraq and um and I
17. 0:42knew I had to act so you finished your
18. 0:44tour of Duty right I finished my tour
19. 0:46with all these questions going on in my
20. 0:48mind and knew I had to start changing
21. 0:51things but wasn't sure how extreme I
22. 0:53would go with this until um we got back
23. 0:56and I got to spend a month back home
24. 0:58with my family and that process for me
25. 1:02literally brought everything back home
26. 1:04as I started to imagine all the
27. 1:06different things that we had done to
28. 1:07other people's families for the last 14
29. 1:09months going on to my family and not
30. 1:11just these big headline catchers like
31. 1:13you know what you see in the Wikileaks
32. 1:14video obviously that stuff goes on but
33. 1:17sometimes even the smaller things of
34. 1:19what we were doing on a day-to-day basis
35. 1:21of searching through people's homes and
36. 1:23people would often be disrespectful in
37. 1:26that and just you know told to search
38. 1:28for weapons so you go in a house and and
39. 1:30you tear it apart looking for weapons or
40. 1:32anything suspicious and I know you know
41. 1:34people in my neighborhood growing up who
42. 1:36if if that happened to their home they
43. 1:38would have some uh probably pretty
44. 1:40passionate responses to that and other
45. 1:42little things like um you know if we
46. 1:45were driving down the street somebody U
47. 1:47might think it was funny to Swerve into
48. 1:48a mud puddle and splash an old lady with
49. 1:50mud or when we were going into a house
50. 1:52to pull the head off a baby doll that a
51. 1:54kid was holding and hand it back to the
52. 1:56kid and again it's like that's not going
53. 1:58to make you know the the front page the
54. 2:00newspaper but you start to think well
55. 2:01what if that was my mom that got
56. 2:02splashed with mud or what if that was my
57. 2:04little sister whose baby doll got ripped
58. 2:06apart how would I feel about that and so
59. 2:08I got down to this very simple idea of
60. 2:11doing unto others and I knew I wouldn't
61. 2:12want other people to do to me now in
62. 2:15this kind of culture that it's you know
63. 2:17there's it's relatively acceptable to
64. 2:19shoot civilians we've been told of
65. 2:21stories that during these house searches
66. 2:23there's been quite a few killings that
67. 2:24people thought there were weapons or
68. 2:26maybe they didn't and they shot anyway
69. 2:28did you experience any of that not that
70. 2:30I can remember offand of something
71. 2:33specifically in a house search but again
72. 2:36it was sometimes even the smaller things
73. 2:38that would affect me like just how we
74. 2:40treated um the locals when we went into
75. 2:42their house and knew that if that kind
76. 2:45of thing went on back here that you know
77. 2:48most people I know would be up in arms
78. 2:50about that so you're reaching kind of a
79. 2:52crunch point for you CU you're going to
80. 2:54have to decide if you're going back or
81. 2:55not right um you start to discuss this
82. 2:58with your parents and what's what's
83. 3:00reaction of your family I knew that I
84. 3:01had to do something and and this was
85. 3:04still before I knew what conscientious
86. 3:05objection was so the plan I had was I
87. 3:08was going to walk to the military pay
88. 3:10headquarters in Indianapolis um and take
89. 3:13enough time to be counted as awal and
90. 3:15turn myself in and turn the money I had
91. 3:18earned in and say what I did was wrong
92. 3:20getting paid for it was wrong and if I
93. 3:22need to finish my enlistment in prison
94. 3:24then that's where I need to be so I told
95. 3:26my parents about it and then um they
96. 3:29kind of scrambled and and tried to alert
97. 3:31me of other options and told me about
98. 3:33conscientious subjection um and went
99. 3:36through a pretty big debate with myself
100. 3:38about which option to go with and ended
101. 3:40up feeling that that was the right one
102. 3:42so I go back to uh the military base in
103. 3:45the states in Kansas and and make the
104. 3:48application um and fill out all this
105. 3:52paperwork and get interviewed by a
106. 3:54chaplain and a psychologist and um and
107. 3:57investigator and just go through um all
108. 4:00these interviews and all this writing
109. 4:02and then at the same time are expected
110. 4:03to carry out most of your normal
111. 4:05military duties um and and that started
112. 4:09to well the first couple weeks went
113. 4:11smoothly until it came time to go out to
114. 4:13the ranges to train to kill Again part
115. 4:15of that training was that we would shoot
116. 4:17at Targets that looked like a
117. 4:19stereotypical enemy a middle eastern man
118. 4:22and as I had been debating with myself
119. 4:24about this idea of conscientious
120. 4:26objection and if it was ever Justified
121. 4:28to kill or when I would kill
122. 4:30and went back and again looked at the
123. 4:32person who I claimed to have faith in
124. 4:34and who my Christianity is based off of
125. 4:37um to paraphrase him he said you know it
126. 4:39doesn't even matter if you physically
127. 4:40killed somebody if you've even L looked
128. 4:42at somebody with um with hatred or with
129. 4:45judgment then psychologically and
130. 4:47spiritually you've already killed that
131. 4:48person and so I tried telling my leaders
132. 4:50that if I believe that was true then
133. 4:52going out to the ranges and building
134. 4:55this racism towards the stereotypical
135. 4:57looking enemy and being told this is
136. 5:00what your enemy looks like practice
137. 5:01shooting him practice killing him told
138. 5:03them I couldn't reconcile the two um and
139. 5:06that didn't go over so well with one of
140. 5:08my leaders um and he got really upset
141. 5:11with me and started calling me a
142. 5:12terrorist and a traitor and a lot of
143. 5:14interesting names um along with that
144. 5:17that he knew um but it was actually a
145. 5:19really um important um challenge I think
146. 5:23for me to see if I was going to live up
147. 5:24to all these things that I had been
148. 5:26preaching and talking about and I just
149. 5:29thought back to the lessons that we had
150. 5:30learned in Iraq that every time we got
151. 5:34confronted with with violence and with
152. 5:36anger and we tried to respond in the
153. 5:38same way it might have solved the
154. 5:40problems for a day or two but then it
155. 5:41would eventually lead to even more
156. 5:43intense attack and so taking that same
157. 5:46idea I was definitely tempted to yell
158. 5:48back at my leader as he was yelling at
159. 5:50me but I knew it would make him yell
160. 5:51louder and I would yell louder and
161. 5:53nothing would get accomplished so just
162. 5:55like I had seen um trying to understand
163. 5:57people who again thought very different
164. 5:59ly and had attacked us see I had seen
165. 6:02that create progress I tried to take
166. 6:04that same mindset in dealing with this
167. 6:06leader and tried to understand where he
168. 6:08was coming from and tried to work
169. 6:09together with his concerns so you
170. 6:11applied and and received conscientious
171. 6:14objectives obor
172. 6:16status um so but you did more than that
173. 6:19you started speaking out publicly about
174. 6:22what where you'd been interviews like
175. 6:24this why'd you go public you must get
176. 6:27some feedback from this okay it's one
177. 6:29thing
178. 6:30not to do something in terms of your own
179. 6:31conscience but by going public people
180. 6:34must be accusing you of harming military
181. 6:36even perhaps even saying you're going to
182. 6:38endanger soldiers talking this way um
183. 6:41well a lot of it had to do with um with
184. 6:44the eventual reaction of this particular
185. 6:47leader who I had never seen a person
186. 6:49that angry as he had been with me but by
187. 6:51trying to live out these things that I
188. 6:52said I believed on a day-to-day basis 10
189. 6:55months after I had made my application
190. 6:57he went from being absolutely furious at
191. 6:59me to give being able to give me a hug
192. 7:01and wish me good luck on my life after
193. 7:03the military so I had seen that you know
194. 7:06by practicing these these things that it
195. 7:08had transformed this big you know tough
196. 7:11high- ranking military guy and that
197. 7:13these ideas like compassion and love and
198. 7:16understanding have more value than I
199. 7:17think a lot of times we like to give
200. 7:19them credit for so that's what started
201. 7:21to motivate my speaking publicly and I
202. 7:23started speaking publicly right after I
203. 7:25got out and wanted to say that not only
204. 7:27do I think war is the wrong answer I
205. 7:29think that so many people who are in the
206. 7:31military think that war is the only
207. 7:33answer and if I am saying that war is
208. 7:35wrong I need to point people to other
209. 7:37answers so um I I started a a journey
210. 7:41across the United States and spent 3
211. 7:43months walking and three months on
212. 7:45bicycle visiting different charities um
213. 7:47across the country and trying to point
214. 7:49people to other ways of going about um
215. 7:52handling their issues and and towards
216. 7:54just being proactive and trying to
217. 7:56address issues before and what kind of
218. 7:58reaction have you gotten from other
219. 7:59military people that are either out or
220. 8:01still in for the majority of people have
221. 8:03been um pretty supportive um you know my
222. 8:07friends who are still in the military
223. 8:09have some fundamental uh differences of
224. 8:13belief with me but still have respect
225. 8:15for what I'm doing and um in what I've
226. 8:19said and you know I have respect for
227. 8:22their desire to try to serve their
228. 8:24country and try and do what they feel is
229. 8:26right and seeing their dedication
230. 8:28inspires me all the more to um to try
231. 8:30and are people surprised when they hear
232. 8:32the stories of this from boot camp and
233. 8:35once you're there this sort of creation
234. 8:37of the culture of the acceptability of
235. 8:39killing civilians well when I did this
236. 8:41uh cross country trip the way I framed
237. 8:43it I tried to really get people to think
238. 8:45about it but the way I did it um was
239. 8:48that I I did a lot of public speaking
240. 8:50and the way I would start my talks was
241. 8:53um I would get in front of an audience
242. 8:54and asked them if they cared about their
243. 8:56family or their friends and if they did
244. 8:58to stand up with me and the whole room
245. 9:00would you know stand up and then I'd say
246. 9:02um this was an important decision or an
247. 9:05important factor in the decisions that I
248. 9:07made and along the way I was told a
249. 9:09number of different things would be in
250. 9:11my best interest to say and I'm going to
251. 9:13pass that wisdom along to you and tell
252. 9:15you by repeating after me that it'll be
253. 9:17in your best interest and I would lead
254. 9:18them in that Cadence about killing women
255. 9:20and children what's it what is it again
256. 9:22I went down to the market where all the
257. 9:24women shop I pulled out my machete and I
258. 9:26began the chop I went down to the park
259. 9:28where all the children play I pulled out
260. 9:31my machine gun and I began to spray and
261. 9:33I could get rooms full of the most
262. 9:35dedicated peace activists and the most
263. 9:38hardcore religious folks to repeat these
264. 9:40horrible lyrics and it was really
265. 9:43telling for me about um just the human
266. 9:46psychology that in a relatively low
267. 9:48stress environment like that they were
268. 9:50doing they were saying these things
269. 9:52because I was telling them to and
270. 9:54because of the peer pressure around them
271. 9:56and that if we want to change things it
272. 9:57has to start out with something as very
273. 10:00fundamental as just starting to ask
274. 10:02questions and not going along with um
275. 10:04everything that we're we're told to do
276. 10:06so so I use that exercise to one put
277. 10:09people in the mindset of a soldier a
278. 10:11little bit that here you stood up
279. 10:12because you wanted to do something
280. 10:14positive to care about the people around
281. 10:15you um and then before you know it
282. 10:18you're being asked to say these
283. 10:19different things and you start to
284. 10:20understand how people get to the point
285. 10:22where they say those things and then do
286. 10:24it thanks for joining us sure thanks for
287. 10:26having me and thank you for joining us
288. 10:28on the Real News Network
289. 10:32[Music]