Thes vets swore to defend the Constitution against all enemies—including Donald Trump

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Marc Steiner:

Welcome to the Marc Steiner Show here on The Real News. I’m Marc Steiner. It’s great to have you all with us. Back in the 1960s, the war in Vietnam created serious resistance among those who served over 25,000 men and women who served in numb came back to lead the end the war movement creating Vietnam veterans against the war. And today, men and women who served in Iraq and Afghanistan are standing up to end these endless wars and to stand up for the future. So today we talk with members of about face veterans against the war. Michael T. McPherson enlisted in the US Army while he was in high school at 17 years old in 1981, he served five years on active duty as a field artillery officer. He fought during the Operation Desert Storm in the Gulf War. He left the army as a captain in 1992 and is now executive director of Veterans for Peace.

Kevin Benjamin was a sergeant in the US Army. He served for 10 years and was deployed to Iraq in 2003, his service in Iraq and the continued occupation of that nation moved him to file for conscious objector and eventually he was court-martialed. He’s a disabled veteran, a longtime member of about face veterans against the war. Amber Mathwig served 10 years in the United States Navy. She deployed to Iraq in 2008, 2009, and then in 2010, 2011, it was on a ship that participated in the bombing of Libya. Those experiences and the culture of sexism and sexual assault in the military sparked our journey to understand the stranglehold of the military industrial complex on our country as a longtime member of about faced veterans against war. And she’s a member of Teamster’s, local 6 38 organizing on the axis of labor and the military industrial complex. A new generation of veterans stand up for justice in our future. Well then welcome. It’s good to have the three of you with us. It really is.

Amber Mathwig:

Thank you, Marc.

Michael T. McPhearson:

Thank you.

Kevin Benderman:

Thank you.

Marc Steiner:

So tell us a bit about what happened at the last event you did. The two of you got arrested, right? You got arrested. Amber, am I correct? And Michael?

Amber Mathwig:

Yes,

Michael T. McPhearson:

Yes.

Marc Steiner:

Lemme start with you then, Amber, and just let’s go around the room here and talk about that event and why you were arrested. What was the purpose? What was going on?

Amber Mathwig:

Yeah. As many folks know on June 14th, there was an Army birthday parade, also billed as Trump’s birthday parade. That costs estimated somewhere between 90 to a hundred million of our taxpayer dollars. And at the same time, we were seeing lifesaving benefits being cut, social programs for veterans, military families. We’re hearing about how PCS or permit change of station changes are being impacted, all those sorts of things. And we’re also seeing a lot of our veterans who work in government services losing their jobs because supposedly there’s no money for this. And we’re also looking at a $1.01 trillion 20, 25, 26 fiscal year budget for the Department of Defense, but they don’t have money for us. And so about face Veterans for Peace joined forces, cross generational impact. It was actually really amazing. We had folks going from 17 to 87 years old. I love it. Involved in I know, right? Just so impressive. But yeah, so we went to DC to call attention to what was going on, why we at about face and Veterans for Peace, take the stances and the actions that we do. We held a press conference on the steps of the Supreme Court and then we walked over to the Capitol and sat down on the steps. There was about 67 of us who sat down calling for benefits, not bullshit.

Marc Steiner:

I like that line. Is that going to be one of your lines?

Amber Mathwig:

That is literally one of our lines. That was one of our chants. I believe it’s going on some gear. I love it. That great. For upcoming campaign, the response from Capitol Police was almost instantaneous arresting us, throwing people to the ground. One of our members barely made it, I think five feet and got his face flooded by the force that was presented against him. And just really, really kind of amazing to see how they responded. Not just that they responded, that can be expected, but how fiercely they responded to veterans, essentially walking and sitting down.

Marc Steiner:

And Michael, you were there as well.

Michael T. McPhearson:

Yes, yes, I was. So the reason I went, I’m the executive director of Veterans for Peace, so I wanted to be there with my people and I helped organize ’em there. But when you look at the person who’s president of the United States today, there’s such a hypocrisy and lawlessness and this person wants to use any opportunity that they can to uplift their profile and to try to feed his bait, their base. And I saw this parade as another one of those times where this person is using people, but this time it’s veterans, or I should say the US military and veterans by extension for some legitimacy. And he has none whatsoever. And he doesn’t care about us. He doesn’t care about the US military, he doesn’t care about veterans. So if we had decided to do an action or not, I had decided I was going to Washington DC to be visible as a person who wasn’t going to stand by and just let this guy pretend like he has some moral standing to pretend like he cares about us. I just couldn’t do that. It was just one of those moments where I had to be seen and heard.

Marc Steiner:

What were you about to say?

Kevin Benderman:

Oh, well, I was there with him in a support role. I didn’t get arrested, but I wanted to be there. And along the lines of what Michael and Amber both have said this time in our country, we need to stand together like we are as a multi-generational, multi background unified front to prevent all of this militarization of this country. I mean, we do not need to have big parades wasting millions of dollars when the points they both brought up veterans are going without education could be paid for with some of that money. I mean some housing could be paid for with some of that money. There’s plenty of things that we could use that money for other than self-gratifying or self-aggrandizing parade for a opposer.

Marc Steiner:

I want to explore something about what pushed you all to this place. As we talked about, we went on the air together, the war of my generation was Vietnam. During that period, most people were drafted, they didn’t join. Your ass has to come, is gone. But in today’s military, you all volunteered. You wanted to be in the military, you went, you wanted to serve. This country made no bones about having to face whether you faced to join the military and be in whatever war was being fought. So what switched, what changed for you all?

Kevin Benderman:

Firstly, it was my 2003 deployment to Iraq and I saw what we were doing and what they were saying on the news and telling everybody back home about how great we were and how we were helping defend democracy and protecting everyone’s rights. That’s not true. And the big turning point for me was getting over there and learning that hey, these are just normal everyday people that are trying to get by in a situation that they had nothing to do with creating. And they were really, I believe they were tired of the Saddam Hussein and the US too, playing tug of war with their country and their lives. So meeting some of the people that I did when I was there, Mr. Sad Doula was a school teacher of a girl school. And there was this young kid that lived in that town called Conan where we were set for a while. And I met him when we were in the town once and he came up to me wanting to sell us sodas and bring his cookies and stuff like that. And just realizing that most of the people there were just normal everyday human beings trying to earn a living and take care of their families the best way they could. And I realized that what we were doing was not helping them in the least. And so I couldn’t continue to take part in that after my first deployment to Iraq in 2003.

Marc Steiner:

So to go co, which is conscious of objector while you’re in the military, really sets you up for some attacks. I mean, it’s not something that they take lightly.

Kevin Benderman:

Well, yeah, I mean they really put me through the wringer over it because I mean, I was a NCO and I was a little bit older than most of the people that I was 40 years old at the time when I filed for CEO. And that was one of their sticking points being an NCO. They were like, we can’t let him do this. We have to set the example for everybody else who may be thinking of doing this. I heard that said, but it wasn’t in the official paperwork, but that was the tone they set when I decided to file for CO so I wouldn’t have to go back over there and continue to destroy and hurt people that had nothing to do with hurting us.

Marc Steiner:

That’s amazing. That’s a story in itself, Amber. And what was your turning point?

Amber Mathwig:

I grew up in rural Minnesota, very small town just quintessentially small town USA where honoring veterans and their sacrifices is pretty normal. While people are also either ignoring or being ignorant of what US policy overseas, what the military has actually done, that’s just kind of the norm. And so I was compelled to join the military by September 11th, 2001. And I say that I was compelled by the rhetoric of we have to protect ourselves. It always feels weird to me because I definitely didn’t have a hatred of Muslims. I had a weird little bit more understanding of some of the history, but apparently not enough because I chose to join the military and I joined in 2002 and it was just an absolutely hellacious 10 years. When I deployed to beg that Iraq for an administrative position in 2008, 2009, I was seeing the stuff on paper that Kevin’s talking about and I’m just like, what is our purpose here? And that would’ve been at six years, six and seven years at that point. And then in 2011 I was on a ship deployment, my ship aided in bombing Libya. And at the same time on that deployment, I was just seeing an intense amount of sexism, the way that people talked about sexual assault, people who had been victimized by gender discrimination and all those sorts of things. And that was actually kind of my impetus to start understanding the military.

Why can’t women succeed in the military? Why is sexual assault misogyny, all of that so rampant? And if you just read far enough that that is all essential to the military industrial complex itself, you have to be able to dehumanize and hold this hierarchy over the people right next to you because it then makes it easier to do it to people who have already been demonized as the other and our enemy. Once I started really exploring that as a way to heal myself, it just quickly became the next step of we actually have to address the military industrial complex as a whole.

Marc Steiner:

Michael?

Michael T. McPhearson:

Yeah, I grew up in a family that has a long history of service in the military and I grew up in Fayetteville, North Carolina where Fort Bragg is located. And while I was well aware, I know black history, my mother’s a school teacher, so she taught us quite a bit about our history. So it wasn’t like I didn’t understand that the US was problematic at home. I didn’t fully understand our foreign policy. I knew a little bit about Vietnam, but I used to think that war was a necessary evil and that going in the military was something that you did growing up in Fayetteville.

Marc Steiner:

It’s a military town, right?

Michael T. McPhearson:

Yeah, it’s a military town. So it’s super normalized and I decided that I was going to get out. I didn’t like why we were in Iraq at the time. I was married to a woman who grew up in Kuwait and her mother was there when Saddam invaded. So I had this weird kind of relationship with Saddam, but I decided I was going to get out and just doing more research and looking at the things that were happening here at home as it related to what was happening abroad, it pushed me to realize the war is more of a choice, not a necessary evil, especially US foreign policy. And after September 11, knowing that we were going to go to war in a big way, I started getting involved in the anti-war movement and I found veterans for peace.

Marc Steiner:

From your perspectives, as people who served, I think it’s important for people to hear from you what you think we’re facing right now. This parade that was thrown out to all of us, the military parade by a guy who doesn’t even know what the military is and the dangers we face in terms of pushing the wars that we’re pushing at this moment for the future of our country and for the future of the world. So what role do you all play as veterans in that? Do you fight against that and what do you have to say to the people of America about that?

Kevin Benderman:

Okay. I would say that based on our experiences, I mean 10 years, Michael was in for a while and I believe, how many years were you in Michael?

Michael T. McPhearson:

I’m active duty and reserve 11,

Kevin Benderman:

11 years. So you’re looking at 30 years of experience, both in combat time and peace time.

You cannot discount what we can tell the young people that are facing these issues that we see today and how it affects them and that peace would be a much better way for them to live their lives and not bring violence and destruction to other people who are just trying to live their lives and make a living. So I believe that we have valuable insights that they can listen to. And if they have a moral conflict, there are resources that we have available that we will put out so they can reach out to the people. And if they are morally conflicted about any illegal orders or any orders at all, that conflict with their conscience, we want to be able to help them achieve their goals and not be living the same nightmare that we all live when we know that all those resources can be better used for education, housing, food, anything but more destruction and harm to other people.

Marc Steiner:

Michael, where do you then take this struggle? Where does it go? How do you make this fight?

Michael T. McPhearson:

Well, let me say in 2003, I went back to Iraq as part of a peace delegation. Yeah, it was late 2003. So we had just really invaded a rock. And what Kevin was saying earlier about people being regular people, not that different from us. I mean they speak a different language and they might eat different foods pretty much other than that, they’re the same. And I really saw that because they were so kind to me. They asked me to come into their homes and give me tea and fed me while we were invading. And I say we as I’m a US citizen, so our country was invading their country and they were treating me well. Yes, they were treating me very well. So the reason I bring that up is because I want to help people understand that the interests that they claim that we’re defending is not for regular people and that the wars that we’re conducting we’re killing people who are just like us, who don’t have much choice in the matter, and we shouldn’t participate in that. We need to figure out ways to build peace rather than war. And then you asked about this moment here at home.

Yes. We have a person who’s basically authoritarian, who only uses the law when it’s works for him and his people. And then when it doesn’t, he ignores it. He took the same oath that we took to defend the constitution. This is where the veteran part gets in and he’s not alright. He’s abusing the constitution. So I just ask service members and regular citizens to think about what does that mean? We don’t have to agree politically, but at the same time we understand that the constitution has meaning. It has lot to do with the condemn of nation that we are. So if we really believe in those things, we have to look at what’s happening in our country today and push back on that. There’s nothing about us than any more special than anybody if we can’t adhere to those basic principles. The only thing that makes us different than any other place is those basic principles.

Marc Steiner:

So as veterans, as people who serve in the militaries for this country, it’s all wars. How do you see the struggle for change really happening and the role that you have to play? I’m going to let you go, Embry. You got it. I don’t have to say more.

Amber Mathwig:

Speaking of sometimes we disagree, I’m going to disagree with just one teeny thing that Kevin said, which is that we have not had any peace time before the Civil War, the United States Army was being utilized to commit genocide against the indigenous people of this land that continued after the civil War. And then, let’s see, I believe 1898 is when we started our wars of imperialism against other countries. Even when we’re not in an active world war, we are engaging in destruction of other people’s countries in land in order to get profit. We don’t get that education in our schools. And so I know we were going to mention our campaign coming up, but some of the apparatus of the campaign will be engaging our communities in this education about what were some of these wars or invasions or conquests or we need to go defend women and L-G-B-T-Q people in another country. And it really comes down to how are we defending them if we are taking away everything that is available to them to organize and fight against the systems themselves. If they don’t have food and water, they can’t spend their time worrying about the safety of a queer person in their community because they are struggling to have their most basic needs met. And I think that is one of the things that I really, really want service members to be aware of when you’re thinking about, oh, I’m joining to go bring democracy abroad. We don’t even have democracy here.

And that the other thing is that when we as military members and veterans are out fighting for our benefits, we have to understand that those benefits were only guaranteed to us if we took a little part of ourselves away that pulled us to act humane and with empathy towards other people. And so getting housing, healthcare, we shouldn’t have to kill in order to get those, those should just be guaranteed as part of our society. So you see, Kevin has the feed, the people, not the war machine. I have healthcare, not warfare. Michael’s calling for a ceasefire now because these are all things that we care about well beyond our own VA and military benefit.

Marc Steiner:

So as we kind of wind down, I want to see where three of you think as veterans where historical goes. Now two of you who have been arrested on the last action and you got more things coming up. So talk a bit about what your next steps are, where you take this struggle, where you take this battle and where do you see it going?

Kevin Benderman:

I see it as getting information out to a new generation of service members, whether they be active duty, national guard or reserves, that there are things available to them if they feel that their moral conscience being, they are violating that conscience. And so there are things available to them where they can use in a legal manner in order to not have to participate in the destruction of innocent people. And I can’t emphasize that enough. I mean the people that I met in Iraq, the majority of them, the feeling that I got from them is like they were tired of Saddam Hussein, that they were tired of the United States playing tug of war with them and their lives and their country because we had been involved in them since at least 1983. They were sick of it. And I think we need to look at the human aspect of it. Everybody’s over there, they have a family, they’re trying to make a living and they want to live in peace just like you and I do right here at home. And I think we should be able to respect that and not force any other actions on people that they don’t want to participate in.

Marc Steiner:

Well said. What are your closing thoughts on this, Michael?

Michael T. McPhearson:

Ask Google, how many years has the US been at peace? And it says 17 out of 17 out of 204 9.

Marc Steiner:

That is a perspective. I mean, think about that.

Michael T. McPhearson:

Yeah, so if you believe there’s no years or only 17 years that both of them say a lot, either 249 years, 17 years that the US has not been at war. So just take that as you will. So there’s at least two things happening, at least from my perspective, that need to be dealt with. There’s peace being anti-war, but there’s also what’s happening here in this country right now when it comes to this authoritarian surge and movement towards fascism. Okay, I’m concerned about both of them. So here at home, people on the so-called left, whatever it is,

Marc Steiner:

Whatever that is

Michael T. McPhearson:

Yeah, whatever that is, I need to unite across that spectrum because the right whatever that is has united and they’re not distinguishing between any of us. So we need to unite across the spectrum to push back. Veterans like us need to continue to speak out so that we can motivate other veterans to speak out and also show them the hypocrisy of this administration. And then particularly white people need to be reaching out to the right to that side because white people overwhelmingly voted for Trump. Many people of color did. Black people overwhelmingly did not vote for him because we understood that this is white supremacy rising using fascism and authoritarianism. So if we want to really break what is happening here in the United States of America at this moment, then white people have to talk to other white people and help them figure out how to change so that we can deal with the issues many of them are upset about when it comes to not having a job, when it comes to opioids, when it comes to all the things that impact their life. But they got to let go of this white supremacy idea in order for us really to be able to change that. Then the other thing is war itself. How are people going to think about peace abroad when in their own communities they’re not seeing peace? So we have to work here at home to help people find peaceful ways to solve problems here at home, and then people might be able to have a better vision of peace abroad.

Marc Steiner:

A closing thought from you in a few minutes. We have,

Amber Mathwig:

Yeah, I am white people. I come from a community that at one point in my lifetime was almost 100% white rural, voted 70% for Trump in this last election, and even with a lockdown two weekends ago because a political assassin could not be found and was somewhere in the neighborhood of my hometown.

People are not talking about the violent rhetoric that is always on display either through signs or just through the belief systems that people have. It is a very strong Trump community as most of Minnesota is. I live in the suburbs where we’re pretty heavy blue transitioning into purple about where I’m at. But I think that you brought up the arrest. I have no fear of being arrested if I get charges. Yeah, it really sucked. Don’t get that twisted. It really sucked and we were absolutely treated harshly on purpose, but it is a tool of the state to try to instill fear into the people, to not stand up for what we need and deserve from our communities and from our government. So I have no fears of getting arrested. I’m union, so I can’t get fired for being arrested for stuff that I did off duty or off work off duty.

See how militarized I get sometimes the second I get with my people and that, yeah, Michael is absolutely right. White people have just such a tremendous role to play in continuing to be around and talk with fellow white people into, I don’t want to say necessarily meet them where they’re at because that can be really frustrating, but just to be direct, why do you believe that way? How do you think this is making things better? One thing I’m rolling over in my brain a lot lately is like, oh, you don’t pay attention to politics or what’s going on, but then you go vote and you don’t pay attention to your impact. How can you go out and vote for Trump and not have any clue what the impact on other people like the people that you work next to, live next to are? And I don’t want to say that I’m a pariah in my hometown because a lot of people are actually really supportive of how I speak out, but it’s just the fact that that support is still kind of quiet

Is part of the problem, is that they have a legitimate fear around how they will be treated in the communities. And I think white people just, you need to give that up. You have no fear in being racist or misogynistic. Why are you afraid to speak up in support of others? And so that’s where I’m at, just when folks are really trying to figure out what to do when service members, active duty National Guard are trying to figure out, can I disobey this order? Can I refuse to do X? And we have resources for that by the way, just go with the fear. Because once you get over that fear, you’re going to feel so much better about it in the end. You may also need some therapy, but you will be better off once you confront those fears.

Marc Steiner:

So this has been a great conversation and I want to thank you all as well for standing up and doing what you’ve done in your lives and standing up to expose what’s going on to really fight for the kind of freedom and democracy we deserve. So thank all three of you so much. It’s been really great to have you here. Michael May Ferrison and Kevin Benjamin Amber Wig. Thank you all so much. Let’s stay in touch. I want to hear more about what veterans are doing and as they struggles unfold, I want to hear more about what you all are doing for standing up for democracy in a different way. So thank you all so much.

Amber Mathwig:

Yeah, thank you, Marc. We’d love to come back on and talk more about our campaign after it launches on July 4th.

Marc Steiner:

July 4th is the date. Alright, thank you. Thank you all. Thank you. Once again, thank you to Michael T. McPherson, Amber Math Week, and Kevin Beman for joining us today. And thanks for David Hebdon for running and editing our program and producer Tali for making it all happen behind the scenes. And everyone here at The Real News making this show possible. Please let me know what you thought about, what you heard today, what you’d like us to cover. Just write to me at MS s@therealnews.com and I’ll get right back to you. Once again, thank you to our guests for joining us today. We’ll be linking to Veterans for Peace. You can check out all their work at veteransforpeace.org. So for the crew here at the Real News, I’m Marc Steiner. Stay involved. Keep listening, and take care.