by Frida Berrigan
The Progressive

JEREMY HINZMAN JOINED THE MILITARY in early 2001. Like many others, he was attracted to the military by “the prospect of being able to ….go to college without incurring debt and be a part of something bigger than myself,” he says.

He completed basic training, and in July 2001 moved to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, with his wife, Nga Nguyen. He was a “White Devil”: a member of the 82nd Airborne’s 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment.

But during basic training, he began to have doubts.

Hattim and his family. (Dahr Jamail)

The dump is a dusty wasteland. Heaps of Baghdad’s rotting wastes are strewn about several square miles of the battered capital city. Engaged in their futile battle to remove the endless amounts of garbage from streets, blue garbage trucks rumble through the stinky dump, adding their loads of filth.

32 year-old Hattim lives in this wasteland with his family.