Tulsi Gabbard: evaluation

Transcript context

…The physical; some injuries appeared to be minor upfront. At that time, traumatic brain injury was not something that was talked about much, if at all. Many had visible wounds. Others are now what we know appeared like, “All right, cool, you checked out,” but had invisible wounds. Those who were injured in a way that did not allow them to get back to work, found it emotionally very difficult to be put on a plane and evacuated out of there. Feeling guilty that they were leaving their friends behind, and not thinking about themselves or not feeling bad for themselves, but instead feeling bad for being forced to be in a position to leave. For soldiers, of course, we all have our own political opinions on things, but when it comes right down to it in a war zone, it’s about your friends. It’s about your brothers and sisters that you’re serving alongside. It’s not about the politicians or whatever insanity is going on in Washington. It’s about getting up and going out, getting the job done and coming back home together. I had friends of mine who were from Hawaii, who were from American Samoa, a very culturally tight-knit community, who confided in me throughout that year that we were there, infantry soldiers who were going out on security patrols and doing raids every day, just some of the very traumatic experiences that they went through. No physical injury, but creating a kind of emotional stress and trauma that, as human beings, they were struggling in dealing with. On a positive note, Polynesian culture especially, but also Asian culture and other cultures around the world, our guys found that shortly after we got there, the unit that we were replacing were taking the guys out on patrol and saying, “Hey, here’s this village. Here’s where we found friendlies.” Or, “Here’s where we know that there are insurgents operating, and they’ve got allies and lookouts.” And showing them the lay of the land basically. And what our guys found was that as they were doing these ride-alongs, they call it a left seat, right seat when you’re coming in and taking over, that there was a bit of a tense, even adversarial type of relationship, where on the military side there was an assumption of suspicion or lack of trust just with the locally Iraqi people who lived around the base that we were at. And without anybody telling them to culturally, our guys began trying to build relationships. f suspicion or lack of trust just with the locally Iraqi people who lived around the base that we were at. And without anybody telling them to culturally, our guys began trying to build relationships. For Hawaii and Samoa, and we had soldiers from Guam and Saipan, little things like you’re riding down in a Humvee, you’ve got a gunner in the turret with a 50 cal or a machine gun of some sort, little things like pointing the muzzle to the sky as you’re riding through a town rather than pointing it directly at where people are walking down the street was a huge gesture of an assumption of, “Hey, let’s actually talk and become friends.” We had our guys riding down the street and throwing shakas out to the local people there, breaking bread, sharing tea, and building those relationships. Again, I served in a medical unit and what we saw was a downward shift in casualties from the unit that had been there before us, simply because of that basic human connection that our guys sought to make. And then, gradually, finding local people who lived in the town right next to us were saying, “Hey, you guys, somebody was digging a big hole a mile down the road. You might want to bypass that or check that out.” And finding weapons, caches and IEDs, improvised explosive devices, and other things that helped save people’s lives. On the cost side of things, how is it possible for a company like Halliburton or others to get away with $40 bananas? However much it was, but the overhead costs.…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.