(Vincent Emanuele) You grew up in the former USSR, specifically what is today the annexed portion of Crimea. Tell me about these experiences. Give me a bit of information about your family’s background, where they grew up, and how they were situated in Soviet society.
(Sergio Kochergin) Both of my parents were born in Azerbaijan due to their parents being in the military. They were primarily stationed in that area, but moved around depending on their military commitments. My Mom was a piano teacher. That’s what she studied as a child. In the Soviet Union, there were more opportunities for women in terms of education and employment, so she had a decent position. She was eventually the principle of a music/art school. The majority of the females in my family held professional positions in the fields of technology and engineering, for example.
My Dad was in the Navy. As an officer, he was a navigator in the Soviet Navy for over 27 years. Before that, he worked in factories. It’s interesting, so even with the advancements made in gender roles under Soviet rule, my father’s ability to advance his career was limited due to the fact that he wasn’t the son of a general or high-ranking officer. In other words, despite the ideals of Communism and Socialism, in order for people to advance or obtain certain privileges, they had to be connected to power. The ideals were undermined by systemic corruption and concentrated power.
How old were you during this time? What were your personal experiences like? What do you remember as a child?
My family left Ukraine in 1997, so I lived there for over thirteen years. Well, there’s basically stages: pre-collapse and post-collapse. The pre-collapse era was very family and community orientated. Lots of playing outside and normal stuff kids do. The shortages of certain food staples and consumer goods didn’t really register at the time. Once you grow up in it, those things start to appear normal. Mostly, things were community-based. There was my immediate family-community. But also friend-community circles and down to the neighborhood-community. So when certain families were short on goods or food, others would normally help out. Basically, my experiences before turning six years old were the sort of experiences kids should have.
Once the collapse of the Soviet Union started to happen at a rapid pace, it was obvious things got worse for the community and for my parents. People were doing a lot of bartering for basic goods. Things were very surreal, disorganized and violent. Honestly, things were very unpredictable and fractured. In 1992, I was in the second grade. I had a teacher that used to beat students. No one really knew why, but she did it all the time.
Me being the the kid I was, I did’t consult with my parents about my teacher’s behavior. Instead, I got together with three or four of my classmates who were the primary victims of her abusive behavior, and I told them that I was going to confront the teacher and wanted their support. The next day when I stood up and protested, they didn’t. This created a big problem because my teacher’s husband was an Admiral stationed at the same base as my father. This led to me leaving school and being home-schooled for some time.
Where did this rebellious attitude come from?
In general, of course, my family was rebellious because of World War II. That war played a huge role in constructing and informing Soviet society. My Grandmother spent a lot of time raising me while my parents were working, so she had a big impact on my perception of the world. As the Soviet Union collapsed, religion became one of the driving forces that helped people deal with the suffering of poverty and collapse. I would always ask her about religious stuff—does God exist? She would tell me that no God would ever allow this sort of suffering because that’s not love. She always told me to help people and to pay attention to my surroundings. She taught me to always be honest. Her ability to communicate with me not as a child, but as a human being, helped shape my values.
At what point did your family decide to leave Ukraine and come to the US? Where did they settle? Can you talk about your initial reactions after arriving in the US?
My Grandmother died a couple years before we left. That was a big reason. After my incident in the second grade, I didn’t want to conform to that society and was generally a disruptive kid. I was looking up to the mafia-types and criminals who were doing much better than most of society at that time. Most of those people are now dead or in jail. My parents saw this and wanted a better life for me. They were either going to send me to a military school in Russia, or leave the country and try to come to the US. They decided to come to the US and applied for refugee status. It was eventually granted and we moved to New Jersey.
We stayed with my uncle who moved to the states in the 1970s. He had his own house, which had a swimming pool. I’d never seen anything like that before in my entire life. It was completely surreal. The stores were filled with goods. It was like a Disney World. I’d never seen so many things on shelves. I didn’t know what to ask for because there were so many things to choose from. In September of 1997, I started school at John P. Stevens Middle School in Metuchen, New Jersey. It was tough being an immigrant and not speaking any English. People would try and bully and exclude me from their games. They would make fun of me a lot. So, I resorted to violence, but in all fairness it was defensive in nature.
I would like to point out that even the Russian and Ukrainian immigrants who were already living in the US bullied those of us who couldn’t speak English as well. So, the assimilation process was made difficult from two angles. But, at the same time, there were also plenty of people who were very supportive and welcoming. However, I had to find people who were on the same page. People I could hang out with. I didn’t have a bunch of clothes to wear all time. The American students were wearing different outfits every day. I didn’t have that, so I found people who had the same sort of background as I came from. Many of them were hoodlums, and are now dead or in jail, same as the small-time criminals in Russia. One of my friends was shot in the face after trying to buy Ecstasy during a New Years Eve party. For me, that was a turning point. I was looking for a way out.
Here, you decided to join the military, particularly the United States Marine Corps. Why?
My grades weren’t really good in school. I didn’t care much for a lot of the classes and my parents didn’t have money to send me to college. For me, here’s where assimilation comes into play. I thought that joining the military would be a way to fit in to the society my family had just moved to. Actually, I first wanted to join the Navy in order to be a Navy Seal.
Wait a minute, why did you want to be a Navy Seal? Where did the idea come from? That’s a pretty specific goal for someone who just moved to the US.
Watching a lot of American action films and the recruiters at school who made it look sexy. That’s the truth. Once 9-11 happened, I decided to take a quicker route and joined the infantry in the Marine Corps, so I could be on the front lines.
That makes sense. The power of Hollywood propaganda in shaping the views of young boys and men cannot be overstated in my opinion. So, what was boot camp and the school of infantry like for you?
I thought it was exciting and very different. It wasn’t very difficult, to be honest, especially physically.
What made you stay?
I didn’t want to embarrass my family and friends. I didn’t want to look like a quitter. It all has to do with the macho identity.
Talk to me about your first deployment. This was during the initial invasion and push from Kuwait to Baghdad.
I left School of Infantry in October 2002 and reported to the unit in November. From November through February of 2003, it was like another round of bootcamp. Lots of hazing. Lots of time spent in the field, training and so forth. We were being told at the time that we were heading to Iraq. There was no question among those in charge. They told us that we were going to have to kill kids and women. In some ways, it was a pretext for them to use very harsh hazing tactics that were very dehumanizing. All of this obviously socializes us for combat.
Was there any discussion of why you were going to war? Also, was there any discussion of Iraqi culture, history or military capabilities?
They kept telling us that the Iraqis were connected to Al Qaeda and had chemical weapons. There was a lot of racism involved in the training, portraying Arabs and Muslims as savages. There were some language classes, but they only provided a couple short phrases. As far as military capabilities are concerned, they told us we were going to face T-72 tanks, a massive air force, scud-missiles, possibly mustard gas and that the Republican Guard would give us one hell of a fight because they were supposedly highly trained fighters with combat experience.
It’s February 2nd, and your unit is in Kuwait. Tell me about the initial invasion.
Our unit was in an AAV (Amphibious Assault Vehicles), which is supposed to hold 12 people from the squad, plus the driver, tech guy and the vehicle commander. Instead, we had around 16 or 17 guys, enough ammo, food and water for about a week or week and a half, so we were basically lying on top of each other. Everything was dusty as hell and smelled like fumes. It was around 130 degrees inside the AAV. There wasn’t a lot of direct contact with the so-called enemy. All of the Iraqi Army and Republican Guard’s equipment was left behind. Everything was bombed out by the time we arrived to the various cities.
Where did your convoy first stop on its way to Baghdad?
We were somewhere around Basra, in the oil fields located outside the city. Our first objective was to secure the oil fields. We eventually turned them over to the British military. After that, we kept moving north, following orders from above. Lots of dead people on the side of the road: civilians, Iraqi military, foreign fighters, etc. Eventually, we ended up in Baghdad. Right before we entered the city, a US Air Force plane accidentally dropped a 500 pound bomb about three football fields away from our convoy.
Where was your unit’s final destination?
Our unit ended up in An Najaf, where we were guarding falsely accused prisoners. It was Al-Sadr’s area of control. We were told that our unit had to intercept Al Sadr’s convoy and bring him in alive. We were preparing for this mission for over a month. And then, at the last second, as we were waiting for his convoy to pass, our unit was told to stand-down. Otherwise, the majority of the time our unit was abusing the local populations by means of various forms of violence: beatings, intimidation, and basic colonial behavior.
For example, a family invited three Marines and I into their home. They fed us. The woman bathed us. They didn’t want to take any money for anything. She just kept telling us that we were little boys. That’s what made me really, really question what was going on. It was my first formal interaction with the local population. The deployment ended in October of 2003. It was about a nine month deployment.
The first time we met was in October of 2003 in Twentynine Palms, California, after our unit, the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, Alpha Company, returned from deployment to An Najaf. I was doing menial tasks in Twentynine Palms after being sent home early from Kuwait because my mother had a brain aneurism, so I didn’t participate in the first deployment, other than doing small convoys on the border. At this point, most people thought the war in Iraq was over. Some people thought we were going to possibly redeploy to Afghanistan, but that didn’t happen. After a while, our commanders informed us that 1/7 would be redeploying to Iraq for a second time. I actually remember a lot of our fellow Marines being quite pissed, which is interesting for many reasons but we can talk about that dynamic later. You eventually went on to join the Scout Sniper unit. What made you leave our platoon for the Scout Snipers?
Well, the first thing to point out is that once we found out that there were no weapons of mass destruction there was a lot of protesting during the first deployment. People were putting their weapons down and going to sleep on post. People were pissed. When we came back, no one saw any reason to do any training. There were a lot of conversations going on about what we were going to do next. After we found out that we were all deploying again, people were very complacent and didn’t really want to take it seriously. And that made me reconsider being in the unit. I wanted to be with people who were more professional and serious.
Talk about your second deployment, this time with the Scout Snipers. You were still attached to 1/7, but operated independently and in support of battalion operations. You were located twenty miles northwest of where I was stationed with 3rd Platoon, which was a town called Al Qaim, located fifteen miles from the Syrian border on the Euphrates River. What exactly did your unit do?
I was with STA (Surveillance Target
This period played a significant role in changing your mind about the war, as it did mine. I remember the towns being totally dominated by anti-western sentiment. Those populations hated the US, and for good reason. What was taking place during this period that resonates the most with you today?
The lack of rules of engagement. The lack of understanding concerning internal dynamics, Iraqi politics, culture and society. The lack of exposure to the local cultures, which was non-existent. I remember our intelligence unit giving us flyers that were warning the local Iraqi population about renegade US snipers who were killing innocent Iraqis in the city. I already knew the war was unjust, but due to the high casualties on our side, I had an inability to express my anger in a productive manner, so I wasn’t surprised by the flyers. But that moment still had a profound impact on my views.
Now, it’s April 2005. Our unit is back in Twentynine Palms and everyone is filled with extreme discontent. People are drinking and doing heavy drugs on a regular basis, ourselves included. Some people are going AWOL; others are following orders. A good portion of people are being told to prepare for a third deployment. At this point, I had already decided to get out of the Marine Corps and was subsequently discharged on administrative grounds. But prior to that, I spent a few months on base with members from our unit, smoking weed in the barracks and talking about political issues, life and the war. For me, this period was important, as it allowed me to develop my own political ideas and values, and talk about them with our fellow Marines. What do you remember about coming home from the second deployment and eventually being discharged?
Once I found out I didn’t have to deploy for a third time, I quit the Scout Sniper platoon and rejoined Alpha Company. During this time I was doing a lot of reflecting. I had a lot of conversations. I was experimenting with a lot of drugs, trying to figure out what happened. We were talking about whether or not the war should have taken place and what we could do. Why didn’t we know anything about the war? We were digging, looking for information.
Before I left the Corps, I was offered a job with an oil company in Texas. They came to our separation classes and tried to recruit us. They told us the job would be a lot like the Marine Corps. I was a bit interested in doing a job like that, but eventually went home to Pennsylvania, started to read more and took college courses. That’s when I realized that I didn’t have a good understanding of the world. That pushed me to spend more time in school, and to spend more time reading. I was trying to find more information to better understand everything.
At some point, you join Iraq Veterans Against the War. When did you decide to become officially active, going to events, speaking publicly and so forth?
I joined Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) in 2007 after having conversations with yourself. I was feeling very anxious. I was looking for something to identify with at that time. I checked out the organization online and went to a demonstration in Washington D.C. I liked what the members were saying, so I contacted the Philadelphia office and became an official member of IVAW. I eventually moved to Texas to live with a guy we both served with. We were living in a dry-county, a bible-belt sort of town, so there weren’t many events or organizations, other than the local environmental club.
So, I got involved with them and started doing little things like cleaning the local rivers and ponds, testing water, you know, stuff like that. I wanted to be involved for many reasons: subjective and objective alike. Honestly, at the time I was feeling very suicidal. After a failed attempt, I realized the next morning that what’s going on in Iraq was way worse than the way I felt at that moment, and that I had to fight not only for my life, but for the lives of others. I realized that I had to inform myself, so I wouldn’t make the same mistakes I had made in the past.
What were some of the projects and campaigns you worked on while organizing with IVAW? What are some of the lessons you’ve learned from these experiences?
Around 2008, I moved from Texas to Oregon to attend university. I wanted to get away from a very conservative environment. I was becoming interested in psychology and ethnic studies, and since the University of Oregon has great departments for both subjects, it made sense at the time. Once I was in Oregon, I worked a lot with Veterans for Peace (VFP) because IVAW didn’t have a local chapter. I was trying to organize veterans on campus, but it was hard. We were doing a lot of public events around Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine. I was surprised that there wasn’t much enthusiasm about the military conflicts. There wasn’t really an antiwar movement. It was the same old crowds of older people from the 60s and 70s—not many youth.
I worked a bit with the Seattle IVAW chapter and other local organizations, and the movement was much more vibrant. In 2008, you called me on the phone and asked if I would be willing to testify to Congress about rules of engagement and war crimes. Of course, I agreed to do it. Before that, I also testified at the Winter Soldier Hearings in Silver Spring, Maryland. Those were the two biggest events I participated in as a member of IVAW. In the summer of 2008, I also participated in the protests surrounding the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
From 2010 through 2013, I also worked on IVAW’s Operation Recovery Campaign. Basically, it was a campaign to stop the deployment of traumatized troops. We were based in Killeen, Texas, located outside the major Army base, Fort Hood. We built an outreach center for the active duty military, providing soldiers with mental health services and legal services while trying to work with the base commanders to provide the necessary treatment to both combat and non-combat soldiers. We would go on base and reach out to soldiers, talked with them, provided them with literature containing legal rights, statistics and other useful information.
Lessons learned?
I saw a lot of complacency. The electoral politics hijacked the entire movement in 2008. It felt like the movement was very reactionary. Instead of educating ourselves and better understanding systems of power, we were focused on day-to-day actions, big protests or testimonies. There was no vision or strategy to end US imperialism. We were just reacting to events. Really, due to my own complacency, I was consumed by the local activism and unable to see the larger picture, or to understand that there wasn’t a bigger vision, or that there weren’t smarter people somewhere making big decisions for the movement.
One of my critiques would be that the war in Afghanistan has never took center-stage for the movement. In the antiwar movement, we never had proper representation of Afghan victims of war or Afghanistan veterans. We failed to link all of the conflicts to the broader framework of US imperialism, capitalism, ecological devastation, gender issues and American exceptionalism. Some of our behaviors in the movement were reflecting the very systems we were attempting to oppose. Those who were trying to make valid critiques of the movement were often ostracized. In the end, I think activists have to be more attentive of our behaviors, understandings of things—stop trying to find easy answers—be honest and direct.
Okay, so, switching gears a bit, you finished your bachelor’s degree in sociology and ethnic studies in 2011. Soon after, you completed a master’s program in political economy of agriculture and environment at the University of Rotterdam’s Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, Netherlands. What made you pursue more schooling? And what did you learn in this program?
First of all, I felt like the antiwar movement was non-existent at the time. Especially after the Occupy Wall Street protests, the movement dissipated in short amount of time, just like the labor protests in Wisconsin. So I felt like I needed to learn something new, different. I needed to get exposed to different views from different countries from around the world. After a recommendation from my friend, Kim Scipes, I applied and was accepted for the program.
I was exposed to the field of economics from the perspective of development theory. Basically, it’s supposed to promote growth in developing countries with an end result of reaching full-development, or modernization, modeled after the developed world. For example, they would teach people that countries should move away from a comparative advantage
The main problem with this approach is that it ignores the importance of colonialism and industrialization and the relationship between the South and the North, not to mention the environmental impact of such development. Most importantly, it reinforces the idea of consumption in the developed world, and production and exploitation of the developing world. This is where ideology comes into play, especially in the European context. The majority of the people who came to our school from developing nations were enticed by the dominant European culture and quickly assimilated. Many of these folks were more familiar with US popular culture than I was. They used to ask me about TV shows and movies, many of which I’d never heard of before. That was very wild.
From a different angle, it was very interesting to see that people in other countries are going through many of the same struggles that people are in the US: it’s hard to get people involved, it’s hard to get the youth engaged, etc.
Alright, so you come back to the US in December of 2014 after finishing your degree. Now, you’re about to embark on a journey back to the Ukraine in order to make a documentary film about the current political situation. Talk to me about this latest project.
Initially, I wanted to do a strictly journalistic documentary. As soon as people found out I was from Ukraine in school, people would ask me all the time what I thought about what’s happening; people at home would ask me; people in Ukraine would ask my opinion. And I would always tell them that it’s a very complex situation and that there isn’t just one definitive answer to what’s going on. There’s a huge historical and cultural component as well. As things continued to develop in Ukraine, I kept researching and finding reports that were centered around political economy, violence or the economic issues, so I wanted to give people something different.
As I kept reading, I found that the Ukraine, like any combat zone or important geopolitical area, reports kept excluding the peoples’ stories and just kept objectifying the situation in terms of power relations between the US and Russia. After reflecting, it reminded me of what was done before we were invading Iraq. People knew nothing about the culture. People were only focused on the power dynamics and ignoring the social impact of those power relations on the Iraqi population, on the families, on the social structures, on the economic structures. I’d like to provide a more holistic version of events in Ukraine.
These sort of proxy-conflicts have been going on everywhere: Somalia during the Cold War is an example. Southeast Asia is another example. For me, this isn’t just one event. For me, what’s going on in Ukraine is a reflection of the system that we’re operating in and that we oppose. I want to bring a human face to those conflict areas, to show that these political games create not only geopolitical crises, but also personal, social conflicts.
To finish, I would say that as a hybrid child of neoliberalism and imperialism, as an activist and a person who is interested in learning, we have to lay down our fears of uncertainty and begin to construct a different vision of how we want to see our future shape. It is quiet obvious that capitalism, imperialism, and market fundamentalism is not compatible with the existing social, economic, and environmental domains. We cannot maintain ideas of infinite growth in a world of finite resources. We have to stop for a second and reflect back on history, what’s been happening in our time and what’s being projected in the future, and ask ourselves whether or not we want to continue on the same destructive path.
Vincent Emanuele is a combat-veteran, radio journalist, activist and writer. He’s the host of Veterans Unplugged and formerly served on the Board of Directors for Iraq Veterans Against the War. His interviews have been featured in magazines, journals and websites around the world. He writes a bi-weekly article for TeleSUR English. He can be reached at [email protected]
Sergio Kochergin is a combat-veteran and former Scout Sniper with the United States Marine Corps. Today, he’s an activist and filmmaker. Sergio recently finished his Master’s Degree in Political Economy of Agriculture and the Environment and Economics of Development at the University of Rotterdam’s Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, Netherlands. Currently, he’s working on a documentary film about events in Ukraine, where he will be filming for the next twelve months.
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