U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Alejandro Villatoro explains why he opposes the war, though he says he will go if deployed to Afghanistan.

Sgt. Sara Roeske, acting deputy director of public affairs for the Wisconsin National Guard, tells soldiers’ stories from the front lines of Iraq.

All three were part of professor Jonathan Shailor’s class at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside last week.

But it’s not a political science or current affairs class. Shailor’s communications class is subtitled “Narrative Analysis — Stories of the Iraq War.”

“We’re looking at films, documentaries, certainly written and published narratives, family storytelling ... fragments as well as structured narratives,” Shailor said.

“There’s always a bias that reflects the speaker’s position, culture, all kinds of things: what the author or filmmaker relies on; what’s told; what’s not told. How that story is received or responded to is important, too.”

“Every speaker had a different angle,” Shailor says. “The students also are interviewing Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, and they’re participating in the Veterans History Project. So, they’ll submit the stories to the Library of Congress ... This ‘juicy’ focus makes it more immediate and interesting.

“One of the functions of story is to preserve memory. We’re so glutted with messages that come to us through the Internet, TV, Twitter whatever. There’s something about a college class that helps us sift through the noise and really attend to it,” he said.

“We’re drowning in information, yet we’re not understanding. I remember 9/11 and the aftermath and the political debates. While this may seem like old news and patently tired to some of us now, this needs to be preserved.”

Iraq refugee

“I visit many countries in Europe and Arab countries. Before this (coming to the United States in 2006) I stop in Egypt. I lose everything in Egypt. My daughter cry because I have not one penny,” Hindi said.

She was happy when Saddam Hussein was deposed. But as the war dragged on, she grew bitter toward President Bush and the United States. Her anger and disillusionment grew during her first years living here as a refugee, she said.

“Life was very difficult under Saddam Hussein, but it was safe under Saddam Hussein. Before, Saddam kill maybe 10 people a day. Now, one bomb kills 300 people; one bomb kills 100 people.

“Now, everything is broke. There is no water. There is no (electrical) power. Everyday, I cry because I miss my country,” Hindi said.

“I first come to America, I hate America. I hate my life. I don’t have my job. My administrator cut my assistance. Sometimes, I sell my food stamps. People say, ‘Why you come to America if it so bad?’ Because I have no choice.”

Now living in Chicago, she said her views of America have become more positive.

“Fortunately, I meet some people, and it change my life. Nobody here ask me, ‘Fatima are you Jewish? Are you Hindi? Are you Muslim?’“ she said.

Veteran against the war

Villatoro, 27, of Chicago, who first enlisted in 2000, spoke of becoming disillusioned after shipping to Iraq in 2003, where he was a mechanic and convoy driver.

He ran into highly paid civilians, many of them American, also driving trucks and doing the jobs he and other soldiers were there to do.

He also recalled the fear on fellow soldiers’ faces as they headed out on missions, and that led him to become a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War.

After returning home, he began experiencing depression. His life grew disorganized, and Villatoro said he learned later his unit hadn’t been properly assessed for counseling.

“We all went in thinking we were supposed to disarm Iraq, find and shut down the terrorist training camps,” Villatoro said. “I wanted to bring freedom. I wanted to bring democracy. I wanted to bring peace to people. I wound up doing the opposite. I’m still struggling to make peace with myself.”

He re-enlisted in 2006 after going broke and being unable to find a decent, steady job.

“I wanted to fit in again, to try to live a new life not knowing what life to live,” Villatoro said, saying he still believes in soldiers as peacemakers and protectors.

He is scheduled to be deployed to Afghanistan.

“I plan to go out there with different eyes,” he said. “I’m just trying to educate myself because I haven’t accepted war will always be a part of my life.”

Military journalist

Roeske, of DeForest, a military journalist, gave students a different view of Iraq, where she served from 2004-05, and also of Guantanamo Bay, where she served from 2008-09.

She narrated slides displaying the rugged natural beauty of mountainous Kurdish Iraq, the northernmost area of Iraq, where she was deployed. The photos showed GIs in the field, interacting in city streets with Kurdish adults and multitudes of smiling, laughing children.

In others, Roeske holds her rifle at the ready, aimed outward, crouched with other soldiers in camouflage fatigues, and helmets.

“We pulled security on that mission because we’re soldiers first, then journalists. Usually two of us, one print and one broadcast, went out with convoys,” she explained.

Roeske produced and packaged videos marketed for the Army and picked up by civilian media outlets. Her job, she said, was to tell “the Army story,” meaning “the great job our soldiers are doing in Iraq and around the world.”

“In the beginning, we were given an angle and a command message to send with every story. Anything that could be built, I did stories on it,” said Roeske, adding that even as a military journalist she had to earn the trust of fellow soldiers.

“Telling their stories was so against the grain for them. It still is,” she said, readily defending the Army distributing stories as a means to offset a perceived bias by civilian mainstream media.