Name: 【TEDx】Your time in Iraq makes you a threat to society: Andrew Chambers at TEDxMarionCorrectionalSalon 2013
Uploaded: 2014-05-01T10:32:39.000Z
Duration: 9 min 2 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Sargent!  What makes the green grass grow?

What are the two types  of people in this world?

What you just saw  was a small part of the training

I received while I was  in the United States Army.

They train you to harness  a deep inner rage, a hidden rage.

A rage that most people  don't even know they have.

In combat,  that rage can keep you alive.

Let me back up a second and tell you why I joined the Army.

Most of you can probably remember where you were on September 11th.

I was working as a forklift operator, just out of high school.

I'm driving around  and everyone disappeared.

So I head up to  the front of the building,

As I walk up, I watched the second plane hit the Twin Towers.

I knew at that moment that I was gonna join the military.

Before I made it to Iraq, I spent about a year in Central America.

This is the upside to the Army. You get to see the world.

I spent about a year  bouncing around the jungles

I fell in love with the culture. I got to see and try new things.

I even got to swim in the Atlantic  and the Pacific in the same day

In 2004, my unit received orders  to deploy to the Middle East

in support of  operation "Iraqi Freedom".

We were gonna be stationed in Tikrit, Iraq.

It's Saddam Hussein's hometown, right in the heart of the Sunni Triangle.

About halfway through my tour, we received orders to go to Fallujah.

At the time, the insurgents controlled the entire city of Fallujah,

and we were sent in  to recapture the city.

I was the third gunner  hanging at the top of a 50,

hanging out at the top  of a humvee on a .50-cal.

And I was gonna be the eyes and the ears of the convoy.

The drive from Tikrit to Fallujah was only supposed to take about 10 hours

On the way down,  they started blowing up bridges

we'd come into a new contact and after 36 hours, with non-stop combat

no sleep and high stress, your mind starts to play tricks on you.

I started seeing things that aren't there,

At some point,  the second night with no sleep,

I must have fell asleep, dozed off, the cool air rocking me to sleep,

I remember hearing the AK-47 rounds hitting aside the humvee

just inches from my head: "ting, ting, ting, ting".

shooting through the air in every direction. Total chaos.

Explosions all around me. I lit up the .50-cal: "thump, thump, thump",

"thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump",

In the middle of all this chaos, I could hear somebody laughing

"who could be laughing  at a time like this?"

I felt like I was finally  losing control of that rage

Come time to leave Iraq, and they asked for volunteers to stay.

They needed somebody to find and neutralize the IEDs

It wasn't a decision  that I took lightly,

but if I didn't volunteer, they were gonna pick people.

And I wasn't married,  I didn't have kids,

and I didn't want them  to pick somebody with a family,

That second tour, we spent  3 or 4 vehicles to go out everyday.

We'd drive about 10 mph down the road, barely moving.

We'd look at the side of the road, trying to find the IEDs

and we'd wait for the road to blow up on us.

While in Iraq,  I lost 7 of my best friends.

My transition home was difficult, to say the least.

I was paranoid, I carried a pistol on me at all times.