Song about killing Iraqis was a joke, Marine says
JACKSONVILLE, N.C. __ A Marine seen in an Internet video singing about killing members of an Iraqi family says the song was a joke. Cpl. Joshua Belile, 23, apologized and said the song was not tied in any way to allegations that Marines killed 24 unarmed civilians in Haditha last year.
I suppose this one could and probably should be filed under “gallows humor”. No one who hasn’t served in a combat zone could possibly begin to understand the stress that soldiers are under 24/7. The need to blow off steams is merely a defense mechanism, a way to channel the stress in a healthy manner. No, those of us stateside shouldn’t expect to understand a performance like Cpl. Belile’s. In something akin to a scene from this generation’s Full Metal Jacket, Belile performed a song called “Hadji Girl”, whose lyrics detail a Marine’s killing an Iraqi family. There’s more to it than that, of course, but that’s what’s generating the current controversy.
(You can see the four-minute video here)
Yes, it’s tasteless, and some may certainly find Belile’s song offensive. Let’s not forget, though, that these people are trained killers. Killing is their job; it’s what they’re trained to do. People in this country may want to remain in denial about what the mission of a Marines is, but it’s not delivering Girl Scout cookies.
Nonetheless, while I might understand the context of Belile’s song, it is in horribly poor taste, and it will do nothing to improve our image internationally. Sometimes, being young and stupid in the Internet Age can have all sorts of adverse consequences.
Cpl. Joshua Belile thought up the words to “Hadji Girl” in September while drinking coffee with buddies in Iraq.
It was just a joke, Belile says, a play on lines from a movie. His fellow Marines seemed to enjoy the song, so they got Belile up on a stage with his guitar.
Someone taped his performance, and now Belile stands in the center of a growing controversy, one that threatens to drag the New River Air Station Marine and his blackly humorous song into the debate about the alleged incident at Haditha and the war in Iraq.
The four-minute, 13-second video of Belile’s performance was initially posted to the Internet site YouTube. The song tells the story of a Marine in Iraq who falls in love with an Iraqi girl. The girl takes the Marine to her family’s house.
But the family shoots the girl and then points their “AKs”“at the Marine. The Marine then grabs the Iraqi girl’s little sister and “put her in front of me.”
“As the bullets begin to fly, the blood sprayed from between her eyes and then I laughed maniacally,” according to the song’s lyrics. “Then I hid behind the TV and I locked and loaded my M-16, I blew those little (expletive) to eternity.”
This is the sort of thing that has occurred during virtually every war the US has been involved in. Soldiers need to blow off steam, if for no other reason than to maintain their sanity. Of course, previous wars didn’t have YouTube available to make a record of their recreational activities available worldwide in a matter of moments.
I don’t believe that Belile meant anything malicious by performing “Hadji Girl”. Unfortunately, now he is at the center of a self-created maelstrom that has taken on a life of it’s own. Muslims the world over have been offended, and now the Marine Corps has launched an investigation. Whether anything will come of this tasteless incident is anyone’s guess, but I imagine Belile will be much more careful about what he performs in the future.
