 Next, we're going to hear from Matthew Ho, who has nearly 12 years of experience in America's post 9-11 wars, first with the United States Marine Corps, and then with the Department of Defense and the State Department. He resigned in protest from the State Department in 2010 and went public with his criticism of the war. Matthew, thank you for joining us. Thank you, Brian. It's good to be here. I really appreciate everyone who has gathered today as well as, you know, the organizations who have made this possible. I've had this question before about my biography, and, you know, you say you had 12 years of experience in the post 9-11 wars, but you resigned in 2009, the math doesn't add up. Because I was taken part in when I was stationed in Okinawa, I was taken part in counterinsurgency campaigns with the Philippines, the Thais, the Indonesians, et cetera, as I was a Marine Corps officer. This war predates 9-11, and I think there will be many people who will speak to that about how this war, the start date for history is not September 11, 2001, but rather something much, much earlier. That said, I take very earnestly what Rachel said about the privilege on this call being those young people among us. And I also am not failing to note that I am one of the perpetrators of these wars. There are a couple others who will be on this call, but I think I'm the first perpetrator to speak. And so I think in the spirit of testimony and witnessing, maybe I should try and explain for the young people how I ended up taking part in these wars, the lies I told myself and why it took me so long to do the right thing, if you will. I was a senior in high school in 1990-1991, during the first Iraq war. At that point, I was committed, I was applying to West Point, applying for Army ROTC, also applied for Annapolis. I got into West Point, I got an Army ROTC scholarship for college, and I turned those down because I was so sick and aghast and disgusted by what I saw take place in that Iraq war, that first Iraq war, that I could not go into the military. That was not something I wanted to do with my life. It was an asthma to who I actually was. I went to college, I studied philosophy and literature and religion, and was quite happy doing so. But then after college, as I worked in finance, I was bored. I wanted to be part of something bigger than myself. Every day I had a subscription to The New York Times, where The New York Times are reunited when I got home. On the bus to work, whether it be in Boston or New York, I'd read The Economist, or The Atlantic, or The New Yorker, and I wanted to be a part of the world. I wanted to do something serious. I wanted to be a part of those big moment hands of history, if you will, and a variety of different decision points and some forest gump-like circumstances, I guess, and I ended up in the Marine Corps. There's always been a duality in me, just as I think there's always been a duality in people. I mean, the notion of duality goes back as early as we have recorded human history. Its notion of duality is permanent in all our religions, in all our different spiritual understandings, in our philosophies of who we are. It was something that divided me constantly. I went from being someone who had been sickened by the Iraq war, turned down West Point, and then, however many years later, ended up joining the Marine Corps anyway. I was a part of the Marine Corps starting from January of 1998. As I said briefly, when I started, I took part in these wars as they were in Asia, as they were again in the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, et cetera. I will try and keep this as brief as possible, but the excuses, why did I go twice to the war in Iraq? Why did I go once to the war in Afghanistan? I wanted to belong. I wanted to be part of something. I wanted to be part of what I saw in the New York Times, in the Atlantic, in the New Yorker, in the Economist. I wanted to be a serious person. And the nature of our media, the nature of our politics, the nature of our society fed me in that direction. This was the only way to do that. And so as I realized the Iraq war was immoral, was criminal, was illegal, was morally reprehensible, I still took part. And what I would do to justify myself continuing to take part in those things was to make rationales or excuses. So when I go to Iraq my first time, it's, well, maybe I can make a difference. As an individual, maybe I can do something, help those around me. What comes from that, of course, is that no matter how moral you are in a moral catastrophe like a war, there's nothing you can do. The immorality will always win out. After that it becomes, well, if I stay in long enough, well, maybe I'm a senior official and maybe I'm someone at the top of the government, I can then do things differently. And that, of course, is just a fiction. The next one, of course, is, well, if I go, I'm better, I'm a better marine officer than others, and I can make sure that my marines and sailors get home. So it becomes a very selfish argument. You start really looking, you're desperate now. You're trying to find reasons to take part that extinguish all the doubts, all the qualms, all the things that you know are wrong about these wars. Because you've taken part in it. I've had the blood in my hands. I've had the brains in my hands. I've had the bone bits on my hands. I've had a real, the bathing and blood, the reality of this, the baptism of this was very real for me, and that's why I'm a perpetrator. I took part. And eventually you get to the point where you can no longer, for me at least, I could no longer go along with it, because I was morally and intellectually broken. So by the time I'm on my third time in the war in Afghanistan in 09, seeing that the Afghan war is no fundamentally different than the Iraq war, because that's what I was holding out for. I was holding out that maybe the Iraq war would be different than the Afghan war would be different than the Iraq war. And that wasn't the case. There was no fundamental difference, nothing that mattered. So taking part in those things, being a perpetrator in war. And I come back now to that duality that existed in me. What had happened to that young man who in 1990, 1991 was so horrified, so disgusted by what he saw take place in the Persian Gulf, the killings, atrocities that occurred, the barbarity of what occurred in Kuwait and Iraq. How did I end up becoming an officer of the empire? And because there is a duality in me. And I think for the young people out there, I think you can realize this. You can appreciate this. You can see this. And what I will tell you is that stick to the part of you that is actually you stick to what belongs within you, whatever we call it, your gut, your mind, your soul, stick to those things. Don't be influenced by the power of the bee. Don't be influenced by those that have the most material success or political success, economic success, who have the most audience, who have the greatest reach. Don't be influenced by that. Influency remains true to what you have inside you. It took me way too long to do that. And for those who are part of this call, whose communities and society I helped destroy, I apologize. But for those young people who are watching, you will always have a chance to stay with that, the moral side of you, with the philosophical side of you, the side that belongs and is rooted in love, not the side that is rooted in ambition or career. And so that's why I urge anyone listening, but especially those young folks listening today to keep that with you, to always choose the morality, choose the philosophy, choose the literature, choose the poetry, choose the love. Because I've sitting here now 20 years later, I can't do anything other than explain to you my sadness, my anger, and the regret that has driven me to want to kill myself. So please take that away. And again, I want to thank everyone for doing this today, for those of you who organized it. Emily and Rachel and Brian for hosting this. And yeah, we can do better. And I believe we will do better. Thank you so much, Matthew, for your vulnerability and being so open and honest. You don't usually hear that perspective a lot.