Iraq War Veterans Join Environmentalists in the Oiled Gulf of Mexico

Iraq War Veterans Join Environmentalists in the Oiled Gulf of Mexico
By Bryan Walsh Saturday, Jul. 17, 2010
Robin Eckstein has a closer relationship than most of us to the long supply chains that brings oil from the well to the wheel. In 2007 she was an Army truck driver in Iraq, shipping fuel from Baghdad International Airport to the forward bases of American operations. The U.S. military is an oil-thirsty machine, and it was the job of troops in logistics, like Eckstein, to keep the occupation fueled. That meant driving miles every day in a fuel convoy through some of the most dangerous streets in the world.

"Every day when we left the airport, I was thinking, time to roll the dice," she said. "Would it be insurgents, an IED, something else? We were just a big, slow, vulnerable target."

To Eckstein—who made it home OK from her tour in Iraq—the epiphany was inevitable. If gas was still cheap in America it was in part because the U.S. military was paying to keep some level of stability in the Middle East. Oil had its hidden costs for the U.S., costs that weren't factored into the price of gas—one of which was the blood of young American soldiers. "It all really resonated with me," the 33-year-old said. "Why weren't we doing things in a more efficient way?"

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