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The American Yawp Reader

Chelsea Manning Petitions for a Pardon (2013)

Chelsea Manning, a U.S. Army intelligence analyst, was convicted in 2013 for violating the

Espionage Act by leaking classified documents revealing the killing of civilians, the torture of prison-

ers, and other nefarious actions committed by the United States in the War on Terror. After being

sentenced to thirty-five years in federal prison, she delivered a statement, through her attorney, ex-

plaining her actions and requesting a pardon from President Barack Obama. Manning’s sentence

was commuted in 2017.

The decisions that I made in 2010 were made out of a concern for my country and the world that we

live in. Since the tragic events of 9/11, our country has been at war. We’ve been at war with an enemy

that chooses not to meet us on any traditional battlefield, and due to this fact we’ve had to alter our

methods of combating the risks posed to us and our way of life.

I initially agreed with these methods and chose to volunteer to help defend my country. It was not

until I was in Iraq and reading secret military reports on a daily basis that I started to question the

morality of what we were doing. It was at this time I realized in our efforts to meet this risk posed to

us by the enemy, we have forgotten our humanity. We consciously elected to devalue human life both

in Iraq and Afghanistan. When we engaged those that we perceived were the enemy, we sometimes

killed innocent civilians. Whenever we killed innocent civilians, instead of accepting responsibility

for our conduct, we elected to hide behind the veil of national security and classified information in

order to avoid any public accountability.

In our zeal to kill the enemy, we internally debated the definition of torture. We held individuals at

Guantanamo for years without due process. We inexplicably turned a blind eye to torture and execu-

tions by the Iraqi government. And we stomached countless other acts in the name of our war on

terror.

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Patriotism is often the cry extolled when morally questionable acts are advocated by those in power.

When these cries of patriotism drown out any logically based dissension, it is usually an American

soldier that is ordered to carry out some ill-conceived mission.

Our nation has had similar dark moments for the virtues of democracy—the Trail of Tears, the Dred

Scott decision, McCarthyism, the Japanese-American internment camps—to name a few. I am confi-

dent that many of our actions since 9/11 will one day be viewed in a similar light.

As the late Howard Zinn once said, “There is not a flag large enough to cover the shame of killing in-

nocent people.”

I understand that my actions violated the law, and I regret if my actions hurt anyone or harmed the

United States. It was never my intention to hurt anyone. I only wanted to help people. When I chose

to disclose classified information, I did so out of a love for my country and a sense of duty to others.

If you deny my request for a pardon, I will serve my time knowing that sometimes you have to pay a

heavy price to live in a free society. I will gladly pay that price if it means we could have country that

is truly conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all women and men are created

equal.

Source: Statement of Chelsea Manning, as Read by his Attorney, David Coombs, on August 21,

2013. Available via Democracy Now!

(https://www.democracynow.org/2013/8/21/bradley_manning_sometimes_you_have_to_pay_a_

heavy_price_to_live_in_a_free_society).

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The American Yawp Reader

Emily Doe (Chanel Miller), Victim Impact Statement (2015)

On January 18, 2015, Stanford University student Brock Turner sexually assaulted an unconscious

woman outside of a university fraternity house. At his sentencing on June 2, 2016, his unnamed vic-

tim (“Emily Doe”) read a 7,000-word victim impact statement describing the effect of the assault on

her life. [Note: Chanel Miller identified herself publicly as Emily Doe in September 2019.]

On January 17th, 2015, it was a quiet Saturday night at home. My dad made some dinner and I sat

at the table with my younger sister who was visiting for the weekend. I was working full time and it

was approaching my bed time. I planned to stay at home by myself, watch some TV and read, while

she went to a party with her friends. Then, I decided it was my only night with her, I had nothing

better to do, so why not, there’s a dumb party ten minutes from my house, I would go, dance like a

fool, and embarrass my younger sister. On the way there, I joked that undergrad guys would have

braces. My sister teased me for wearing a beige cardigan to a frat party like a librarian. I called myself

“big mama,” because I knew I’d be the oldest one there. I made silly faces, let my guard down, and

drank liquor too fast not factoring in that my tolerance had significantly lowered since college.

The next thing I remember I was in a gurney in a hallway. I had dried blood and bandages on the

backs of my hands and elbow. I thought maybe I had fallen and was in an admin office on campus. I

was very calm and wondering where my sister was. A deputy explained I had been assaulted. I still re-

mained calm, assured he was speaking to the wrong person. I knew no one at this party. When I was

finally allowed to use the restroom, I pulled down the hospital pants they had given me, went to pull

down my underwear, and felt nothing. I still remember the feeling of my hands touching my skin

and grabbing nothing. I looked down and there was nothing. The thin piece of fabric, the only thing

between my vagina and anything else, was missing and everything inside me was silenced. I still don’t

have words for that feeling. In order to keep breathing, I thought maybe the policemen used scissors

to cut them off for evidence.

2

1

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Then, I felt pine needles scratching the back of my neck and started pulling them out my hair. I

thought maybe, the pine needles had fallen from a tree onto my head. My brain was talking my gut

into not collapsing. Because my gut was saying, help me, help me.

I shuffled from room to room with a blanket wrapped around me, pine needles trailing behind me, I

left a little pile in every room I sat in. I was asked to sign papers that said “Rape Victim” and I

thought something has really happened. My clothes were confiscated and I stood naked while the

nurses held a ruler to various abrasions on my body and photographed them. The three of us worked

to comb the pine needles out of my hair, six hands to fill one paper bag. To calm me down, they said

it’s just the flora and fauna, flora and fauna. I had multiple swabs inserted into my vagina and anus,

needles for shots, pills, had a Nikon pointed right into my spread legs. I had long, pointed beaks in-

side me and had my vagina smeared with cold, blue paint to check for abrasions….

…

I thought there’s no way this is going to trial; there were witnesses, there was dirt in my body, he ran

but was caught. He’s going to settle, formally apologize, and we will both move on. Instead, I was

told he hired a powerful attorney, expert witnesses, private investigators who were going to try and

find details about my personal life to use against me, find loopholes in my story to invalidate me and

my sister, in order to show that this sexual assault was in fact a misunderstanding. That he was going

to go to any length to convince the world he had simply been confused….

Instead of taking time to heal, I was taking time to recall the night in excruciating detail, in order to

prepare for the attorney’s questions that would be invasive, aggressive, and designed to steer me off

course, to contradict myself, my sister, phrased in ways to manipulate my answers.

…

My damage was internal, unseen, I carry it with me. You took away my worth, my privacy, my energy,

my time, my safety, my intimacy, my confidence, my own voice, until today.

… I am no stranger to suffering. You made me a victim. In newspapers my name was “unconscious

intoxicated woman”, ten syllables, and nothing more than that. For a while, I believed that that was

all I was. I had to force myself to relearn my real name, my identity. To relearn that this is not all that

I am. That I am not just a drunk victim at a frat party found behind a dumpster, while you are the

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← Chelsea Manning Petitions for a Pardon (2013)

All American swimmer at a top university, innocent until proven guilty, with so much at stake. I am

a human being who has been irreversibly hurt, my life was put on hold for over a year, waiting to fig-

ure out if I was worth something….

… Finally, to girls everywhere, I am with you. On nights when you feel alone, I am with you. When

people doubt you or dismiss you, I am with you. I fought everyday for you. So never stop fighting, I

believe you. As the author Anne Lamott once wrote, “Lighthouses don’t go running all over an is-

land looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.” Although I can’t save every boat, I hope

that by speaking today, you absorbed a small amount of light, a small knowing that you can’t be si-

lenced, a small satisfaction that justice was served, a small assurance that we are getting somewhere,

and a big, big knowing that you are important, unquestionably, you are untouchable, you are beauti-

ful, you are to be valued, respected, undeniably, every minute of every day, you are powerful and no-

body can take that away from you. To girls everywhere, I am with you.

Thank you. Source: Emily Doe, “Victim Statement to Brock Turner,” June 2, 2016. Available online

via BuzzFeed (https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katiejmbaker/heres-the-powerful-letter-the-

stanford-victim-read-to-her-ra).

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