By MICHAEL ZITZ
Two days ago, Marine Sgt. Liam Madden's superior officers at Quantico didn't know how he felt about the war in Iraq.
They learned yesterday, when Madden was making news everywhere from CNN to Al-Jazeera.
Madden, a 22-year-old Iraq veteran who four years ago was a high school wrestler in Bellows Falls, Vt., has become a central figure in an effort to get American military men and women to speak out against the war.
He and Atlanta native Jonathan Hutto, a Navy seaman based in Norfolk, are said to be the first Iraq veterans to put their names on an Appeal for Redress set up to allow active military men and women to ask their representatives in Congress to end U.S. military involvement in Iraq.
Madden, who lives in base housing, said he wasn't ostracized at Quantico yesterday, but he believed Marines there were just beginning to learn about the situation and his involvement.
"It hasn't exploded yet," he said last night after leaving his Quantico office. "But I'm aware that it could."
He said he believes any backlash will be "tolerable," because what he's doing is within the law.
A military whistle-blower protection act allows active military personnel to appeal to Congress without reprisal.
The only reaction yesterday, Madden said, came in the form of half a dozen e-mails he received at work from other Marines, mostly supportive.
"They weren't letters of condemnation," he said, except for one from a Marine officer at Camp Lejeune, N.C.
The others, he said, were commending him or asking questions about the Appeal for Redress.
Early last night, 350 servicemen and women had signed the appeal, according to organizers.
The goal is to have 2,000 names on the Appeal for Redress list when the messages are delivered to members of Congress in January.
"I think that's easily attainable," he said. "There's a seed of dissent in the military against this policy, and a core of people who are acting."
He doesn't believe many military personnel are politically opposed to the war, he said. But, he said, he believes a continuing cycle of redeployment has worn the patience of the troops.
"As far as widespread disapproval of the occupation of Iraq, I know no one likes being deployed over and over again and being away from their families for months at a time," Madden said.
Because of that, "I'm pretty sure there's a base of support" for the appeal to Congress, he said.
He said he hopes to see U.S. policy change, but doesn't think there should be an immediate withdrawal of forces.
"Realistically, you can't just pack up and be gone the next day," Madden said.
He said he believes troops from other Arab nations should replace U.S. forces in helping to provide security. He believes the American presence there is aggravating the situation.
Madden said he believes the situation might improve "if America would concede it made a mistake and that the role we're playing in the Middle East is not the right one."
The Appeal for Redress Web site statement reads, "As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq. Staying in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price. It is time for U.S. troops to come home."
Madden put in seven months of active duty in Iraq ending in February 2005, in Anbar Province. He now said he now looks over Marines' fitness reports at Quantico, and his enlistment in the Corps is set to end Jan. 20.
He grew up a middle-class kid. When he was in high school in Vermont, his mother ran a restaurant that she sold recently. His father is a salesman. His parents are divorced.
Madden was firmly opposed to the war before he went to Iraq.
"I've always felt strongly about it," he said. "I never thought the war was justified. My experience there did not sway me one way or another. I went there opposing it and I left there opposing it.
"But it didn't affect me in doing the job I was there to do."
During a Monday press conference, White House press secretary Tony Snow addressed the appeal, saying "it's not unusual for soldiers in a time of war to have some misgivings."
Snow predicted that hundreds of Appeal for Redress signees "are going to be able to get more press than the hundreds of thousands who have come back and said they're proud of their service."
During an interview on Fox News on Monday, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld talked about a Marine he saw in a hospital 10 days ago "with a tube in his nose and multiple wounds."
Rumsfeld quoted the wounded Marine as saying of the war: "If the American people will just give us enough time, we can do this. We're winning."
"We can't lose, militarily, anything in Iraq," Rumsfeld said. "We can only lose if the American people lose heart."
U.S. deaths in Iraq totaled 2,801 Tuesday, according to the Associated Press.
The best way the American people can support the troops, Madden said, is by bringing them home.
To reach MICHAEL ZITZ:
Email: mikez@freelancestar.com