"23 May 2004 "The Independent" --- During 12 years in the US Marines, including three years putting new recruits through boot camp, Staff Sergeant Jimmy Massey hardly questioned his role. But what he saw in Iraq changed that. "In a month and a half my platoon and I killed more than 30 civilians," Mr Massey said. He saw bodies being desecrated and robbed, and wounded civilians being dumped by the roadside without medical treatment. After he told his commanding officer that he felt "we were committing genocide", he was called a "wimp". Mr Massey, who was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress and depression, left the Marines in November. Back home in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina, he says the cause of the uprising in Iraq is that "we killed a lot of innocent people". His 7th Marine Weapons Company, armed with machine guns and missiles, was one of the first into the country in March last year. "We would take over villages and control checkpoints," he said. "My men and I would fire warning shots at oncoming vehicles. But, if they didn't stop, we didn't have any qualms about loading them up." The Marines were told that Iraqis were filling ambulances with explosives, and that soldiers were dressed as civilians, but after pouring fire into vehicles and hearing no explosions, they started to doubt the truth of these claims. "Iraqi military compounds had nothing in them, except for dismantled tanks, equipment that was barely functioning, and barracks that looked like ghost towns," Mr Massey said.