For former Army Spc. Mark Wilkerson, it was the raids — barging into the homes of regular Iraqis in search of weapons and insurgents — that turned him against the war.

“Our mission was to win the hearts and minds of the people, and you don’t do that when you’re treating every single one like they’re an insurgent, like they’re a terrorist,” said Wilkerson, 23.

After a year in Iraq with a Fort Hood-based military police unit, the 2002 Widefield High School graduate felt strongly enough that he sought conscientious objector status and, when that was denied, went AWOL. He served five months in a military prison this year.

He is among a small group of Iraq veterans holding a three-day demonstration in Acacia Park in Colorado Springs that began Friday.

With a mock guard tower — to symbolize a guard tower in Iraq because “we all at one point in Iraq pulled tower guard,” Wilkerson said — they hope to draw attention to the fact that not everyone who served there supports the war.

“When I got there they waved flags, then they were giving us angry looks, and then they were throwing rocks and planting IEDs,” said Wilkerson, who got out of a military prison in Oklahoma in July. “I got the impression the Iraqi people don’t want us there.”

The members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, a national group, have held demonstrations elsewhere in Colorado, but this weekend’s is their first in Colorado Springs, Wilkerson said.

“In this very all-American, all-military town, there are people who are against the war but support the troops and support the veterans,” said former Marine Capt. Rick Duncan of Colorado Springs.

He served in Iraq in 2003 and 2004, and went back last year. He now runs a veterans advocacy group, the Colorado Veterans Alliance.

Duncan said he came to oppose the war because of how it affected his fellow troops.

“I continuously saw people being sent back into a meat grinder again and again and again,” said Duncan, 30. “I saw people dying and leaving families and distraught loved ones.

“Seeing the degradation of the military, the degradation of the troops. There’s only so much you can take before you have to begin speaking up.”

Friday’s demonstration was politely received by passersby, with some earnest discussion but no shouts aimed at the veterans, Wilkerson said. The group planned to be back at the southwest corner of the park from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. today and Sunday.

They acknowledge theirs is a viewpoint rarely heard, at least publicly, from soldiers.

“I don’t think we’re a minority voice, but I think we’re a minority willing to speak up about it,” Duncan said.

Former Army Spc. Garrett Reppenhagen, sitting atop the tower, said he supported the war when he went to Iraq in February 2004.

“I thought I was going over there to look for weapons of mass destruction and try to get revenge on the people who attacked us on 9/11,” said Reppenhagen, 32, now a Pikes Peak Community College student.

“I really got disenchanted. I was sent to another country to kill a bunch of people who did nothing against Americans and never tried to attack us,” Reppenhagen said.

The Iraq Veterans Against the War advocates an immediate pullout from Iraq. Its members argue that violence occurs because people resent the U.S. troop presence, and say the country will stabilize on its own.

“The people will take some pride in their country when there is no one to hold their hand,” Wilkerson said. “We can say there will be a civil war (if the Americans leave), but there already is one.”

IVAW Tower Guard

Iraq vets conduct 3-day war protest

Small group is demonstrating in Acacia Park