As we near the 10-year anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq, Yahoo News asked U.S. servicemen and women who served to share their perspectives and discuss how it changed them. Here's one story.
FIRST PERSON | I was a 38-year-old company commander in the Texas Army National Guard in August 2004 when my unit was activated. I spent all of 2005 at Al Taqaddum Air Base in Iraq's Al Anbar province, a hotbed of activity at the time.
Against the war from the start, I've never seen a proper justification for it. To complicate matters for me, I got married in November 2003 and missed my first anniversary due to training.
My wife's birthday falls in December. In December 2004, I was in the midst of a "realistic" training exercise that required my full-time attention. My days started at 4 a.m. and ended at midnight. Scenarios persisted around the clock. I didn't have time to call my wife on her birthday until nearly midnight. I count the number of arguments we've had in 10 years on one hand; that conversation was one of them.
Despite my reservations about the Iraq War, there were some bright moments. I was promoted to captain while deployed. My battalion commander pinned the bars on me on top of the stone building we used as our tactical operations center (TOC).
And some of my best moments were connecting with fellow officers in a nightly "smoke and joke."
We were battle captains, officers in charge of the battalion TOC. We represented the commander in various ways with limited decision-making responsibilities based on his guidance. I once nearly created an international incident by ordering a perimeter guard to fire on a sheepherder for getting too close to the base boundary wire. To my relief now, he didn't fire.
War strains the senses. To stay sane, I spent some downtime writing poetry.
While reflecting on my experience after the war, I began to recall the times I saw one of my fellow soldiers in tears (it happened more times than I care to count). I sat down and penned a few lines that later turned into this poem, titled "Things That Make A Soldier Cry":
Babes in blankets, puppies that barely crawl
Mothers hit by men they love and never learn to leave
Sunsets in morning, coming home unemployed
Grandpa on his last good leg with more fight than limp or heart
Little children when they play though many meals they may have missed
Flag burners who go scot-free and live to burn again
The good fight lost, not to right but to wrong awarded worldly gain
Injustice to the small one who himself cannot defend
Two by two, more or less, love of country ridiculed
A wife who cheats, friendship once betrayed
The neighbor who steals with no conscience or real need
Birthdays without cake, his home quaked in ruins
The moon's soft dust on his wedding anniversary night
His absence from her who waits for his return
To see his nation betray what once it sure defined
A sister who sells honor for a lowly place to live
The end of the world with goals unmet, peace not yet achieved
A God who forgives or one who cannot save
One man chained to another's lifelong employ
But the worst of all -
Of all the things that will bow a soldier's head
Is to see his buddy lying cold, faceless and dull
I have compiled my poems into a book titled "Rumsfeld's Sandbox," which serves as my personal memento of this chapter of my life.
Upon returning home, I resigned my commission, giving up 12 years of service, more than four of it on active duty. I realized that my "just war" views don't jell with the imperialist agenda that has taken hold of our military and its civilian overlords. And it isn't getting better. President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, approving indefinite military detentions without trial, and he has expanded George W. Bush's drone program. I fear that our national leaders have turned us into a country that lives by the sword and that will eventually die by the sword.
Before the war, I was a small-town newspaper editor. When I deployed, my income went up, unlike that of many of my peers. Due to that increase, I was able to save enough money to start a business when I returned home. I now live in Pennsylvania and run a freelance writing business. I have taken on the responsibility of assisting with the raising of my three grandchildren, sponsoring their Scouting activities, youth sports participation, and teaching them the values that I have realized are most important in life: solid relationships based on love and respect, lots of laughter, and (thanks, Shakespeare) "to thine own self be true."
The national dialogue concerning our military, a perpetual war machine, and our national values has degenerated into a name-calling contest that no one wins. We have ceased to be civil; we have killed our republic. And for that I am very sad.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iraq-war-lesson-dialogue-165500179.html
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