Silver Lining on Iraq? I think not...

In re: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/20/opinion/the-silver-linings-of-iraq.html?_r=0

As I read this article by The New York Times' John A. Nagl, I found myself shaking my head. Looking for a silver lining after ten years of war...I can see that. I can see the need for seeking something positive to possibly, maybe, slightly justify the loss of those 4,400 lives.

I'm sorry John, with all due respect, I don't see it.

Late one night, after taps, I'm lying on my rack in boot camp and I hear a girl say, "I heard something today....we're at war, y'all."  Metal racks creaked and groaned as everyone sat up, looking around, trying to identify the voice in the dark.  The tousle-haired girl from New York, hard from the streets of the Bronx, was the only one lying still, staring at the ceiling.

"I heard on the TV at the commissary.  We declared war on Iraq. They're sending troops." Her voice almost sounded dead, monotone and flat.

We all tried to process what she was saying.  Here we were, being trained for battle, and war was beginning.  Holy. Shit. Three days went by with all of us having our personal nightmares, visions of Red October and scenes of the USS Cole with a 40 foot hole blown wide in her hull.

Finally, the base chaplain was sent around to each division to inform us in person.  Yes, we were now at war.  Yes, this changed the game. And yes, we were now warriors. When we left this facility, there was a good chance, particularly if we were being trained to be corpsman or gunners mates, we could be sent to fill out Army or Marine forces. So yes, we could have our boots in sand, in a combat zone.

We were given the unique opportunity to walk away right then.  A recruit had found out on his own and decided to jump the back fence, a high brick wall, and was hit by a train making his escape.  The Navy wanted to avoid any more of those tragedies, so we were given a one-time only walking pass, good for 24 hours.  I never thought about leaving. I did think a lot about dying.

For all my concern and worry, I actually never spent more than a few scattered weeks in any desert. I was never in direct combat, not even close. Most of my time in the military was spent behind doors layered with lead, vault doors, processing and sending classified messages and documents, closing the filter behind the eyes to what I was seeing and reading, just passing it on, passing it on.  I didn't feel the neck-snapping jerk of my truck running over an IED, I didn't experience the phantom pain of a limb blown away, and I didn't look in the eyes of a brown-skinned child pointing a gun at me.  That was for my friends to experience. I waltzed my way through this war managing to avoid all personal injury.

The rest of the military wasn't so lucky. Over 4,400 deaths....young men and women, tattooed and salty-mouthed, listening to Lil Wayne or Rascal Flatts on their iPods when their lives were ripped from them. The very people we shared locker rooms, classrooms, parties with in high school....dead. For a search for weapons of mass destruction that proved to be one of the biggest shams in military history.

And you find a silver lining in that?

Absolutely not.

The one quote with which I heartily agree is this: "But there have been two such wars over the past decade, and the all-volunteer force has come through these crucibles of blood and fire with enormous distinction."

You're damn straight we did, John.  You're damn straight.  We stayed.  When given the opportunity to walk, as I'm sure most boot camp facilities did that first week, we stayed.  We went into the face of unknown terror, kicking down doors in a foreign land, our minds twisted with the atempt at understanding the oppressive and violent religion that seeped through the very oily sands of the country, seeing women, children, and the handicapped used as bait, bombs, and murderers. 

How can you make a distinction with Vietnam except that we did not exercise the draft?  So these men, hiding in sand bunkers, burying IEDs laden with rusty nails, screws, and shrapnel, sending forth children in explosive vests, my generation faced these men voluntarily.  Our nation didn't need the draft because we kept coming. We kept facing it, deployment after deployment, time after time, month after month, the horrors mounting, and doing it all only to return home to a military medical system that wanted to ignore the realities of PTSD and send us home to our husbands and wives- the men and women who would try to heal us with their words and love but receive only brutality and chaos.  Families ripped apart, shredded, children left fatherless as soldiers, marines, sailors, walked away to settle into their life of eternal, exquisitely private torment.

Where's the silver lining in that, John?

There isn't.  The first lesson you cite is a lesson to politicians to not push our nation into unnecessary wars. They had the opportunity to learn that lesson in Vietnam.  You know the saying that those who don't heed history are doomed to repeat it.  We did.  To the tune of 4,400 lives.

The second lesson you cite is one to the military: about being underprepared for a "different" kind of war and failing to recognize the importance of language and culture.  We were unprepared to fight religious extremists, extremely young men being told that this was a religious war and that salvation awaited them for their dutiful service to their nation.  You can't fight that.  

And finally, the third lesson I've already pointed out- that our nation has evolved past the need for a draft, as demonstrated by a supply of willing, young, healthy men and women volunteering to fight.

But I'll tell you John, I don't know if that last lesson will stick.  The stories we pass on to our children are ones of disillusionment, horror, and shame.  We volunteered, yes, but for what? For the glory of securing oil?  For the advancement of political ties? To destroy a nation's culture under false pretenses and then attempt to "rebuild" them into America 2.0, nation of proud people from an ancient culture, one that didn't particularly need "saving"? To have the arrogance to assume the actions of a few extremists defined a nation and demonstrated a "need" for our help and interference?

I don't know if our children will be so willing to volunteer for such a task.  They've seen their fathers broken and changed. Their mothers cold and distant, eyes glazed over while staring into an unseen dust storm of horror. They've seen the cruel ramifications of this war, one which went largely unnoticed by the astoundingly selfish and uneducated American public who demanded more celebrity and entertainment news than caring which city was being seized or which American soldier laid down his life that day.  Never has the American media been so willing to gloss over and ignore the real atrocities of war than during the past decade, and that is shameful.

I can't find the silver lining today, reflecting back on my time in the military and that of my friends who are now forever and horribly changed. Who have picked up their dead comrades' blasted body parts. Who now wear silver legs. Who have puckered scars of stolen bullets shot from the hands of children. Who wake up sweating, screaming, at the eyes of the families they murdered under orders. I was insanely lucky to have been spared those experiences, but we all weren't and for us, there is absolutely no silver lining- there is a decade of a nation's mistakes. Ours.

There's always a morning after

Well I stayed up too late watching the debate and the subsequent reviews on various news channels. And I still feel like I have no idea what to do. Basically, Fox News was busy saying Biden lied while CNN was busy saying Palin lied. They both had documented sources to back up their claims of candidate dishonesty. I don't like how Palin referred to average Americans as "Joe Six-Pack and hockey moms"...I think that's an unfair portrayal, especially for non-drinking men and career women, which make up a large part of the population. I understand she's trying desperately to appeal to the "average Joe" but demeaning us isn't exactly going to do the trick, in my book. I don't see how she can possibly relate to my family as her husband is working for an oil company and has worked there for quite a while and her family has quite a nice lifestyle. Of course, neither can any of the candidates. When you only have bred, Ivy-league candidates preened for the Presidency and associated offices, what can you expect?

This campaign has turned into one big filibuster that's delayed any action on the bailout and detracting attention from our troops in Iraq, who are still being injured and killed while we're watching the presidential-campaign circus. While we are glued to MSNBC and bickering about dirty ads and Wall Street, this man lost his life in Iraq fighting for our freedoms:

Spc. Christopher T. Fox, 21, of Memphis, Tenn., died Sept. 29 in Adhamiyah, Iraq, of wounds suffered when he encountered small arms fire while on patrol. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 68th Armor Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colo.

http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/list.php

It's sad that this man will get little to no recognition for his sacrifice, and his family's grief will be shadowed by 24/7 pundit coverage of the campaing. Yes, the campaign is important, but we should never forget about the guys (and gals) in the Middle East struggling to stay alive while we figure out who their next commander-in-Chief will be.

Rest in peace, Spc. Fox. At 21 years old, this man's life was cut short before he had the joy of experiencing it. I do hope that your death will not be in vain, and we thank you and your family for your tremendous sacrifice.

My husband is currently off the coast of the US. While he is simply performing drills, we are never aware of the time and date our nation will again be attacked. He is on a floating target in the middle of a vast and deadly ocean. I never take for granted the time he is home, and I never sleep easy when he is out there.

Can we please take a moment to remember that, although we are in the midst of selecting a president in a pivotal time in American history, there are men and women in uniform worldwide who still need our support and attention. We cannot merely forget about the foreign conflicts and those fighting in them. This morning my daughter signed a letter to her daddy that I wrote, and she asked, "Daddy home day? (Daddy home today?)" I smiled and said, "No, baby, Daddy's out working to keep the bad guys away, but he loves you very much and he will be home soon." And thank God, unlike so many of our brothers and sisters, he will.