Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.
Chaps penned apoignant bloggoing into his feelings on his time deployed there.
My feelings mirror his in some ways and in other ways, I find myself with a different perspective.
That’s to be expected.
We served in different branches.
We had different jobs.
Our missions were in different parts of the country.
He was a non-commissioned office.
I was an officer.
My path to Iraq was one that was inevitable but not one that felt imminent.
My class at West Point was the first to enter school after 9/11.
The same people hell bent on terrorizing the rest of the world in support of their warped ideology.
I wanted to go to West Point for a good education and to play football.
As such, football and school work monopolized my time.
In the summers when we conducted our military training it became more real.
This was especially true of my summers prior to my junior and senior year.
Soldiers who were part of the initial invasion in Iraq or had deployed to Afghanistan.
Therein lay my greatest fear going to war.
From there I went to Iraq for 12 months.
If you want those stories, we’ve told a bunch over the last nearly 7 years on ZBT.
Prior to recording, I didn’t anticipate becoming emotional while discussing my deployment.
But as I quickly found out, those emotions are as present as ever.
I was part of that and I’ll always carry that with me.
But were there positives?
For me, yes there were.
But those bad things don’t cancel out the good.
We were given a mission and our Soldiers/Marines/Airmen/Sailors executed on that mission to the best of our ability.
We removed a terrible man from power.
We eradicated the country of countless terrorists and fear.
We provided a sense of security in many areas of the country.
That is why I say to my fellow service members, do not apologize for what you did.
Do not say, “I’m sorry.”
You did what was asked of you.
We have the luxury of hindsight today.
We can look back on the last 20 years and critique decisions made.
We should do that.
We should study what happened and learn from those experiences.
Maybe some of that behavior did happen but I’ll tell you where it did not happen.
It did not happen at my level.
It did not happen at the level of the vast majority of those who served in Iraq.
That is a simplistic view of the military but at its core it is what we sign up for.
I did not decide for my platoon to deploy to Iraq.
I couldn’t control our deployment schedule.
Even in conflicts where the enemy was clear, decisions were marred by uncertainty in many instances.
Is that a cop out?
Who’s to say.
I just want to continue my life and carry with me the pride I feel having served my Country.
Something else I will take with me is the perspective I gained from my year in Iraq.
That perspective makes me a better person.
Will history look kindly on our time in Iraq?
Some will be torn.
One thing is a certainty though - I am grateful.
That can never be forgotten or taken away from any of us.
