Iraq War is Over
This morning, at 5 a.m. ET, the Iraq War came to an abrupt end. Devoid of the shock and awe of the initial invasion, this time I was able to view the historic event from the comfort of my living room. When President Bush announced the beginning of the Operation Iraqi Freedom, I was in the eighth week of training at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina. Indeed, today I sit here filled with mixed emotions and the solemn realization that Iraq will likely be remembered as my generation’s Vietnam. There will be no ticker tape parades. No surrender on a U.S. warship. No signing of an armistice in Paris. Certainly, there will be no preservation of a Union. I find slight but fleeting solace that the President of the United States said “We need you” and some of us said, “I’ll go.” And we went, and some of us came back. It is irrelevant whether the name following President is Obama, Bush, Nixon, Johnson, Truman, Roosevelt, Wilson, or Lincoln. Our friends died there, and part of us died there, too. While over in the political and media sense, for us it will never be over.
For us, we are keenly aware 60% of the American public said it was a “bad war.” We know it cost the American taxpayer $800 billion. We know there were 4,500 dead and 35,000 wounded. We know this because we dressed their many wounds, and we recovered their bodies as if they were our own family member. The sacrifice I personally witnessed from my fellow Marines will never be erased from my memory.
There were Marines like Lcpl. Peter Sora. We became friends during temporary recruiting duty in 2004. Sora volunteered to go on an optional deployment to Iraq, but he never made it there. He was killed in a training accident in 29 Palms, CA. Then there were other Marines like Sgt. Chris Hrbek. Hrbek slept in the top bunk next to my rack in recruit training. We spent many nights talking and sharing stories out of the drill instructor’s earshot. Hrbek was killed in January, 2010 by an IED while on a dismounted foot patrol. One month earlier, on Christmas Eve 2009, Hrbek saved his Battalion Sgt. Major who had lost both of his legs in an IED strike. Hrbek was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star.
Any story of unselfish sacrifice would be incomplete without mentioning Lcpl. Michael Glover and Capt. John McKenna. Mike was a second-year law student at Pace University when he volunteered to go to Iraq . John was Mike’s platoon commander and loved by all of his Marines. On August 16, 2006, Mike was mortally wounded by a sniper in Fallujah. Knowing his Marine was hit, John unselfishly braved a barrage of small-arms fire to recover his fallen Marine and was killed in the process. He was posthumously awarded the Silver Star for his courage. Weeks earlier, John and Mike had responded to a call of another wounded Marine. That Marine was me.
Then there are other stories for which medals were never presented but nevertheless demonstrated selfless devotion and love for their fellow Marines. Stories like Sgt. Jeffrey Dube, who stood on a rooftop alone after a fellow Marine was wounded to ward off a counterattack. Others like Sgt. Alex Alabachian, who pulled fellow Marines from a burning vehicle and then used his body as a human shield. These are only a few of the many stories I witnessed, and are counted among thousands of other stories of Marines, Sailors, Soldiers, and Airmen of the Iraq War. As long as those who were there carry breath in our lungs, these stories and their memories will never be forgotten. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he who shed his blood with me, will always be my brother.
