Golden Years

I am old. The war has been over for years and I haven’t been a soldier for a long time. It’s the year 2030. The US has sent its military to China, Africa, and North Korea. My grandson wants to be a Marine. I tell my war stories, and I embellish a little more as the years go on. I speak about the war of my generation, and how the kids today will never understand the sacrifices we all made, being pulled away from our lives like fish out of water. And I know I’m a cliché, and that I sound just like the WWII vets did to me when I was a young Lieutenant. I talk about how quickly my time in the Middle East went by, and about all the good people I served with. What an enriching experience, once you’ve made it out alive, I tell them, and sat back on your haunches and thought about it in retrospect or on countless nights as you lie in bed and pretend to be asleep. War is therapeutic. War is like love – it hurts sometimes but you have to believe it’s worth it.

Iraq has a government that has slowly strengthened. The people of have more rights, and less fear, ever since enough of them decided to fight against the insurgency and clean up their streets. Once it really took off, four years after the Americans entered Baghdad, it was like firecrackers strung together to light one another. Ideas were shared, opposing tribes banded, and religious differences, while still in existence, were temporarily cast aside in order to create a stable environment for the children, and the future, of Iraq. They have had their scandals. They still have problems. But the Iraqi dinar has been a competitive currency for decades, and the country itself has representation in the World Trade Organization, the United Nations, and even the National Endowment for the Arts. My son went to for a year in college as a foreign exchange student. He visited Ramadi, where I was stationed during Operation Iraqi Freedom III. I myself went and visited him in Baghdad while he was there. I spent a week with him, walking around the campus, which had one of the most beautiful libraries I’ve ever seen, and strolling along the streets at night enjoying his company and marveling at the fact that we were where we were.

Even the mainstream media eventually showed Iraq to be a diverse place full of people with dreams and wonderful imaginations and the right to be free. The media is even worse nowadays, but there are alternate news channels which try to educate through their reporting, rather than sensationalizing. For what good is news, really, unless it educates in some way about people or a place? What is the point of seeing all the terrible things that happen around the globe if you cannot even keep up with all the terrible things that happen within 100 miles of your own home? I threw my TV away years ago. I only watch it occasionally when I visit my daughter.

Yes, life is a strange misadventure indeed. I believe I’m on the downhill slope now, but these feel like Golden Years. Time is catching up with me, but I’m still relatively healthy. I have my writing. And I have my memories. And I have my children and grandchildren. The sight of them makes each and every day a brighter sum of its solitary parts. I still love this life. And I love this country. I feel a lot of pride in the work we did in Iraq.

I resigned my commission as a military officer two years after I returned from the war. I was a Captain then, a communications officer, and I was good at what I did. I loved my job, but I felt that I didn’t want to leave my children again to go off to war. Sometimes I still feel that was a selfish decision. But if my heart isn’t in something, I’ve found the best thing for me is to avoid doing it. And over the years I’ve come to terms with my decision. I’ve missed the military lifestyle. I’ve missed the camaraderie. But even now I’m still in touch with some of my old buddies. We have a lot of laughs. And even in a brutal conflict, living our days as young men on a forward operating base in the harsh desert of Iraq, near the confluence of the ancient Euphrates and Tigres Rivers, we made it a positive experience. We immersed ourselves in the work, for the greater good, and in this case at least, it has most certainly paid off.

Right now I’m reading a book by a leading Iraqi historian. He’s written a lot about the incredible impact the American military has had on the world at large. What a powerful force we are! How noble an Army whose cause is just, and whose soldiers are intelligent and well-informed, and who all volunteered to serve! The chapter I’m on refers to my area and my time of the Iraqi conflict. He’s a really good writer. God, I love reading this stuff. It makes me remember the good parts of the war, and the role I played in it.

War is a series of catastrophes which result in victory.  -Albert Pike

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