It’s been one year and two weeks since I got home from Iraq. I wanted to make a point of posting something on that anniversary, but I was on an annual training deployment to Virginia Beach. The 203rd RED HORSE Squadron is on their way to Iraq so we visited their station at the Camp Pendleton Military Reservation to do some concrete and asphalt paving for them while they were gone. This trip was supposed to be one of those cushy deployments where our teams showed off and practiced our skills, did good work for another organization, and still had some time to enjoy the location while we were there – sort of a “remember what it was like before Iraq” deployment. That’s pretty much how it worked too, except, just like Iraq, and most deployments I’ve been on, what we found when we got there was nothing like what we’d been expecting. The crew ahead of us apparently focused more on enjoying the location than on showing off and practicing paving skills or prep work. As I mentioned, I’m used to that, but not from members of my own unit! In the end, though, it didn’t matter. Our crew made up for the lost time and lack of adequate prep work and finished the slated jobs. We even did it on budget and we did manage to enjoy the location a little in the evenings. It turned out to be a satisfying deployment on most accounts. We left something we can be proud of and we practiced exactly the kind of work a RED HORSE unit does whether it’s two miles south of the strip in Virginia Beach or two miles outside of Baghdad. Paving is paving and with the jets flying training missions from nearby Oceana Naval Air Station, the sky often reminded one of a war zone – a nice added effect.
Now back to the one-year anniversary of my Iraq experience. As I mentioned, we were proud of our efforts in Virginia Beach. I’d been doing quite a bit of manual labor this summer (for an English teacher) but to jump onto a full-time concrete crew during one of the hottest weeks of the summer was a shock to my system. I have aches and pains I forgot were possible in a human body, but that’s not a bad thing. Manual labor is good for a person. It’s good for the soul. It was also very cool to see the immediate results of my efforts. In two weeks time, there was an obvious difference that my efforts made. I did construction work during summers while I was an undergrad, and that immediate gratification is something that I’ve missed ever since. Especially since becoming a teacher. Don’t get me wrong, teaching is one of the most satisfying jobs I’ve ever done, but it’s a wholly different kind of satisfaction. It’s based a lot more on faith than on any big results. But back to the point. Everyone on my deployment worked hard. Most did so in jobs they don’t normally do. For instance, four of my fellow mechanics went on the trip with me, but we all worked on paving crews and did very little vehicle maintenance. One of our admin managers was on the asphalt crew. There was a plumber from the 201st RED HORSE unit in Pennsylvania on my concrete crew... you get the idea. And we pulled it off! We did some good work. We left something that we can show our families the next time we’re in Virginia Beach.
After telling this story, there are probably a handful of people out there thinking, “ yeah,whatever, sounds like a bunch of guardsmen got paid for a two-week vacation in Virginia Beach.” And there’s a shred of truth in that as well. Similarly, my “vacation” in Iraq had some of that element also. It’s actually kind of interesting to think about it that way. My time in Iraq really did have a lot in common with my time in Virginia Beach. For one, I was away from my family. I didn’t think I’d miss them as much as I did in just two weeks. Another similarity is finding yourself in a strange situation that’s nothing like what you’ve been prepared to expect. Guardsmen routinely adapt to this kind of thing. Granted, in Iraq, this involved weekly mortar attacks and incredibly complicated logistics nightmares far beyond anything you’d find in the states, but a degree of adapting was necessary in both places. I think this is one attribute of guardsmen (and women) that the enlisted association undersells when convincing employers to hire guardsmen. The sense of duty and loyalty is obvious, but the ability to think on your feet and adapt to some pretty crazy circumstances is something invaluable that gets programmed into military members, especially guardsmen and reservists who routinely go back and forth from a civilian occupation to contingency operations.
But my real point is: we got a lot of work done in a short amount of time under some trying circumstances. Though the circumstances were far preferable to those in Iraq, people in both situations can be proud of their ability to do that. I met and worked with an Army maintenance manager in Iraq who was extremely good at what he did and continued to be good at it under nightmarish conditions in Iraq. I met and worked with an Army logistics officer who did the impossible getting parts and supplies where they needed to be in places where there was no AutoZone and very few UPS offices. I occasionally ate meals with an Army truck driver who delivered those supplies over roads littered with IED craters and car bombers almost every day. And I worked with hundreds of people in my unit, the 201st from Pennsylvania, and a handful of active duty engineers who all faced similar challenges, but worked their butts off day in and day out in order to do the job our unit was sent to do.
Like all members of the military, these folks should be proud of the job they did in Iraq. BUT as we’re often told, there’s no I in TEAM, and what I saw in Iraq convinced me that these people are all great players, but that the team they’re on still has no objective.
I’m happy to see the American public, according to recent polls, is finally starting to recognize that subtle distinction. It really is ok to support the troops but not the war and this is why. Our troops should be proud of the work they do. They don’t choose where they get to do that work, but the public that supports those troops should question where they’re doing it and why. How proud are you of the paving 15 members of the 200th and 201st did in Virginia Beach last week? How necessary was that mission to the safety of Americans? How much safer do you feel as a result?
One year after my return, the primary changes are that Iraq is now engaged in civil war and air travel is even more complicated and frightening than it ever was due to continued terrorist activity. While I was in Iraq, an election was held, a parliament of sorts was established, and the seeds of what might pass for a democracy were sown, but these steps have all proven to be gild one year later. While the individual and even unit level efforts of troops there is truly something to be proud of, to what do those efforts contribute? How does it add up to stability in Southwest Asia? That’s right, it doesn’t, any more than those troops’ efforts elsewhere.
Would it have been so bad to continue to surround Iraq with allies we’ve now alienated, keep a careful watch over Saddam Hussein, and allow the people of Iraq to mount their own revolution? Would it have been so bad to keep UN and international support in the region and save thousands of lives and billions of dollars? Would it have been so bad to sow the seeds we’ve sown through those channels rather than an invasion? Has the removal of Saddam been a contributing factor to any kind of success in Iraq? We’ve created a mess in Iraq now and the only beneficiary seems to be Iran – a country who freely admits to having or at least working on weapons of mass destruction. If the logic that took us into Iraq is applied, we need to invade Iran, and North Korea and Syria and a number of African nations soon. How do you feel about that?
The fact that we haven’t done so is as close to an admission that the Iraqi invasion was a bad idea that we’ll get from this administration. The tough talk and the exercise of might felt good in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, but “feeling good” falls a little short of the standard in the war clause. “Making Americans safer” and “getting them over there so they don’t get us over here” is empty rhetoric. I’m happy to see that the American public has finally sobered up enough to realize this. That’s about the only positive outcome I’ve seen so far.
Terrorism is a tactic, a concept, not an enemy, and the only way to fight it is to provide terrorist recruits with better options. As long as there are hungry people, desperate people, anywhere in the world, there will be terrorists. The Iraqi invasion, far from alleviating the circumstances that led people to become terrorists, added to them and came with the added bonus of making the U.S. a singular target for their efforts. I’m not convinced that the American public has completely arrived at this realization, but the growing dissent for the occupation of Iraq is at least an encouraging sign even if it came a good two years too late.
Americans can and should be proud of the members of their military. Given the bureaucratic hoops this giant organization must constantly jump through, it is an amazingly effective team, but don’t confuse this overall ability with success in a given operation. There is a difference between being proud of your troops and supporting every mission on which they’re sent. A few hundred yards of paving material successfully placed in Virginia Beach or in Iraq have about the same effect on terrorism. Although Joe Lieberman might not agree, it’s good to see the American public finally making this distinction.
