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16 years ago I had a profound experience. This anniversary is the source of grief & regret for me, but I wouldn’t trade it. It makes me think about so many things, but especially how I think about how awful we treat people we might disagree with on important issues. 1/12
16 years ago I had a profound experience. This anniversary is the source of grief & regret for me, but I wouldn’t trade it. It makes me think about so many things, but especially how I think about how awful we treat people we might disagree with on important issues. 1/12
It was the last day of Ramadan in '04. My platoon had been in Baqubah, Iraq for the better part of a year: tired, jaded, but also at the peak of our effectiveness. There were attacks early in the morning and we were ordered to go figure out who was attacking, where, and how. 2/12
Eventually we drove our convoy into a little part of the city called Old Baqubah, which was unfamiliar terrain for my platoon. Our sector was the southern half of the city and Old Baqubah was in the north. We heard nearby explosions, so we figured we were in the right place. 3/12
As we passed a mosque, we saw three insurgents move toward us along a brick wall firing rockets and machine guns at us. They were about 30 feet away. We killed two and wounded the third, badly. My medic immediately went to work on the wounded. 4/12
As we cleared the area, it was obvious that we had walked right into their operating base. There was a bound/murdered man in the school to our front. The platoon a block south had uncovered a cache of weapons. A small van next to us was obviously a makeshift ambulance. 5/12
1 of my team leaders walked to the back of the house by us and carefully looked around the corner. There was another wounded fighter in the backyard. He had lit a rag and set the house on fire. A close-range shootout followed and my TL was hit several times. It was grim. 6/12
Later we broke our security position and met up with the other platoons and went back to our base. We were worried about our friend and no one had good news for us. He was on his way to Germany already. 7/12
A few hours later we headed back out to retake a police station that the Iraqi police had lost. As we drove out, we were exhausted and angry. We were ambushed several more times and another of my guys was shot, in the arm this time. 8/12
In the 16 years since that day I have questioned everything. My tactical decisions that got people I love hurt. The country’s strategic decision to be at war there in the first place. But as angry as I was for years, I’m proud and humbled by so much of that today. 9/12
My medic didn’t have to be told to treat the wounded. My platoon executed well. We were just kids then, & we mostly just laugh about the stupid stuff when we get together now. & there was plenty. We also talk politics and have disagreements. But there's respect. Love even. 10/12
We shouldn’t have to have these experiences to disagree without hate, tho. Maybe that experience gave us a few tools that are missing elsewhere. More likely it just gave us respect enough to know that we don’t have to agree on everything, even things we care deeply about. 11/12
It doesn’t cost anything to have a little humility. You don’t lose by showing other people respect. You lose by seeing everyone else as the enemy. Among remembering my friends, November 16 always makes me think that maybe our politics can still be better than all of this. 12/12
