70. Leaving Iraq

[adapted from my monthly column, For Goodness' Sake, in Front Porch Magazine]

Farewell

This April marks a bittersweet homecoming.  I’ve written Powerful Peace from the mixed-up belly of war in Iraq for a year, now.  Odd as it may sound, leaving war and returning to the comforts of home and loved ones bring strange feelings to a guy like me.  If you’ve been blessed to come home from war, you understand.

In these final weeks and days, my counsel may still inspire a commander to take a slightly different course; that change might still result in one American life saved or one Iraqi child unharmed by a terrorist attack…. In the States, I have no such immediate influence on the fight - the potential loss weighs heavy.  To bring just one more young husband home would be worth the cost of my entire career.  I suspect you’d feel the same, if you’d ever thought about it.

I leave good friends who will carry on in the effort for peace and stability for months to follow.  As a consultant, I choose when and where I go.  As service members, they go when and where Uncle Sam so dictates. They will continue to strive here long past my return to the land of Starbucks.

Back in “the world”, I’ll go about business as usual, see friends and family regularly, and get pretty regular sleep. I probably won’t need to lie in the dust by the side of the road because “indirect fire” has exploded a hundred yards from me, as happened last week…again.

This most recent attack was only a handful of rockets, but the one closest to me killed a man…again.

In war, I can look into the eyes of the leader who must craft a response to such attacks. I can suggest a variance on the constant impulse for violent action and hear the commander say, “I never thought about it that way.”  I can see results unfold over months of societal development, the unwelcome state a stabilized community represents to terrorists,  and the corresponding reduction of threat to our forces – and innocent citizens.

Back in the world, I won’t have my eyes, hands and ideas on the problem set so well. I’ll lose the ground truth insight that comes from being, well, on the ground. The palpable hates, hopes and hungers that saturate the very air of Iraq are missing back in Washington. We imagine we grasp what’s going on 10,000 miles away – we don’t. It’s comfortable, back home, and I think this war has taken on a status somewhat akin to scenery for the real show: the American economy.

In 2005, several of my SEAL friends were killed in Afghanistan. You may have read about it in Marcus Luttrell’s book, Lone Survivor. Although this was before my Navy retirement, I had left the active teams and begun my work in DC, so I heard about it on the news like everybody else. Unlike everybody else, these were guys with whom I had fought, trained, and laughed. The sense of having abandoned them was intense, as was the conviction that if only I had been with that special reconnaissance squad, there may have been a different outcome.

Leaving comrades is a difficult thing, even if the destination is delightful. Every veteran has experienced it. Home is calling; the thought of family and picnics and safety pulls at the soldier… yet looking at those who stay behind brings a certain reluctance to go. Remember Charlie Sheen flying away in Platoon, smiling sadly back at his brothers on the ground.

This tug-of-war occurs with even short trips away. The duty to one’s fellows, developed through shared urgency, is strong. On Christmas Eve of 2008 I wrote a poem called “R&R” (link here) in Powerful Peace. If you’ve gone on R&R from war, I think you’ll appreciate it.  If you’ve never served, I think you’ll appreciate this rare glimpse into the personal experience of your military friends.

So that’s it. Parting is, in fact, such sweet sorrow.

Goodbye, Iraq.

…I’ll see you soon.

Copyright © 2009 by Jack Oatmon. All rights reserved.

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