This faded and tattered flag flew in front of my house for two years continuously. The two years that my son served as a Marine while on tours of duty in Iraq. He and his comrades did a great job and endured more, saw more, than any human ever should have to. There were times I didn’t hear from him for months on end, and I often wondered, worried as any father would, if I would ever see him again.
The flag flew day and night awaiting his safe return.
His tours and service finally ended, his return safe, and for he and all of his comrades, past and present, they are to be commended for a job well done under the worst of circumstances. My son’s treatment upon his return Stateside has not been not what one would expect for one who has served his country so fearlessly and with such commitment and courage, rather inglorious to say the least, but so it seems for the way we treat our returning warriors. Recent history has shown us this behavior in this country to be expected, as it has shown us that the end of this war will only bring another.
We all have scars.
For many families and for many of his comrades this war will never end, or ended painfully long ago. For the almost 4,300 U.S. casualties in Iraq, this nightmare will never end, regardless of that last convoy crossing into Kuwait. Nor has it ended for those suffering the lingering trauma left by their mental and physical injuries imprinted by the effects of war. You can bury the dead but not the memory of the conflagration. Memories last forever. And as parents, my flag is a reminder that, to a degree, we lived a little bit of it daily, too, though hardly to the degree of those in the sand pit.
I’m left to wonder what we accomplished for all of this pain and suffering, not just on our own troops but on the innocent civilian populace of Iraq. What was the point? Why were we there in the first place? Yes, Saddam Hussein is gone, but is Iraq, as a nation any better off than pre-invasion? Is our country any safer now? Our borders more secure? Is our economy any more robust? Gas any cheaper? Is there less nuclear proliferation in the world? Less terrorist threat? Why Iraq and not Iran or North Korea? What are we doing in Afghanistan? Does the world view the United States any better now, than then? Do you have to pause and think to even answer?
The First World War has often been labeled the “War to end all Wars”. I wish it were true. It was followed by the greatest conflagration witnessed by humankind: World War II. We followed that up with several “skirmishes”, not the least of which was the debacle in Vietnam, where we again tucked tail and left that country not having learned a thing about fighting in an odd environment against a unique culture backed by a huge super-power in the form of the Chinese. Did we leave that country better off? I think not, but we again enter a country with no cultural understanding, no environmental awareness, and no exit plan.
Seven and a half years later we have left Iraq. Sort of. We still have 50,000 “personnel” stationed there in an “advisory” capacity. I wish it would be the last exit, but history foretells otherwise. We’ve been down this road before. In the end, among all the others, I am also left grieving for this tattered and faded flag.