Friday, February 19, 2010 Mission Accomplished...Anyone Care?

http://davidbellavia.com/new/2010/our-mission-is-finally-accomplished-anyone-care/

By: David Bellavia, VFF co-founder

Our Mission is Finally Accomplished… Anyone Care?

New York Times:

WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. military mission in Iraq will soon be getting a new name.

As of Sept. 1, Operation Iraqi Freedom becomes Operation New Dawn.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in a memo Wednesday that the name change - which is to immediately follow the scheduled withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq - will send a strong signal that American forces have a new mission. He also said it reinforces the U.S. commitment to honor its security agreement with Iraq and recognizes "our evolving relationship" with the government there.

I am not naive. I understand that there are individuals who opposed the war in Iraq from the very beginning and I believe their passion, although misguided at times, is rooted in a deep desire for peace. What always baffled me was the reaction they had to pro-victory veterans when we came home. As if we were some robotic arm of the Bush White House. It was foreign for them to understand why winning in Iraq was so important.

Our friends died in this cause. There is no honor in their death unless we complete the mission they died fighting.

Everyone is exposed to the death of someone close to them at least one time in their lives. Cancer, accidents, sometimes it is sudden or violent. Rarely do we see it. But when we do our lives are affected forever because of it. We live in a culture where there must be a reason for everything that goes wrong. Obama is responsible for job loss. Bush ruined the housing market. The tires that blew out on my car that I was driving was a manufacturing error and not due to the fact that I was driving on the sidewalk.

Someone is responsible for everything that goes wrong in America. It makes us feel better to know it wasn't our fault.

The war in Iraq was no different. While many scurried to blame Donald Rumsfeld, General Franks or President Bush for losing the war in Iraq, they bet against the American fighting men and women to turn the tide of the war. "The mission" in Iraq was evil. The troops would never be maligned as they were in Vietnam.

I don't begrudge these people. They simply will never get it. They are the type of people you need to protect in a society. They are innocent and naive.

It is the job of the warrior to hide them under the bed and tell them it will be okay, before we run off to combat the threat.

The ones that hold my contempt are those who, even today, know of the sacrifice made, the incredible progress gained and still will not acknowledge what was won on the ground in Iraq. They cheapen the sacrifice of how it was earned. Operation Iraqi Freedom is no more.

Operation New Dawn (the exact same name of the Battle of Fallujah in November 2004) is the new name of the deployment to Iraq.

What we achieved in the face of an implacable enemy, overcoming many in our own government willfully ignorant of our struggle, is what I believe to be the defining moment of my generation. The veteran today is the embodiment of what it means to be an American. Even when our valor was used for political sport, we continued to serve quietly.

This is truly without precedent.

In my house I have a desk that is almost never opened. I think the last time I looked at it was around three years ago. I opened it as soon as I read the New York Times article yesterday.

There this giant scrapbook sits, still with the pricetag across the top. My wife had made this book for me that contains just about everything I have ever done in the Army.

And every picture of my friends. The living . The dead.

I look at the faces and we all look like babies. We had no idea. We were young. Energetic. Cocky and pure.

As the pages turn, so does the dispositions on the faces in the pictures. The exhaustion of combat has replaced the frolic; dead-eyed stares in place of jovial laughter. We lost far too many men during our war in Iraq.  Then the unit returned for a second deployment, and the number spiked to more than seventy.

When these kids went to Afghanistan, the number rose again. I have long since stopped visiting the Department of Defense website to read press releases about the fallen.

Another page in the scrapbook has a clear acetate pouch. Stuffed inside is a thick, folded sheet of blue paper. An Iraqi ballot I stole on January 30th 2005.

The sound of mortar fire fills my ears. The desk dissolves. Suddenly, I'm kneeling on a road, a palm grove to my front. Iraq. Election Day 2005.

The bullets are flying.

My squad runs through the searing heat and forms a wall of flesh and Kevlar between the incoming fire and the citizens standing in line behind us. They've turned out in their finest clothes to wait for the opportunity to cast a vote. For most, this moment is a defining one in their lives. They've never had a voice before. This means something to them, and they have used the moment as an object lesson for their children. They appear nervous and take photos. The kids stand with them in line, viewing first hand this revolution in Iraqi civics.

As they came to line up earlier that morning, the men thanked us and clasped their hands over their heads, striking a triumphant pose. Some of the women cried. The kids were on their best behavior.

The gunfire began that afternoon. Insurgents started to shoot them. My unit ran to the road and formed a protective position between the killers and the citizens going to the polls. As we scanned the palm grove in front of us, bullets cracked and whined, then mortars start thumping around us. My squad pushed into the palm grove. I stayed on the road, overseeing their movement and coordinating the heavy fire from the Bradleys.

The firefight ebbs. The mortar fire ceases. A few last stray rounds streak past. A cry from behind causes me to turn. Lying in the road is a young Iraqi woman. I run over to help. She's caught a round just below her temple. Her stunning beauty has been ruined forever.

She cries, "Paper! Paper" over and over until the ambulance arrives to take her away. An old lady emerges from the schoolhouse-turned voting site, sheets of blue paper in hand. She gives one to the wounded girl, who clutches it to her like a prized possession even as the ambulance carries her away.

The ballot was her voice. All she wanted was a chance to exercise it, just once, before she died.

The old woman returns to the school house, but drops another ballot along the way. It drifts in a gentle breeze across the bloodstained asphalt. I stoop down and pick it up. It is all in Arabic, and I have no idea what each set of candidates advocate. That's not my place, and it doesn't really matter. I helped make this day happen. This ballot represents the reason why we're here, why my friends had to die.

Carefully, I fold the ballot up and put it in my pocket. Even though I was 29 at the time , I'd only voted once.

I had taken something so precious for granted for far too long.

Now, in the safety of my own house, thousands of miles from danger and violence, this little blue paper, still with dark speckles of that woman's blood, sits tucked away in this scrapbook.

That young woman wanted nothing else than the chance to explore her newfound freedom. She didn't beg for help, or plead for her life. Voting would become her final act. In that moment, she matched our own sacrifices. Denfrund, Carlson, Sizemore. Iwan. Gonzales. Mock.

Our friends died to secure this day. And here on this road in Diyala, I saw proof that the blood spilled in this backward country had value. It made the cause noble and just. This may not mean much to someone who stands in opposition to our fight, but it is the legacy of our fallen. The honor of their sacrifice.

They gave their lives for others like me to come home. They died trying to preserve freedom for this woman.

They confronted those who wished to dominate a people in the name of violence and religion, who wished to destroy our culture and way of life.  Even if most Americans may not understand who or what we fight, these men not only believed, many reenlisted to continue the fight until the war was won.

I came home in search of that woman's spirit in the hearts of my fellow Americans.  I came home expecting to find the sacrifice of these brave patriots revered at every turn by those who overwhelmingly sent us to war from Washington.

I'm still looking.

If you can't bring yourself to give the living the sense of accomplishment for winning a war that many claimed was endless, at least humor the dead. Allow them to rest knowing that the war that took their lives was won because of their sacrifice.

Is that too much to ask for?