I left Iraq over five years ago. When my unit was called up in January of 2003 I was only nineteen. I celebrated my twentieth birthday in Iraq. I served as a supply specialist in an Army Reserve military police unit that oversaw a couple of prison camps in the first year of the war. My first six months were spent at a prison camp in the southern part of Iraq, then I went to Mosul for about a month and a half and the last four months of my tour at a camp north of Baqubah.
My jobs were always pretty mundane, small tasks like distributing supplies to prisoners or driving from camp to camp picking up spare parts or food rations. Aside from a few mortar attacks on the base I was at in Mosul, I really never faced much danger let alone fired my weapon.
Ever since I came back home I have had a certain feeling deep inside of me. It was especially strong in the first few months after I came back, but it is still with me today.
A part of me feels as if I still belong there, as if I abandoned my job somehow. I feel like as long as there are still soldiers in Iraq that I belong there too. I feel guilty for being able to come home while others still serve. Maybe its because I never felt like my job mattered in the great scheme of things, or maybe its because I missed the camaraderie of my unit. After I came home, I would go through phases where I would think about volunteering to go back with another unit? These thoughts never came to fruition, and I sometimes felt more guilty for or ashamed because I know that I could never bring myself to volunteer for another tour.
I just know this one thing for sure. There's only one way of making this feeling completely go away.
This feeling will stay with me until everyone comes home. I think I figured that part out when Obama won in November. It was an historic victory and a euphoric moment for many. Don't get me wrong, I was excited just like everyone else, but for me it was a more tempered excitement. I knew in my heart that I wouldn't celebrate until change actually began to happen.
Then, a week after the election when the Yes Men distributed their edition of the New York Times with the headline: "Iraq War Ends", my assumption about this feeling I had was validated. For a few seconds, I let myself imagine that it was true. That the war really had ended. I became very emotional and yet finally felt relieved, the way I wanted to feel on election night. If only for a few seconds of suspending my disbelief, I felt as though the weight had been lifted off me and I could finally move on. I snapped back to reality soon after and have been stuck there ever since.
I guess there's really no great way to end this, I just wanted to tell some people how I feel about the war and that I still haven't moved on even if a lot of other people have. I still have something in my gut that tells me it's not over until it's over, and that I won't be truly satisfied or be at peace until everyone comes home. The idea that we may have to settle on having residual forces in Iraq bothers me and yet if that country becomes a much safer place maybe my feeling will subside even if we still have troops there. I don't know, but I just wanted to get that off my chest.
Update [2009-5-18 19:14:51 by jtb583]: Thank you all for the kind words in the comments section. I will be signing off now so I can go take a final. I'll be back later tonight to reply to more comments if needed.
[Update]Just wanted to clarify one thing I might not have made clear in the diary. I served eight years total in the Army: four in the Army Reserve and four in the California National Guard. My contract ended in December of 2008, and I did not reenlist. So don't worry, I won't be going back overseas.