In the Beginning.....

Well, here we go, my first post! I've been home from Iraq for just over three weeks now. People are always asking me how I'm adjusting - a natural question I suppose - and honestly I'm finding that in a lot of ways it feels like I never left home. I suppose I'm lucky in that regard, as I know many other soldiers have found the transition to be difficult. But I am fortunate to have come unwounded, having never witnessed anything particularly horrific, having not lost any comrades, and while I was certainly exposed to dangerous situations, having experienced any real moments of sphincter tightening terror.

Many people are interested on my opinion about the war in Iraq - about how it's going, whether or not it's as "good" or "bad" as they say on the news (depending, I suppose on the asker's own view), and (more tentatively, for fear of offending I assume) whether or not I think we were "right" to invade in the first place. As to the war's status or progress, I honestly must admit my experiences do not really give me significantly better perspective on the situation in Iraq than anyone who takes the time to closely follow the news from here at home. While I can certainly comment with some confidence on the situation in the specific geographic area in which I served, during the time that I served there, the overall situation in Iraq is far to fluid, complex and variable depending on the region in question for me to have any sort of authoritative command of the "big picture". Regarding the "rightness" of the war I am somewhat ambivalent. I am not convinced (especially given the way things have turned out) that invading Iraq was a particularly good idea in the first place, for Iraq or the United States, and there is no doubt in my mind that the first year or two of the "occupation" was horribly mishandled by the Coalition Provisional Authority. That having been said, I believe that we have a moral obligation to both the Iraqi people, and to the soldier's who have given their lives in this war, to continue to stay in Iraq until a reasonable level of security and stability have been established. A premature departure - not matter how unpopular the war may become here at home - would very likely doom the Iraqi people to years (if not decades) of civil war, continued sectarian violence, and misery. In a nutshell - "you break it, you bought it" - we created the current situation in Iraq, and thus we have a serious, moral obligation to do everything we can to help resolve it.