Iraq War: Lessons in Life and Death

I have spent the majority of my 20 years living on or near Fort Benning, Georgia. While other girls may swoon over men in uniforms, I always viewed soldiers as just another piece of my life. Even after my father retired from the military, trips to Fort Benning were still a normal part of my life.

I didn't think much of it when troops starting deploying to Iraq. According to Washington, this would be another short skirmish (just like Afghanistan, of course). I felt a great deal of sympathy for the families left behind. I was too young to remember my father's involvement in Desert Storm, but I knew what it was like to say goodbye to dad. My father deployed multiple times during my life. I quite shamefully admit that I was unable to picture my father's face with absolute clarity when he was stationed in Korea for a year. I was about eight at the time.

I started high school shortly after the war in Iraq started. The newspaper always seemed to include the face of some poor soul killed in Iraq. At first, these faces -- unfamiliar neighbors -- would be discussed in class or at the lunch table, but that didn't last long. Eventually, it simply became too depressing to talk about the latest fatality. I had friends and acquaintances that had fathers stationed in Iraq. Some students had special schedules that allowed them to receive calls from their mother or father in Iraq. Yellow ribbons appeared on buildings, cars, trees, and telephone poles. The war in Iraq was very hard to ignore in my town.

It became even more complicated when my oldest brother and my brothers' friend were both stationed in Iraq. When I asked about my brother, I frequently received unpleasant responses: "He's been having problems sleeping." or "He wrecked a vehicle the other day." I tried to keep up with him through email, but electronic correspondence only puts so many fears to rest. My brothers' friend returned from Iraq, and then he was stationed elsewhere. Elsewhere, fortunately, was not a war zone.

The first time that I met my brother while he was on leave, he scared me to death. There was something fundamentally different about his words and actions, so I spent an astonishing amount of time simply trying to figure out why my brother was not hitting me or teasing me as he should. I was relieved that I received a sharp kick in the backside when I was leaving his house. Somethings needed to remain the same.

When my brother came home from Iraq for good, he had changed tremendously. The changes I had noticed last time were nothing in comparison to these deeper changes. For a time, he experimented with drugs, and that resulted in expulsion from the military. He was violent -- much more violent than our brother-sister spats. He was unbelievably paranoid -- the kind of fear that you would laugh at if you did not realize he was deadly serious.

He is doing better now, even though he has cycled through a few jobs since he left the military. Still, it is startling to see these changes in such a constant figure. What my brother lacked in maturity before, he has overcompensated for with obviously traumatic worldly experiences.

I know what being Iraq has done to my brother, though I do not know the exact cause. I now have friends that have husbands in Iraq, and I still see the faces of the fallen in the newspaper when I venture back home. The war in Iraq has made me more supportive of the troops than ever before, and it has also taught me about the frailty of human life. I have watched one important man in my life change, and I have seen many more in the headlines. To me, and to the people around me, Iraq has been a tale of life and death.