Baghdad Report: Over There
Bryan Preston
My son, standing on the sidewalk in the dusky light hugging my wife’s leg. That was the image I carried in my mind on the long ride out. Michelle and I were now really bound for Iraq, and we were both mostly quiet for the first few minutes of the ride as her husband drove us to the airport. Whatever feeling of loss and trepidation I had that night were at most one-one thousandth of what our troops who have families must feel when they get orders to deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan. Most of them have deployed to one or the other before. Most of them, particularly the enlisted who do much of the fighting, joined after 9-11 and even after the 2003 invasion. They knew what they were getting themselves into, and joined up with eyes wide open, not because they like war and fighting, but because they feel called to defend their country and Iraq is the current focus of our national defense. ...
When we hear about the latest violence in Iraq–the loss of two dozen troops this past weekend, the terrorist bombing of a university in Baghdad that kills 72 innocents–or the daily political infighting between Maliki, the Coalition, and the Iraqi people–it all seems so far away. It can all seem irrelevant to our lives here, except for those who have family and loved ones involved in the fight or the reconstruction of Iraq. But over there isn’t as far away as it feels. In fact, over there isn’t nearly far enough away.
