I recently read a story about a group of Vietnam veterans that took advantage of an opportunity to go back to Vietnam as a tourist and visit the country and the sites within it they had visited about 40 years ago as soldiers. All of them had taken part in some major battles and lived in some pretty awful conditions. They’d all lost friends, they’d all faced and killed their enemies, and after 40 years decided it was time to go back. This kind of got me thinking, which I do a lot and often results in me not paying attention to other things around me, but I was thinking about if I want to or would go back to Iraq at this point in my life.

In the 15+ months I spent in Iraq there weren’t many parts of the country I didn’t set foot in. We first deployed to Mosul in the northern part of Iraq. From there we operated throughout the northern region of Iraq going all the way to the mountains of Kurdistan near the border of Turkey. From there we travelled south through many major cities on our way to Baghdad some 300 miles south. We travelled all over Baghdad, staying in Saddam’s palaces and most of the American bases as well as dozens of Iraqi citizens homes. From there we travelled northeast to Baqubah which was only 30 miles from Iran. From there we moved all over the place from the Iranian border to the Anbar Province which holds Fallujah and Ramadi.

I can remember just about every place that we visited, regardless of whether we stayed there for many months or just drove through briefly. Each and every place holds memories for me that are good and bad. Some of the places saw unimaginable violence and situations or occurrences that were so awful that I still see them in my dreams. But on the question of whether or not I would take an opportunity to revisit some of the places I went to while I was deployed, I think at this point in my life I would say no. Putting aside the fact that the entire region is still very unsafe, I just do not feel as though I am at a point where I would feel any sense of relief or healing from going back again right now. I’ve spent hundreds of hours in therapy sessions and programs to try to take that whole experience in stride and use it to better myself and going back there right now would do me no good. It is a place that I saw 31 of my friends and brothers die violently. I saw young children and their families murdered, people tortured in ways I couldn’t have thought of in a million years. Things like this don’t just stop running through your mind when you leave the place you saw them happen.

I have devoted a lot of time, energy, and money in trying to make sense of all of these events which has proven to be a difficult task. It would seem that after even the 6 years since then that they still pop into my head at strange times, and sometimes it’s just as vivid and clear as the day I saw them happen, so like I said, I don’t currently don’t see any benefit for going back to visit at this point in time. And I’m certain that even if I waited 50 years, I could still go back to those same places and know exactly where I was. You could drop me off in the middle of Baqubah, Iraq and I could walk to any part of the city without using a map or street signs, and I could point out the exact locations where any of these events happened, so I think I’ll stay home!

drfarwell@hotmail.com