by Derek Farwell
Columnist

Before I started writing these weekly articles, I didn’t talk or for that matter write much about Iraq. I’ve been asked a lot of questions, many of which I dismiss as dumb, but some are legitimate questions I think about often. The question I have thought about most is a more philosophical question than one of individual experiences. I don’t think I’ve ever answered the question the same way more than once because my opinions fluctuate, but that question is, Was it all worth it? And what did we really accomplish?

There are a lot of different factors that go into answering that question for me, and I suppose that each person may see things a little differently. For me, it was a matter of whether or not the good that we did and the positive things that I took away from it outweighed the bad. This is a very difficult question to answer, but I’ll give it a shot.

At first we were fed the company line about how we’re helping liberate the repressed people of Iraq and helping spread democracy. At first I bought into that, but the longer we were there, the less and less I cared about it, and the more and more I cared about my friends. The actual outcomes of the missions we were doing became less important than making sure that everyone actually came back alive, which unfortunately didn’t always happen. It’s impossible for me justify a friends death by telling myself, well at least we accomplished that mission. To me, my friends lives were far more valuable than any objective or mission we were tasked with, but in the end we were there to do a job. We were all men and we were all soldiers, and we all understood the risks that we were taking.

I also often wonder if we actually accomplished as much as we thought. It was definitely nice to see the positive outcomes of what we did, and I know within myself that I always acted morally and did what I thought to be the right thing. I never had any moral objections with my use of lethal force. I know that anytime I killed another person that it was, or I thought it to be at the time, the only decision I had. But now I think of the long term effects that that actually had on the “War on Terror”. I mentioned a few weeks ago that during our stay in the city of Baqubah, we killed over 500 bad guys and detained another 100 or so, but it was pretty obvious that when we killed or detained a bad guy, his friends and family were now quite likely to stop cooperating with us and become new enemies of ours. I suppose I can sympathize with those actions, but it’s kind of a revolving cycle where you don’t actually make any progress.

I guess in the end, the short answer for me is that it was all worth it. It was a violent situation, but throughout all of that, I know that we all tried to do the right thing. We did what we believed to be the right, which is all one can really do in a situation like that. It is very unfortunate that so many people had to die, but I truly believe the world is a slightly better and safer place because I killed the people I did at the times I did it. But what it comes down to for me is that the good that I took away from the whole experience outweighed the bad. Maybe not by much, but it did. The relationships that I took away from it are the kind that will be there until I’m gone, which is not something a lot of people have. I think that I also took away a new perspective on life that was really good for me at the time as a 23 year old guy. It really forced me to reevaluate my priorities in life which is something that I seemed to resist up to that point. I also know we helped a lot of people and paved the way for the potential at a safer and more stable life for a lot of Iraqi citizens.

But ultimately, it will be up to them to continue on down that road.