Iraq War Veterans, 20 Years Later: ‘I Don’t Know How to Explain the War to Myself’ | Op-Docs

Abroad, we all talk about when we'll come home, how proud we'll be to be combat

veterans

. I mean, how many people can say they're combat

veterans

? You

know

, 19

years

old. I fought in a war. Incredible, nothing can beat that is the coolest thing in the world. You

know

, it would be fun to look back and hope to get to that point where I can remember it. Oh, here it is, oh oh, 2003, um, they took us out here. Back then, life is hard, they made us leave two hours ago and then they opened at eight between twelve.

I don't give a damn. I think I'm trapped in hell. Oh, I'd rather be there instead of jail. Put it back there in the. map send me my email there is no time of day to do it nor a thought about the past that never crosses my mind made me who I am today going to a country where you know nothing no one will go down knowing you You are hearing the bombs and the gunshots, now It's real, as if they had trained you for it, they already told you, now you are here on Wednesday, yes, I am ready, that is the worst thing you can happen at the age we were. checking it out trying to hit the camera someone is smoking a cigarette what are you going to do to get out of the army can be a rock star sometimes I remember it oh yeah that's right I went to Iraq now that I have a son sometimes I find

myself

I wonder if he'll end up going to some war that will end up doing no good to the world and he'll get a lot of shitty care afterwards.

I think we were in Baghdad for a few days and then we were in a firefight outside Abu Hanifa. mosque and it was totally strange, just shooting everywhere, it's a couple of RPGs. I just think and let what I'm doing here and that question never went away. I don't know how to

explain

the war and I still don't have anything clear. I thought so, we actually made a difference there because we didn't at all, there was no difference, maybe to make matters worse, the area where I come from is very small, there aren't many opportunities for people right out of high school, so it's Community College or go do something, travel the world, get paid for it, experience places like this.

I had sworn I had never joined the military. I saw my brother come home stiff when I was like 12 and I thought no way and then he called me. Me and he said, you're watching this and I said, "Turn on the TV" and about 30 seconds after I turned on the TV, the second plane crashed when that happened. I was mad, you know, I used my backyard, but I immediately thought you know. This is what I have to do I need I need to defend my I just felt it I just had to do it I had to go join my brother I had to stand aside there was no way I was going to let my brother go to a war and I couldn't be there we'll keep a saw here I just know where your people are so you gotta start holding that what you told me that deployment was funny because there wasn't a clear mission the whole time you were there. wondering what we're really doing we're really in combat we're not in combat who actually is the enemy now you're in baghdad now you're in the heart of ottomia now you're now what was going through my mind was it was dark and I couldn't see my fingers basically I hoped I still had my fingers.

I couldn't say where I was shot. I just knew that my arm was numb and I discovered that I had my fingers and could move them. He came over and he was healing me and we had a superficial conversation about, you know, oh, man, you got shot. I was like, yeah, and I think I was only 19 at the time and I was going to get shot in the first two weeks of a 16. The month-long deployment was setting the tone, to say the least, IDs are the most shot. scary stuff and stuff like that that doesn't bother me, you know, whatever with IEDs, I had it in the dumpster and it could be anywhere and you come through the hood and you see a milk jug on the side of the road, but the milk jug looked cut or a garbage bag, a garbage bag looked torn, that's where they'll put the bombs.

I don't see any wire, but it's on the surface we found Coca-Cola cans with plastic explosives on the corner and when you walk through a neighborhood, that's literally, I mean garbage up and down the streets, you can't really tell where They are there, you see us when we are there. As you turn the corners there is a box on the side of the road, it's just embarrassing and take the turn, hopefully you won't hear a bang. I still cringe when I pass the trash. Still, I asked my wife. She goes crazy. I avoid trash like the plague.

On the way, I will divert my car to the other side, she says what's wrong with you? We ride in the open tailgate of a truck and people get up all the time and we would still get away with that as part of our $87 billion budget provided secondary armor placed on top of our thin-skinned Humvees. This armor was made in Iraq. It is high quality metal and will likely slow down the shrapnel so that it stays in the body rather than passing through. In this regard, when we first arrived here, they would greet us and the next minute, as soon as we passed, they would shoot at us and some days they would look at us dirty and give us check gestures which they didn't do. we wanted there when I first got there I noticed a lot of people doing this to me you, you American, they didn't say you, it had only been about four months, my interpreter looks at me and says: Sergeant Beatty, be patient, wait , what's wrong with it? patience, we hit houses with the wrong address and then we would have to apologize because we just kicked in your door or we just blew up your door or we just damaged your house at three in the morning, come on, come on, here, come here.

Wait, wait, get down, get down here I still hear it on the psychological side now I still carry it. I still think about that guy. I still remember punching him in the face when I was going for this one to punch him in the face. oh yeah and there are his glasses, if you look and put yourself in his place, how would you feel if someone kicked in your door and you as a man wanted to protect your family and me by walking through the door with bad intentions because the information that I received told me that you are a bad guy in your life.

I'm always showing my face and I'm still working on it four times. Yes, he is protecting his house. They punch him in the face. They put it on his fucking ass. in Abu uva and he will never get that time back, so I think about that, I don't feel like I'm defending my country anymore and that sucks, and that's the purpose when you're a kid to join. In the military, many people feel that you know how to defend your country, but we are no longer defending our country. I know it's been a while since we defended our country, but I didn't agree with the Iraq war when I joined. was that I entered through Afghanistan, I joined to go fight in the melons, I want to fight, I wanted to fight against the Taliban, you know, unfortunately, once you join, you don't have politics, your property, you know, you go where they send you when I was 20

years

old.

We thought we were invincible, we were kids, we were just invincible, we're going to go here, we're going to do this and we're going to get out, and I tell people that to this day. The day I grew up was November 1, 2003. The day I grew up, I think this day we all grew up and you say that day and just got a call on the radio and one of our Humvees was attacking some kind of RPG or IED , no one knew what it was at first. it just hit and hit it hard, our husband was limping back to the resort and we were getting status reports constantly, it doesn't matter.

I continued with what we had to do that night and then we got up the next day and they told us that we had a nine o'clock training, no one told us that because of that they would run out of all the battery and the PC came out and he was already crying, he was very shocked and we knew something was wrong and he told us that during the night that Lieutenant Cogan had died and then everyone hung their heads, you could hear the gasping and the tears and a lot of people. I think most people really wanted to go out and relax after that.

It was the first death we suffered in a battalion and then we had people injured but no one had died yet. That's a very important thing to understand, suddenly, it's one of the things you will never forget, several other people in our unit were killed, Lieutenant Salts PFC Moore, Senior Sergeant Cook was killed, Sergeant McKeever, rest in peace, guys, all that talking about it is so depressing, man, you just have no idea, you have no idea, man, so what does it do to a generation of young men during these deployments get old, get old young men, yeah, I mean, I feel more grown up, I mean, I've changed a lot in the last year, you know, for people in America, it was just one year.

You know, nothing really changed, I just aged a year. You know, for me it was like a lifetime. Know. I feel like I've grown 20 or 30 years here and every day was good. I guess I'm just doing it. what I'm doing today so I can get there tomorrow so we can get to our 365 days and leave and then that changed and then we stayed there for a few more months. I think it was like 419 days we were there, maybe. George Bush should fund my guitar business, he owes me a beer, at least at the very least. Iraqis are probably wondering how the hell they are supposed to believe in a system we force them to feed when our system doesn't even work in the first place.

George Floyd two words it's not okay there's actually a photo of me in Time magazine with my knee on a suspected terrorist's chest it wasn't on his carotid artery it was through his chest all these shootings it's not okay my mom doesn't care either she likes the army a lot because I mean, she took her two kids and we're here and you know she hates that, but she's so proud and nothing beats it. It's the greatest feeling in the world. Jason's bike was always affectionately known because that was my brother. He's fine, foreigner. you call someone Jason was that phone call for me and I was always that phone call for Chase so it was hard for me when he did what he did, you know, the first few months or whatever phone call, why didn't he call me? me too?

I know you can see