Ran across this today, which eloquently captures an important concept that I was wondering how to convey myself.  I think I’ll use this in the book somewhere.  Its from a 2015 interview with General James Mattis, before he became Secretary of Defense.  He’s being interviewed by Peter Robinson, on the show ‘Uncommon Knowledge”. It’s a wide-ranging discussion, but this part comes in right at the end.

Here’s my (slightly edited) excerpt of the General’s remarks:

I would just say there is one misperception of our veterans and that is they are somehow damaged goods.  I don’t buy it. There is also something called post traumatic growth.

For those who close on the enemy, who seek out, close with to kill the enemy, it is a very atavistic, primitive environment and there is post-traumatic stress for anyone who’s been through it.  There is stress, no doubt about it. It’s not an insignificant moment the first time you draw down and you shoot your fellow man, that’s all there is to it. Or you see your buddy get hit next to you. So, the bottom line, there’s going to be stress.  

But it does not have to be post traumatic “disorder” or “syndrome”. You don’t have to come at it from a position of illness.  You can come at it from a position of wellness, from a position of growth as a human being. I’ve seen people come out of this sort of thing better.  Better men, better husbands, better fathers, more in touch with their God or whatever their source of spiritual strength is, kinder, more compassionate.

Not everyone reacts the same way, but I don’t buy that somehow if you came home from Iwo Jima or Gettysburg or Iraq or Afghanistan, that somehow you’re limited in what you can do.  The Greatest Generation came home from WWII, the worst war in world history and they created good communities, they rose to be college presidents, started industries… I just don’t buy that somehow we are handicapped because we’ve been in those circumstances.  I recognize the grim realities. I don’t recognize the limited potential of a human being when they come out of that.  –Gen James Mattis, USMC (retired)

Here’s the YouTube, starting with this discussion:

(This post was incorporated into the book’s Preface)

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about a photo and a saying that came out of the bitter fighting in Ramadi in 2006 & 2007, “America is not at war… America is at the mall“.  I also put up a link on Facebook, and was surprised when quite a few people responded to that.  Apparently, it struck a nerve or two, so this is a follow-on post, a “part 2”. Both will form parts of the book’s Preface, which I’ve been composing piece-by-piece in the last week or so.  You can see that work-in-progress here.  Anyway, here’s the part 2:

For all intents and purposes, the accomplishments of the 3/2 Battalion during their 2005 deployment — and the entire Iraq War for that matter — have already been forgotten.  They’ve been covered by windblown dunes, successive layers of blithe forgetfulness that settled over a nation eager to move on.  Which is a tragedy all its own.

The tandem successes of the tribal Awakening and the Bush/Petraeus surge, which were built on foundations laid by 3/2 Marines as described in this book, led to what can only be termed victory in Iraq.

Paradoxically, however, success only accelerated America’s collective amnesia.  By 2009, Marines in the city of Husaybah were drinking chai with locals along Market Street, without body armor, an amazing thing to those who had shoot-outs there in 2005. Meanwhile, news at home was dominated that year by Michael Jackson’s funeral, the latest iPhone release and Obamacare.  Still more cognizance was soon buried as the new administration executed a precipitous, ill-advised withdrawal from Iraq, completed by 2011. Afghanistan was Obama’s “good war”. Iraq was Bush’s bad war, the stepchild rejected by both left and right.

Then, in 2014, came a layer of hot volcanic ash blasting out of the desert and across the entire landscape as the black shroud of ISIS descended.  For veterans who had served in Iraq, especially those who’d been part of the campaigns to pacify Anbar, it was painful to watch enemies they’d once vanquished reconquer large swathes of the country. Each city that fell to the raving killers brought memories of sacrifices made, of friends lost, of blood spilt, all now seemingly in vain.  My own reaction was to psychologically turn away. To put it behind me. I didn’t know how to face what I felt was a massive betrayal that was unfolding as ditches filled with corpses and roads were lined with severed heads. Other veterans I’ve spoken with had similar feelings. It was hard to fathom how America could let the progress we’d made, and yes, the victories we’d won, slip away.

And so multiple strata of forgetfulness settled over Anbar, over Al-Qaim (one of the first areas in Iraq to fall under ISIS rule), and over the battlegrounds where US Marines fought just a few years before. In a way, then, my task has been that of a “temporal archeologist”, carefully brushing back layers of sediment to reveal the truth below. Reaching back now, nearly a decade and a half later, is to uncover what is essentially ancient history in today’s Twitter-fueled hyperworld.

So why does it matter?  (working on this part… more soon… Preface now finished)

–Ajax

Posted as a reference, supporting one of the chapters in the book

Quote from a footnote in, Marine Forces Reserve Operational History: Global War on Terror (2004 – 2007) by Col David T. Waters, USMCR

The turnover of Coalition staffs was significant. II Marine Expeditionary Force Forward (II MEF (Fwd)), 2nd Marine Division, and three regimental combat team staffs relieved their I MEF counterparts, many of whom had been in Iraq for more than a year. Subordinate units, including battalions and squadrons, also turned over as part of the scheduled seven-month deployment cycle.

And a Chicago Tribune Article…
For Marines, end of 2-day trip is just the beginning
March 16, 2005|By James Janega