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

foreignwe all talk about how when we're gonnago home how proud we're going to be tobe combat vets I mean how many peoplecan say that they're combat veterans youknow 19 years old I fought in a war it'sit's awesome nothing can beat thatthat's the coolest thing in the worldyou knowit'd be fun to look back onjust waiting to get to that point whereI can look back on itoh here it is oh oh 2003 um they got usout here back then life is hard got uspulling two hours ago and thenthey opened up to eight between twelve Idon't give a I think I'm stuck inhell oh I'd rather be there instead ofjail put it back there on the map sendme my mailit's not a moment a day to go about itnot a thought about back that nevercrosses my mindit made me who I am today going to acountry where you don't know nothingno one is going down knowing you'rehearing the bombs and the gunshots it'sreal now like you've been trained for itthey done told you about it now you'rehereWednesday yeahI'm already readythat's the worst you can go throughat the age that we was going through ittrying to hitthe camera someone's smoking a cigarettein the[Music]what are you gonna do to get out of thearmycan be a rock starsometimes I remember oh yeah that'sright I went to Iraqnow that I have a kid sometimes I findmyself thinking is he gonna end up goingto some war that ends upnot doing any good for the world andreceive a bunch of shitty careafterwardsI think we were in Baghdad for a fewdays and then we were in a firefightoutside the Abu hanifa mosqueand it was just totally bizarre just gunfire everywhere it's a coupleof RPGsI just think and let the am I doinghereand that question never went awayI don't know how to explain the war tomyself and have yet to have any clearthought of like yes we actually made adifference there because we didn't atall there was no difference mademaybe for the worse[Music]the area I come from is uh very smallnot a lot of opportunities for peoplefresh out of high school so it's eitherCommunity College or go do somethingtravel the world get paid for itexperience places like thisI had swore I'd never joined the army Iwatched my brother come home all rigidwhen I was like 12 and I was like no wayand then he called me and he said youwatching this and I said what hegoes turn on television and about 30seconds after I turned on the televisionthe second plane hit when that happenedone I was mad you know I used mybackyardum but I immediately thought you knowthis is what I need to do I need I needto to defend my I just felt it I justhad to do it I had to go join my brotherI had to be by a side there was no way Iwas going to let my brother go into awar and me not be therewe'll keep one saw back herejust know where your people areso you need to start holding that whatyou me that deployment was funnybecause there was no clear cut Missionthe whole time you're wondering likewhat are we really doing are we reallyin combat are we not in combat who'sactually the enemy now you're in Baghdadnow you're in the heart of ottomia nowyou're now what[Applause]was going through my mind was it wasdark out and I couldn't see my fingersbasically I was hoping I still had myfingers I couldn't tell where I was shotI just knew my arm was numband I found out I had my fingers and Icould move themthe doc came by and he was patching meup and we just had a shallowconversation aboutyou know oh wow man you got shot I waslike yeah and I think I was only 19 atthat pointand to be shot in the first two weeks ofa 16-month deployment was was settingthe tone to say the least[Music]IDs are the scariest gunfire and craplike that that don't bother me youknow whatever with IEDs I had thatin garbage man and it could be anywhereand you riding through the hood and yousee a milk jug on the side of the roadbut the milk jug looked kind of cut or atrash bag trash bag looked kind ofripped up that's the that they willput the bombs inI don't see any wires but it's on thesurfacewe found Coke cans with them plasticexplosives in them on the corner andwhen you're walking around aneighborhood that's literally I meantrash up and down the streets it's youcan't really tell where they are you seeus when we're going around cornersthere's a box on the side of the roadit's just cringe and take the turnhopefully you don't hear a bang I stillcringe when I pass garbage I still Iasked my wife she goes nuts I avoidgarbage like the plague on the road Iwill swerve my car to the other sideshe's like what the is wrong withyou we're riding in the open tailgate ofa truckand people are getting up all thetimeand we'd still go out there with itpart of our 87 billion dollar budgetprovided forsome secondary armor put on top of ourthin-skinned Humveesthis armor was made in Iraq it's highquality metaland it will probably slow down theshrapnelso that it stays in your body instead ofgoing clean throughthat's about it[Laughter]when we first got here they were wavingat usand next minute as soon as we drive bywe'd get shot at and or some days they'dlook at us mean and you know give uschecks gestures that they didn't want usthere when I first got thereI noticed a lot of people doing this tome you you American they didn'tsay you they were justin about four months into it myinterpreter looks at me and goesSergeant Beatty have patiencewait whathavepatience[Applause]we hit houseswith the wrong address[Music]and then we'd have to apologize becausewe just kicked your door in or we justblew your door in or we just damagedyour house at three o'clock in themorninglet's gogoherecome herehold on hold on get down get down here[Applause]I still hear it in the psychologicalside of itnow I still carryI still think about that guyI still remember punching him in theface when he was going for this one topunch him in his face oh yeahand there's his glasses right thereif you look and you put yourself intheir placehow would you feel if you had someonekicking in your doorand you as the manwant to protect your family and mecoming through the doorwith bad intentionsbecause the Intel that I receivedtold me you're a bad guyin your lifeI'm always giving carry thatandI'm still working on thatfour times yeahhe's protecting his house he getspunched in the face put on his damn backends up in Abu grape and he's nevergoing to get that time backso I think about thatI don't feel like I'm defending mycountry anymore and that kind of sucksand that's that's the whole purpose whenyou're a kid to join the Army a lot ofpeople feel is like you know defend yourcountry but we're not defending ourcountry anymore I know we haven'tdefended our country in a while but Ididn't agree with the Iraq War when Iwent in I I was I went in forAfghanistan I joined to go fight in themelons I want to fight I wantedto fight the Talibanumyou know unfortunately once you join youhave no politics your property you knowyou go where they send youwhen I was 20 I thought we wereInvincible we were kids we were justInvincible we're gonna go here we'regonna do this and we're gonna get outand I tell people to this day the daythat I grew upwas November the 1st 2003 that was theday I grew up I think this day we allgrew upand you say that day and it justgot the call over the radio and thatone of our Humvees was engaged withsome kind of RPG or IED nobody knew whatit was at first it just hit and it hitit hardour hubby was limping back to the thecompound and we're getting statusreportsconstantlynevermind I'll justkind ofwent on with what we had to do thatnightand then we got up the next dayand they told us we had a nine o'clockformation nobody told us it's a whythey'll end up the whole battery and thePC came out and he was he was alreadycrying he was really shook up and weknew something was badand he told us that during the nightthatLieutenant Cogan had diedand then you just everybody's heads justwent down it wasyou could hear thatthe gasps andtears and a lot of peopleI think most people really wanted to goout and just chill everybody after thatwas the first death we had suffered in abattalion and then we'd had people hurtbut no one had died yet that's areally big thing to just grasp all of asuddenit's one of the things you'll neverforgetseveral other people in our unit werekilled Lieutenant salts PFC Mooreum sergeant major cook was killedumSergeant McKeeverrest in peace boysall that talking about that that is so depressing manyou just have no idea you have no ideamanso what does it do to a generation ofyoung peopleduring these deploymentsthey become oldthey are old the young menyeah I mean I feel more grown up I meanI've changed a lot in the last you knowa year you know for people back in theStates it was just a year you knownothing really changed it just got ayear older you know for me it was likeyou know a lifetime you know I feel I'vegrown up 20 or 30 years out hereand every day it was well I guess I'mjust doing what I'm doing today so thatI can get to tomorrow so that we can getto our 365 days and leave and then thatchanged then we stayed out there for afew more monthsI think it was like 419 days that wewere theremaybe George Bush should fund myguitar businesshe owes me a beer at least at theminimumthe Iraqis are probably wondering how inthe hell are they supposed to believe ina system that we forced fed themwhen our system doesn't even workgoing back to George Floydtwo words not okaythere's actually a picture of me in TimeMagazinewith my kneeon a suspected terrorist chestit wasn't on his carotid arteryit was across his chestall theseshootings not okay[Music]my mom doesn't like the Army too muchbecause I mean took both her boys andwe're over here and you know she hatesthatbut she's very proud andnothing beats it it's the greatestfeeling in the worldJason's bike was always affectionatelyknown as the because that was mybrotherokayforeignyou call someoneJason was that phone call from me and Iwas always that phone call for Chaseso it was hard for mewhen he did do what he didyou know the first few months or anycallwhy didn't he call meand I know that you can see[Music]