22 years ago today--Iraq

1,069 Views | 7 Replies | Last: 8 mo ago by Sapper Redux
Aggie12B
User Profile
Private Message
Ignore User Stop Ignoring
How long do you want to ignore this user?
24 hours One week Permanently Cancel
12:01a, 3/20/25
AG
On this date in 2003, the ground-war in Iraq began in the wee hours of the morning, around 0200 local time. I crossed the border as a team leader with 2nd Sqd, 1st Plt, B Co, 11th EN BN, TF 2-7INF, 1st BDE, 3ID on the initial invasion. I was the second Engineer from my company to cross the border (my driver crossed the border just before me). I was the TC in my M113 (call sign Bulldog 1-2 Alpha) and the .50cal gunner. I didn't know it at the time, but I would cross that border 3 more times before it was all said and done. It seems like ages ago and yet it seems like yesterday.

ROCK OF THE MARNE

I'm posting this because this event set in motion the events that changed my life forever, and it is therapeutic to me to post about it. The anniversary this year of crossing the border and all the follow-on events is kinda surreal to me. Excluding '04, '06, '08, and '09 when I was deployed again to Iraq, I always had Casey to help me get through the anniversaries and the memories. This year, I am facing them alone. In many ways, the deployments were easier than the memories from those deployments

I'm cross-posting on the Politics, General, and Military boards, as well as on Premium
Reply Quote
13
1 edit
aalan94
User Profile Ignore User Stop Ignoring
How long do you want to ignore this user?
24 hours One week Permanently Cancel
6:00p, 4/2/25
AG
I served 2007-08. The month I arrived was the worst month of the war in terms of casualties. I was an Intel bubba, working in the Joint Operations Center. I was in the daily briefings with Petraeus on the video screen, literally sitting behind the very tall Gen. Odierno.
Can't say all I did, but I basically got first row seat to a lot of the operational level war planning, organization, etc. I watched the strategy of the Anbar awakening from a simple experiment done by local commanders to a nationwide paradigm shift that changed the war. When it was over, and I left in June of 2008, we had gone from 180 attacks a day to 15.
Don't tell me you can't win an insurgency. We did.
Reply Quote
1
JABQ04
User Profile Ignore User Stop Ignoring
How long do you want to ignore this user?
24 hours One week Permanently Cancel
6:46p, 4/2/25
AG
I remember watching the invasion as a junior in my dorm room and thinking that I was going to miss everything. Foolish me.
Reply Quote
1
Sapper Redux
User Profile
Private Message
Ignore User Stop Ignoring
How long do you want to ignore this user?
24 hours One week Permanently Cancel
In reply to aalan94 • 8:53p, 4/3/25
Iraq is not a win. I was on the ground in 04-05 and 06-08. I have Iraqi friends who are in the country. Great that Saddam is gone, but the country is not particularly functional and very much under Iranian influence. The best you can say is we found a way to minimize American losses.
Reply Quote
aalan94
User Profile Ignore User Stop Ignoring
How long do you want to ignore this user?
24 hours One week Permanently Cancel
9:11p, 4/3/25
AG
I disagree. The fact that it is dysfunctional is given with its history. It was permanently removed as a threat to the United States and it doesn't write the paychecks for the anti-Israel insurgency. Those are wins in my book.
Reply Quote
Sapper Redux
User Profile
Private Message
Ignore User Stop Ignoring
How long do you want to ignore this user?
24 hours One week Permanently Cancel
In reply to aalan94 • 12:36a, 4/4/25
aalan94 said:
I disagree. The fact that it is dysfunctional is given with its history. It was permanently removed as a threat to the United States and it doesn't write the paychecks for the anti-Israel insurgency. Those are wins in my book.


It's a proxy for Iran. And if you don't think Iraqi leadership supports groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, I have a bridge to sell you. Kata'ib Hezbollah, a designated terrorist group that killed dozens of Americans is part of the official security forces. Iraq was not a ****ing win.
Reply Quote
aalan94
User Profile Ignore User Stop Ignoring
How long do you want to ignore this user?
24 hours One week Permanently Cancel
5:34p, 4/4/25
AG
Iraq definitely is under Iranian influence, but it's not as directly controlled as you suggest. That's because, despite the fact that Shi'a are a majority in Iraq, there is an ethnic divide between Iraq and Iran, that being Arabs and Persians and there is a signficant skepticism in Iraq for Iranians generally. Add to that point the reality that the Iraqi leadership knows all too well that they have to publically stand off just so much to avoid an inevitable return of sectarian violence, as the Sunnis hate the Iranians.

It is more accurate to say that there are forces in the Iraqi government that support Iran, more so than that the Iraqi government as a whole does. Even if they did, they are effectively neutered. Iran's going to Iran, no matter if Iraq helps them or not. But the reality is the Yemeni military is a greater threat as an Iranian proxy than the entire nation of Iraq.

There is no comparison between the threat level that Iraq presented the world in 2002 and the one it does today.
Reply Quote
1
Sapper Redux
User Profile
Private Message
Ignore User Stop Ignoring
How long do you want to ignore this user?
24 hours One week Permanently Cancel
In reply to aalan94 • 10:31p, 4/4/25
Iraq didn't pose a world threat in 2002. Not any kind of threat that justified what we lost.
Reply Quote
Refresh
Page 1 of 1
 
×
subscribe Verify your student status
See Subscription Benefits
Trial only available to users who have never subscribed or participated in a previous trial.