First Person: Saving Iraqi Children from Oppression Made It Worth It

As we near the 10-year anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq, Yahoo News asked U.S. servicemen and women who served to share their perspectives and discuss how it changed them. Here's one story.

FIRST PERSON | In January 2003, I was a typical young Marine with Echo Company 2/5 at Camp Pendleton, Calif. Earlier that month, our regiment had received a warning order, detailing the potential for us to be deployed to Kuwait for possible combat actions against Iraq. On Jan. 31, I went to work, only to be released around noon, being told that we had received orders and that we all needed to report back at 2 in the morning on Feb. 1. That day changed my life forever.

We arrived in Kuwait on the second or third of February and were taken by bus to an area in the desert just south of the Iraqi border. We lived there for a month and a half until March 20, when we officially began combat operations. My platoon was attached to a company of M1A1 tanks and we crossed the border in the early morning hours on the 20th, blowing a breach in the Iraqi border that was soon flooded by American vehicles entering the country. As soon as we entered Iraq, the Iraqi Republican Guard greeted us with their fleet of T-72 tanks. We fought our way north for the rest of the morning. I remember hearing the tank commanders requesting permission to "service" targets over the radio and their captain granting them permission to do so, and a blast followed by an explosion could be heard. For the next 20 days, all we did was fight our way north, finally reaching Baghdad, and going even farther north into Tikrit, where we were told that the Iraqi regime had been removed from power.

Our battalion was then ordered to a small city south of Baghdad called Al Samawah, where insurgent activity was high. Within a few weeks, we had quelled the violence by our presence and frequent combat patrols throughout the city. It was here that I realized the importance of what we had done, and it was a child that demonstrated this to me.

My squad was on a routine foot patrol in the mid-morning of this particular day and we were going through an open air market where locals were selling various vegetables and fruits. As I was walking, taking in everything around me, a little girl, probably no older than 8 or 9 ran up to me and hugged my leg; she looked up at me and in broken English said, "Thank you... my parents now say it is safe enough for me to go outside and play."

It was this one statement from a small child that made all of the sacrifices worth it to me. I could not envision a childhood spent in fear, not even being allowed to go outside to play because of the regime that had controlled Iraq.

I do suffer from PTSD, but when I think of that girl and the look in her eyes that morning, I remember that we ultimately did the right thing.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/first-person-saving-iraqi-children-oppression-made-worth-182900644.html

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