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29 April 2015

To my future children: Your father’s war

BY THOMAS E. RICKS
APRIL 27, 2015
One day, you will be old enough to ask me about the war, about Iraq, about the dusty uniform hanging in the closet. You will expect stories of valor and glory, picturing your father as the grand protagonist in a heroic quest. Or maybe I have already told you about the war, confessing the ugly truths, sharing the moments of fleeting laughter, and revealing all the secret tears. Yet, I doubt I possessed the courage to tell you the truth — at least the whole truth. Every father wants to be the hero in his children’s eyes, no matter how briefly.

But the truth is your father was no great war hero. I did not storm into Saddam Hussein’s royal palace in a barrage of bullets and explosions. I did not drag men from fiery Humvees in a feat of unadulterated altruism. The war had many heroes, some of whom paid the ultimate price for Corps & Country, but your father was not one of them. Your father was a terrified nineteen year old plucked from suburbia, dropped in a distant country, fighting a war he barely understood. Your father was a starry-eyed boy chasing the ghosts of 9/11, believing he could change the world behind a rifle.

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