Third Tour

I have a student in one of my History 18 classes, US History Since 1865, who will be going back to Iraq for a third tour soon. Talking to me after class yesterday he shared some of his impressions of that faraway country where we are currently in our sixth year of fighting.

Gustavo is about 24, an intelligent and conscientious student. He is clean-cut, well-spoken and dutiful about showing up and getting his work in on time, traits that are highly characteristic of most of my students who are vets. A couple of weeks ago he let me know his guard unit was going on training for a week. He showed me his orders so I would excuse him from class, and had done his chapter study guide ahead so he would be sure to get credit for it. He returned this week and checked in with me to see if he had missed anything. This young man is even more responsible than most of my vets. I mused in my mind about whether being in the military inculcates these good attributes in young people or whether it's mostly good young people like that who enlist in the first place. A "chicken or the egg" conundrum? Probably some of both, I thought. Either way, I couldn't help thinking that American society could use more like him.

Gustavo also let me know his unit would be going back to Iraq for a third tour this summer. He'd done two tours then gone into the guard, coming back home to get his schooling in for a couple of years. He had a choice to go to Kosovo on this latest active duty but chose to rejoin his old unit which is going back to Iraq. You might wonder why would someone do that. For one thing, he said, "there's nothing to do in Kosovo." For another, he would be with people he didn't know. He would rather be with his old comrades. That says a lot about the kind of bond that is established among soldiers who face combat together.

We did not get into the political questions about who is winning and so forth. But he did have quite a few interesting things to say about Iraqi society. "What are the people like there?" I asked. "They're very lazy," he replied, "and they have no sense of order. If you have them line up for something, as soon as you turn your back they turn into a chaotic mess. That includes the Iraqi troops we were trying to train."

He also observed, "The corruption is absolute." Nothing gets done without connections or a bribe. "Does everyone there accept that as normal?" I asked. "Not everyone," he answered, "Most do, but those who don't look at it like, 'I'm one person, what can I do?'" I wondered if Gustavo thought American influence could help change that. "No way," he replied. "They act just like we would if they came here and told us how to run our country."

Now I was mystified. Here was this young man, apparently convinced by two years in the country that its problems were irremediable, certainly at least by us, and yet volunteering to go back when he didn't really have to. I said nothing but he may have sensed my confusion. "You know, they (the Army) teach us that a lot of the younger people here are too young to remember 9/11."

If Gustavo doesn't make it back it will really hit me hard.