The Great Divide
You mean, I ask, there isn’t enough focus on those moments of promise, like the one between Cordone and Yaseen?
“Exactly. When is the last time you saw a story in the media about CAG? You wouldn’t know anything about what we did if you hadn’t seen it for yourself.”
John Cordone, now a major, is back home in Virginia. He tells me that his last meeting with Yaseen was on September 4th, 2005, only days after I left. Yaseen had come to ask for the release of an Iraqi picked up by Marines for questioning. He insisted the man was innocent; good people, again, had told him this. Cordone explained why the man wouldn’t be immediately released. Minutes after Yaseen left, Firm Base 1 came under a heavy, orchestrated attack. Two suicide car bombers drove into the front gates; then came the fire from small arms, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. During the attack, one of the CAG Marines took glass and shrapnel to the face; Cordone and his men forgot about diplomacy and returned to the role of Marine riflemen, taking up positions and firing until the firing stopped. Despite all of that, Cordone, too, says there is hope in Iraq, if only the American public is willing to stay committed. “The Marines don’t refer to the war as the Iraq War or Operation Iraqi Freedom,” he says. “We call it ‘The Long War.’”
Part of me is sure that Timmy holds to his conviction because he doesn’t have a choice, because he’s a Marine; he’s been there twice and could end up there again, and for him to believe otherwise would be akin to a Catholic kid from Northeast Philly who went to St. Joe’s Prep saying there is no Jesus. It’s a matter of faith. The war in Iraq, the Long War that once divided us — Timmy and me — is now our bond. Because I saw the possibility of what was there — a possibility I now believe is gone, but that, for reasons both so complex and quite simple, my friend still sees.
Maximillian Potter is the executive editor of Denver’s city magazine, 5280. Previously, he was a senior staff writer at Philadelphia magazine and GQ.
Comments on this story? Please send them to us.
