The Great Divide
I hand Tim a copy of the previous day’s New York Times, a paper he refers to as "slop," and point to a story headlined THE ONLY CONSENSUS ON IRAQ: NOBODY’S LEAVING RIGHT NOW. The article is about the findings of the Iraq Study Group, led by Lee Hamilton and James Baker. One passage quotes a scholar at the Israel Policy Forum: "What the Baker group appears to have done is try to change the direction of the political momentum on Iraq. They have made clear that there isn’t a scenario for a democratic Iraq, at least for a very long time. … "
Tim plunks down the paper and says, "I’m glad they’re not saying we should just pick up and leave." He’s a man of very few words, most of them slathered in sarcasm, but his tone is now thoughtful and serious. "The lesson I learned in Iraq is patience. There is absolutely still hope. We need to have patience." I find his conviction stunning, but I’m not able to dismiss it as the opinion of a patriot-fool. I can’t tell Timmy he’s wrong. I can’t tell him he’s ignoring the reports, and so many grim facts. I can’t tell him this because after I got over my fears back on that August day a year and a half ago, I did join Wheelock and Timmy’s Marines in Hit, and I glimpsed what he still sees: As the United States turns, inexorably away from, out of, this war, Timmy holds on to a promise that is at once much more complex and much simpler than the reports and those grim facts. I saw that promise, too.
AUGUST 2005
For a few moments, as the Marine Corps chopper shuttling me to western Iraq soared between a full summer moon and the Euphrates, I forgot everything, surrendering to Driftwood 41’s gentle rocking and the hypnotic thumping of its rotor blades. Two massive machine guns protruding through the windows to my immediate left appeared as benign silhouettes, while the green glow of the night-vision goggles on the two figures manning the weapons made for a mesmerizing focus. Hot breezes blew through the bird’s belly. I imagined misunderstood beauty in the darkness below. For a few moments. Then the ground unleashed what looked like green fireworks. Straight for us? And I remembered: this war, and Tim waiting for me down in that desert.
In 2003, Tim was deployed to Iraq for his first tour. He led a bulk-fuel unit of some 70 Marine reservists who established gas stations in the southern Iraqi desert. The pumps were stepping-stones for the initial U.S. ground assault on Baghdad. “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” “The War on Terror,” “World War III” — whatever. Seemed to me that President Bush had dragged our nation into a bloody crusade, putting my friend, along with hundreds of thousands of other troops, in harm’s way, all on a colossal WMD whoopsy-daisy. I figured that on this issue, at least, Timmy must share my take. After all, it was 17-year-old Tim who researched the My Lai massacre for a high-school advanced-placement history class and concluded, “Lt. William Calley forgot one thing, and that is you do not carry out an unlawful order.”
“Over there, we had FROG missiles shot at us,” Tim said, when we talked after his first tour. “Far as I’m concerned, that’s a weapon of mass destruction. If you saw what I saw, you’d understand.” That was when he added, “There are those who do, and those who write about it.”
