War, What Is It Good For?

I will never forget the day in 2003 when the United States invaded Iraq and the war we are still embroiled in almost five years later officially began. I remember March 20, 2003 at least as vividly as I remember September 11, 2001.

I was in my second semester of my freshman year at Lee University, and I was emphatically against going to war. That Thursday evening, I attended a war forum/debate held by a few faculty members, some speaking from a pro-war position and some from an anti-war position. One of the professors who defended the pro-war position was my Developmental Psychology professor that semester, Dr. Hammond. After the forum ended, Dr. Hammond held a study session for an exam our class was having the next day. On the way across campus I told him that I didn’t agree with most of what he had said in the forum; he responded that he didn’t agree with most of what he said either. He was just playing his part in the debate.

As our study session was about to wrap up for the evening, Dr. Hammond’s cell phone rang. It was his wife, calling to tell him that the US had just invaded Iraq. He hung up the phone and told us that the war had begun, then suggested that we all pray together.

I stood there in a circle with my fellow students, praying silently, crying silently, and shaking. Until that moment, my anti-war sentiments had been purely theoretical; suddenly, the whole thing felt much more real. I was sickened, furious, and heartbroken. I drove home as quickly as I could, listening to the breaking news on the radio and fighting back tears. I joined Clark in front of the television in our apartment, holding our 7 month old son in my arms as closely as I could.

There was plenty to focus on: the bombs, the soldiers, the possible weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein. Yet all I could think of was the Iraqi mothers, sitting in their homes with their families, holding their precious children close, while my country bombed theirs. I was watching it on TV, but there were real people, people who aren’t so different from me and you inside, who were living through it- and had been for years, in one form or another.

That image has never left my mind. It is what I think of every time I think of the war. I think of the people of Iraq, and my heart breaks for them—for all they have been through in their lifetimes. We have no control over where we are born, yet due to a simple matter of chance, I live a life of peace and safety while other people all over the world live lives of war and fear. And it still makes me feel sick and furious and heartbroken.

The presidential candidates debate over what they would do about the war, military spending, national security. And it’s easy for the rest of us, sitting over here in our middle class subdivisions with our cable television, to focus on the politics of the war and to debate over what should be done, all while overlooking the people who are living through it. I do not know what the future holds for this war. I do not know what should be done, or how it should be done. All I know is that I pray for safety and peace in the lives of the Iraqi people. This war has never been against the Iraqi civilians, and I’m sure the results of the war so far have helped them in some ways—but it has hurt them in some as well. And regardless of who is causing their suffering, the point is—they are suffering. And I hate that.