The Iraq War From the View of A Veteran (Assignment date: 7-1-16)

           In a guest OP-ED column from 2013, as a part of a six part series for the anniversary of the end of the war in Iraq, veterans sent in pictures and their stories of the war to the column and they were compiled in a series of short stories. The one that was perhaps the most intriguing was one titled "War is Over" by a veteran named Perry O'Brien. He started off by talking about a particular night at a clinic in Kandahar that he remembered well. It was the night he decided that the war was not worth it and saw no reason for he and his company to be going through the battle against themselves. He says this because, at the time, more soldiers were being treated for friendly fire wounds than wounds from enemy fire. While his whole company was sitting idle in the desert fighting off inner demons, the media still portrayed the same old war footage of night time bombings and tanks in formation. He then talked about how when he got home in 2004, while some of his other comrades went on other tours in Afghanistan, he filled out the paper work to become a conscientious objector to the war and be honorably discharged from the military. Only two years later, he ends up at a funeral for a sergeant from his old company. He notes that some of his former comrades are in civilian clothes, as uncomfortable as he is at the event, while the rest are in uniform, back on American soil from multiple tours of combat overseas. Then he jumps to 2011, the end of the war. He talks about how it is all over magazines that end up on the ground, trampled and in the mud, but for as much talk about the war that they contain, there was no mention of Kandahar or the soldiers that were injured from friendly fire and accidents.
            This absence of what actually happened overseas is a huge issue that is all too prevalent within the mass media. Instead of reporting on what was actually going on overseas, they only reported on the big exciting events where U.S. forces were actively clashing with enemy forces. This is because the media wants to prolong citizen interest in overseas conflict so that they can bring in readers and revenue, a consequence of the profit model of media companies. If the media reported on what was actually happening on a daily basis in Iraq and Afghanistan, the anti war movement would grow and discourage readers from reading news stories about the wars in the Middle East.

Article Link: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/21/a-war-before-and-after-part-6/#more-141766