I got to plan and lead a brigade raid on the 4th of July once, Iraqi Special Operations Forces brigade consisting of the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Force and the 36th Commando Battalion with embedded American SF advisers. Basically the Iraqi version of Delta + a Ranger Battalion...
..and we did 3 simultaneous capture/kill raids in different neighborhoods in Baghdad. Took down an entire IED network. I was an Army Captain at the time and felt like I& #39;d been crowned the All-American boy by my nation or something, Captains don& #39;t generally lead BDE-sized ops...
..but I was always a rockstar and, IMHO, was being rewarded for some services I& #39;d rendered to higher. Problem-solving stuff, at which I tend to excel. Mission went well. Didn& #39;t lose anyone and captured some high-value targets and took out a network and all that jazz...
..Other than clearing my way up a stairwell with a couple of commo guys to get to the roof on the primary target site I mostly spent the night worrying about my people getting hurt or killed. There was no Ernst Jünger-esque "great thrill of battle" by any means, just stress...
..and anxiety about the myriad of things that can go wrong in urban combat during a high-risk raid. More "perception vs reality" lessons learned. Now, 13 years later, I& #39;m apparently part of the "left wing radical mob" because I don& #39;t worship the orange idiot king. This...
..coming from the GOP, a party that cavorted in Moscow on the 4th of July 2 years ago. The party that sought to reward Putin for putting bounties on the heads of US soldiers in Afghanistan, a county where I was targeted by suicide bombers while working on the Af-Pak border...
..It& #39;s time to wake up and smell the treason, America. Time to declare independence from politicians who serve as proxies for hostile corporate + foreign interests. Shake off preconceived beliefs and look around with eyes wide open. Be brave and face reality. Independence Day.