CINCINNATI — Two decades ago, the War on Terror took a left turn into Iraq as the Bush Administration decided the country’s leader Saddam Hussein and his purported weapons of mass destruction needed to go.
"My welcome back to my unit present after graduating Ranger School in December of 2002 was ordered to go to Iraq for the initial push in 2003," said Army veteran Jesse Neack.
He was a part of the shock and awe campaign the U.S. military launched on March 20, 2003.
As tanks rolled across the desert and missiles attacked from the air, an accident during a mission North of Mosul, Iraq would take Neack out of the war a short four months later.
"I got pretty banged up," Neack said. "I fell 45 feet out of a Blackhawk, you know, I spent a month in the hospital."
Pulled out of the war, Neack left members of his unit behind — something that still impacts him.
"I still struggle to this day with some of those emotions and feelings from that," Neack said. "I see a therapist off and on for, you know, I suffered from survivor's guilt because I got hurt in June of '03 and yes, I was hurt and that's a terrible thing but I left the country alive,” Neack said. "So it was really difficult for me. I was laying in a hospital bed for a month afterward, thinking about my guys out in firefights."
While Neack joined the Army prior to the 9/11 attacks, Chris Cravens was motivated by the attacks to join the Marine Corps.
"What's interesting telling the story now, people are like, 'Wow, I can't believe you signed up for infantry,'" Cravens said. "That's pretty much all they were taking at the time."
The justification for the war and the questions surrounding it from members of Congress and the public were evident. As time went by, there was no major discovery of weapons of mass destruction — one of the underlying reasons for the war.
"The Marine Corps is really, really good about mitigating the why," said Cravens.
Cravens said as Marines they were trained to perform the mission, and the politics playing out back at home wasn't his focus or that of his fellow Marines.
"No politics on the battlefield, right? And that's kind of where we leave it, you know, you leave a lot of things at the door," Cravens said. "And politics is one of the things that you do leave ... it's hard enough to get your mind right without worrying about what other people think about why we're there, or how we're doing it, or the approach or the long term, there's really not any of that thought when you're downrange."
For him, redeployments became the norm between 2005 and 2007. He soon realized that he was the more senior battle-tested Marine, now in charge of younger Marines on their first war zone deployment.
"They went from a couple years of more security-based operations, some presence patrols, humanitarian aids and then it really kicked up fairly quickly and aggressively after that," Cravens said. "Even if the core focus and purpose for why we were sent there, that may not have been what we were doing on the ground, but we were making I mean, significant impact."
There were losses, and decades later veterans just like them continue to deal with the post-traumatic stress of war. According to the U.S. Department of Defense, there were 3,481 servicemembers and nine DOD civilians killed in action during the war. The death toll sits at 4,432.
For both Cravens and Neack, it’s hard to believe it’s been 20 years since the war began. They know they’re both lucky to have had the chance to come back home alive and have a particular focus on those who did not.
"I feel a connection there that I don't maybe have with even people that I served with, I feel like those Gold Star families are … I think about their sons and daughters every day," Cravens said.
"They become a part of our family," Neack said. "I wear this on my wrist and you know, these guys on this bracelet, some of their families are as close to me now as my own family."
Watch the full interview:
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