Chapter+11

The True Price of War

At home I go by Tim but to the marines I am Corporal Tompkins. Since September 11, 2001 everyone in America was affected by the great tragedies which occurred on that day, either directly or indirectly. I blamed the cause of the war we are fighting today, directly on those terrorist attacks. This is my story.

The familiar smell of burning oil was pungent that day and I could hear the artillery exploding in the distance. I remember my heart beating uncontrollably because of my great fear of the unknown. Alpha company was moving toward finding the weapons of mass destruction, which were evidently in the hands of the Iraqi forces. We were the first company to enter Iraq and we were immediately met by a great amount of opposing force. We immediately began to fight back, destroyed the enemy tanks, and continued fighting through one of the most frightening nights of my life toward an oil pumping station, which was our first objective.

I witnessed my first Iraqi corpse while we were walking through the oil fields and it sent chills through my whole body. Alpha company arrived at the station on March 21st and dropped bombs around the perimeter. We began to approach the fence that surrounded the compound and scanned the area for any enemy targets but the whole place seemed abandoned. There were no people in sight but there was a large amount of various fully functional firearms scattered throughout the place. The Iraqis did not want to fight us and we knew this. That thought became poison as we let it sink deeper and deeper into our minds and we became less and less cautious as time went by.

A few days went by and we were preparing to leave when the Iraqis launched a surprise attack. Shortly after the fight began, my platoon commander was shot just feet from where I stood. We were then ambushed by several Iraqis packed in a pickup truck and spraying bullets in every direction but away from us. They were moving very quickly through the desert and were headed right at us. We weren’t going to just stand there, so we returned a massive amount of firepower to the truck but the driver remained unharmed and kept coming. We managed to hit he driver and the truck came to a stop. We bombarded the truck for a few more seconds to ensure that it was no longer threat. Quickly after, my mind switched over to our wounded commander.

“Get the medic!” I yelled in terror, “Lieutenant Dan has been shot!”

I ran to him, dropped to my knees and began to remove some of his heavy protective gear. As I was doing this I realized he had stopped breathing, and in a desperate attempt to keep him alive, I gave him mouth to mouth. He began breathing after the first breath and I told him he would be okay. The medic arrived and began to examine him. He had been shot in the stomach and it was bleeding profusely. I was applying pressure to his stomach as he spoke his last words.

“It hurts.” He muttered to me, in obvious agony. These words will be in my dreams for the rest of my life. I looked up and saw another vehicle coming at us and alerted the others. I grabbed the lieutenant and ran for cover. When I laid him down I could see it in his eyes, he was about to die. A tear gently dripped from the corner of his eye as he passed away in my arms. This struck me deeply because I not only thought of him as my leader but as a father figure. Lieutenant Dan was the first American to be killed in the war and I regret having to watch him cry and urinate his pants before he moved on.

For the rest of my time served in the hellish war zone of what used to Iraq I lived in the most intense suspense I have ever felt. I was constantly asking myself questions like; who will go next? Or, Will I ever get to see my family again? The answer to those questions came with time along with my return home to my family and friends.

I will never get the horrors of that war out of my head and although I am in the safety of my homeland, the war will always be in my mind and it will always haunt me until the day I die. The casualties suffered by the war, is a hefty price to pay for some people. If you asked me if I were willing to die for my country I would say yes. I am sure most of my fellow marines would say the same thing. But what we really need to ask our troops is whether or not dying in Iraq is dying for our country. All of those who fought in Iraq and all the families who lost a friend or a family member in the war would answer that question differently.

By: Adam Seagondollar