In Iraq War, Soldiers Say They Had a Job to Do

AWESOME ARTICLE

Staff Sgt. Lucas C. Trammell, a tank gunner with the Third Infantry Division, fought his way into Baghdad in 2003. He was back in 2005, abandoning the tank for foot patrols in a very unsafe Ramadi, and again in 2007 as bodyguard for a battalion commander in Baghdad.

He has killed the enemy and lost friends. He has sought treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. (“The Army’s gotten a lot better about letting you put your hand up,” he explained.)

He is back in Iraq for a fourth time, part of a force of only 50,000 no longer engaged in combat as of Aug. 31. He is one of thousands of soldiers and officers for whom the legacy of Iraq, like Afghanistan, has been a recalibration of what it means to be an American at war today.

The Third Infantry Division has spent more than four years in all in a war that has lasted seven and a half — and may not yet be over. These soldiers, far more than any other Americans, bear the personal and professional burdens of a conflict that has lost what popular support it had at home.

To those fighting it, the war in Iraq is not a glorious cause or, as the old advertisement put it, an adventure.