For many Americans, the war in Iraq has drifted into the background of life. Sure, the news still covers the latest developments and keeps everyone up-to-date on the most recent victims of roadside explosives and suicide bombers, but by and large, the war is no longer a topic of daily conversation.
There are still plenty of magnetic yellow ribbons and “Support Our Troops” stickers adorning vehicles around town. But now they must compete with an ever-growing number of copycat products supporting other causes.
Much like the popular Lance Armstrong bracelets, people seldom think about what these products were meant to symbolize.
However, some symbols never lose their meaning. Some things are never destroyed by commercialism run amuck.
One of those symbols is a simple black metallic bracelet engraved in part with the words “SPC Brandon J. Rowe, 31 March 03, Iraq.”
That may not mean much to many people, but to Christopher McEnroe, a senior in nursing who wears the bracelet every day, those words remind him of the day his friend and fellow soldier was shot though the heart and killed.
McEnroe said he had always wanted to join the military. He has a pedigree for it: His father served in the National Guard and his grandfather flew a glider in the Normandy invasion.
But he could never had known, as a child growing up in Wisconsin, that almost 60 years after his grandfather had done it, he would be part of another American invasionary force.
After Sept. 11, 2001, McEnroe said he was disappointed to learn his unit would not be going to Afghanistan. Instead they were assigned guard duty at a chemical facility in Indiana.
He likened his disappointment to that of a football player who practices for years and never gets off the bench. He wanted to see how he would perform in battle. He wanted to do what he was trained to do.
“You don’t want to go out there to kill … maybe you think you do … it’s a weird thing,” he said. “You definitely want to be the ones to go there and be the ones to take care of it … to be the ones to take it to the enemies of our country.”
McEnroe, then a sergeant in the Army’s 101st Airborne and now a member of the Ohio National Guard, said he almost missed his chance to deploy with his unit to Iraq because by that time his contract with the Army was nearly up and he was preparing for college.
In fact, he didn’t think he was going anywhere until about a week before he actually deployed, when an order came down preventing him from leaving his unit. He said that week was very hectic and emotionally difficult as he prepared to go.
“It turned out to be a blessing in disguise,” he said. “I made it home alive and was able to be there with my buddies.”
McEnroe said during the first days of the invasion, his unit was assigned to accompany the left flank of the 3rd Infantry division.
The 3rd Infantry would first go into towns and clear out large Iraqi troop formations, and then the 101st would follow and do house-to-house searches, clearing the town of Saddam Fedayeen fighters.
“We’d go in and kick in doors and root out the Saddam Fedayeen guerrilla,” he said. “It got a little hairy sometimes.”
It was during one of these early battles that McEnroe’s friend, Rowe, was killed near the Euphrates River.
“They were moving along the river and he got hit … hit in the heart, and he died,” he said. “He was a wonderful kid.”
Although the death of his friend caused him great pain, McEnroe said his sorrow is tempered by the fact that he knows he died for a good and just cause.
“Every American’s death is tragic,” he said. “But the way things were over there, before we went in is, I think, is more tragic … I really do.”
“Some people will say ‘It’s not worth our lives,’ but if America doesn’t help, who is going to?” he said.
McEnroe said he knows a lot of people don’t agree with him when it comes to the war, but he says he is OK with that and is glad that everyone here is free to express his or her opinion.
“The protesters and all the shirts and the ‘Bush lied’ stickers … whether I agree with them or not, it’s because of the military and people before who fought wars – my grandfather and great-grandfather and everyone else – that they are able to do that,” he said.
McEnroe served in Iraq throughout the invasion stage and into the peacekeeping and stabilization mission. During his time there he says he probably spent less then 10 percent of his time on combat missions.
The rest of his time was spent on humanitarian missions, training police officers, reopening schools and fixing broken water mains. He said he thinks the news coverage of the situation in Iraq is skewed toward the negative and he wishes it were more balanced.
“Such a small part of my time was actually in combat,” he said. “But if there is a link that says ‘101st Airborne opens up school in Mosul’ is anybody going to click on it? I don’t know.”
Now that McEnroe is back in the United States, he realizes how much of an effect the war had on him. He said he still occasionally has nightmares and other problems, but overall he feels that he has adjusted pretty well.
“Pointing a rifle at someone and pulling a trigger is not a normal thing to do,” he said. “Of course it’s going to affect you, and if you say it won’t, you’re lying to yourself.”
“However, it’s what you do with something like that, that counts,” McEnroe said. “I’m someone who really believes in inner strength – if you feel you can overcome something, then you can. And you can take something as negative as a war and bring something positive out of it.”
Creating something positive is one of the reasons McEnroe is here at Ohio State studying nursing.
“Before Iraq, I wanted to be an infantry officer or an FBI agent,” he said. “Not that I am some kind of pastor now, but after all the close calls I’ve had, I think I would like to tone things down a little.”
“I’m a lot more cognizant of life and the value of it,” McEnroe said. “I definitely don’t want to carry a gun for a living anymore.”
McEnroe said he still thinks about Iraq every day. He thinks about the soldiers serving over there right now. He believes things are better there now than when he went over. And he thinks that the situation will continue to improve.
He said the cause is just and good things are being done for the majority of the Iraqi people. He said the sacrifices of Americans like his friend, Rowe, can be justified by the success the military has had in improving the lives of many Iraqi people.
“I remember an old lady, when I was on guard in Baghdad … in broken English she said to me, ‘On this day that you made me free, I want you to remember me always. Thank you,'” McEnroe said. “That’s what I’ve gotten from the Iraqi people … that’s what I remember.”
