"I want to talk about killing Ukrainian and Russian conscripts. When I served in Iraq, I led the initial force who secured and developed a place called al Taqaddum.
Later in the war, TQ (as it was known) was a safe logistics FOB with a movie theater, a PX and a C-17 capable airfield, and home of what are now derisively known as "Fobbits." But when I led the initial occupation, it was an abandoned airfield with derelict buildings, an airfield blocked with rusted BTR hulks, nightly rocket and mortar attacks, and constant probes of the wire by AQI insurgents.
Once we secured TQ and established it as a viable airfield, it became the hub for logistics in al Anbar Province.Part of that logistics effort was "mortuary affairs," i.e., handling the remains of dead, proud American warriors. I slept on a cot in an abandoned concrete hut that we think was once a storage location for chemical weapons (which might explain all of the autoimmune issues I developed after returning home).
About 25 feet from where I slept (about three hours a night) was a refrigerated shipping container that the mortuary affairs team had set up for temporary storage of human remains before they were shipped home to the USA.
Pretty much every other night, I would hear the diesel rumble of a HMMWV engine as it slowly drove by my hut, followed by the creaking door opening of the refrigeration container, as yet another brave American who died in Fallujah or Ramadi was stored temporarily for shipment home to a grieving family.
The noise of those HMMWVs and the creaking of that door haunts me to this very day. It invades my dreams. Before you advocate for more dead Ukrainian and Russian teenagers and middle-aged fathers, think about what I just said. Thank you."
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