We Know How This Ends
A military spouse on Iraq, Afghanistan, and why repeating this pattern is not strength
We all know how this ends.
History has already decided the Iraq War was a mistake. No weapons of mass destruction. No real plan. Just remove Saddam Hussein and assume the rest would somehow work itself out.
My husband’s jet was one of the first U.S. military planes to land at Baghdad International Airport. We had only been together a few years. Back then, in the Air Mobility community, deployments weren’t occasional. They were constant.
Iraq.
Afghanistan.
Home for a minute. Gone again.
What made it survivable was that we believed in it.
We were still raw from September 11. We believed we were fighting terrorism. We believed the mission mattered.
Now we know the war created the very instability that allowed terrorist groups to grow stronger and more embedded.
We are not good at regime change. Not in Iraq. Not in Afghanistan.
In Iraq, the vacuum we created helped give rise to ISIS.
In Afghanistan, we fought for 19 years. Nineteen. And within days of our withdrawal, the Taliban took it all back.
I need to say something about that withdrawal.
Those photos of people clinging to U.S. military aircraft? Those are our planes. Our crews. We know those airmen. We know the loadmasters who had families strapped along the ramps. Children in mothers’ laps. The largest human airlift in history, and it happened under chaos and impossible pressure.
They were not comfortable flights. But they were flights out.
When those families landed in Qatar, the base wasn’t prepared for that many people that quickly. A Squadron Commander made Amazon lists. Kids’ clothes. Diapers. Feminine products. Hygiene supplies. Toys.
Those lists hit our spouse network and were cleared out almost instantly. Boxes were routed to bases with inbound aircraft and flown forward. We did that for weeks, from all around the country. Quietly. No cameras. No speeches.
That’s the Mobility community I know. The one who serves with their whole heart.
And still — after all of it — Iraq and Afghanistan are proof that our attempts at regime change do not end the way we promise they will.
Now we are striking Iran.
We are told leadership has been eliminated.
We have told the people “to rise up, take over.”
That’s the plan.
We’ve heard this before.
We’re also told this won’t become a “forever war.” That there are no “stupid rules of engagement.” That Iran has killed thousands of American soldiers — though no one seems interested in showing the proof.
I have never hidden my concern about putting Pete Hegseth in charge of the Department of Defense. Calling himself the “Secretary of War” doesn’t reassure me. It sounds like someone eager for the fight.
We have already lost 3 American lives. The President’s response was - “That’s the way it goes.” We have been promised more losses, just the way it goes, folks.
These are unserious people playing serious games.
Let’s be real.
They are planning military actions from a ballroom at a private club in Florida, with maps visible in social media photos — this is not serious leadership. Operational Security is not optional. Black curtains are not protection.
People don’t get to play golf outside the building where military strikes are being planned.
Meanwhile, an elementary school for girls in Iran is hit by a missile. One hundred seventy-five children are dead. They are called “collateral damage.”
If an Iranian missile hit an American elementary school, what would we call it?
Collateral damage is not a neutral phrase. It is the beginning of radicalization. It is how anger hardens. It is how the next generation is recruited.
This is how terrorists are made.
We have lived this before. Military families have lived this before.
And I am not willing to watch another generation get sent into a war we already know how to lose.
FTG - PJo
First, I thank you for your service. Those at home also serve. I know from experience.
I know our air mobility command, and you are correct, it is superb.
Although I share your concerns about the ladder half of the Iraq Afghanistan war, no less a figure than Osama bin Laden said, “the war with America is in Iraq“ in 2004. We killed a whole lot of bad guys over there, and while it is impossible to say with assurance, “we fought them there so we would not fight them here”.
Once President Trump gained office the first time we extinguished ISIS in about six weeks. We could’ve done it earlier — the military capability was always present — but not the political will.
It is on that point I take issue with you. It is exceptionally poor form to be leveling personal criticisms at the secretary of defense at a time when missiles are flying. Exceptionally poor.
He inherited a military that was hitting 60% of its recruitment targets, 40% readiness to go to sea, and countless other morale and logistic problems. We are now hitting recruitment targets, and I can tell you most of the people in uniform love his warrior ethos.
The military has performed extraordinarily well in both Venezuela, and to date in Iran.
As evidenced in Venezuela, President Trump has no interest in “nation building”. He will let the citizens figure it out within carefully prescribed guidelines.
Similarly, he refused to install the son of the former Shah in Iran saying instead, “I will give you your freedom, now figure it out.”
You have my deep respect as a military spouse. Criticizing other spouses, or the leadership they have while under fire shows exceptionally poor judgment and form.
Especially when done so using inaccuracies, false analogies and resulting bad conclusions.
There were the spouses of the American hostages taken by Iran during Jimmy Carter’s presidency, who might disagree with you; there were the parents and spouses of the 225 American marines killed by Iran in the Lebanese bombing that might take offense at your post; there are the hundreds of families killed by Iran when they blew up two American embassies in Africa that would likely take offense with your position; and while I cannot speak for the family of Bill Buckley who was kidnapped, tortured for six months and killed by Iran, I will tell you yes, the Iranian government has it coming.
There are dead bodies around the world as a result of Iranian behavior. Many of them, American.
Watch the advertisements for “wounded warrior” or “tunnels to Towers” and 70% of those young men were wounded by Iranian produced IEDs.
The evidence of Iranian malignity is all over the world, but you have to be willing to see it.
Regardless I am sure you will join me, in wishing, “may God bless the United States of America, and the men and women of our military.“