Guest column: Was it worth it?

I last took up a pen to write to you in 2005.

At that time I was a new lieutenant having recently graduated from AASU in 2003 and been commissioned through the Army ROTC program. I wrote to you about the 25 years that lapsed between the hostages in Iran and the start of the Operation Iraqi Freedom.

I spoke of how we, through lack of strong U.S. foreign policy regarding oversight of such extremist groups, had stood by with a blind eye to what was going on in the Middle East while the build-up during those 25 years led us to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

So many things have happened since that day in 2004 when I first wrote to The Inkwell from Bayji, Iraq. I sit today as a major in the Georgia National Guard and a contractor supporting the war in a civilian capacity. I'm writing you six years and many hardships and victories later from Mosul, Iraq on the cusp of the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom and looking directly into the face of Operation New Dawn.

Operation New Dawn will begin Sept. 1, 2010. Aug. 31 will end the period of my life that has brought more time away from home and sacrifice than I care to have had experienced in two lifetimes.

When I was asked to write this, I asked what anyone would care to read at this point regarding the end of this era. I think back to how many of the AASU students reading this today were in high school when I first became involved in this war.

On Aug. 19, the last "combat" force rolled south out of Iraq and into Kuwait. The 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division out of Fort Lewis, Wash., entered Kuwait around 1:30 a.m. (6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 18 EST), carrying the last of the 14,000 U.S. combat forces in Iraq into neighboring Kuwait and ending more than seven years of combat operations in Iraq.

It brought a dramatic end two weeks ahead of the Aug. 31 deadline President Obama set to close out Operation Iraqi Freedom, which began March 20, 2003 when elements of Fort Stewart's 3rd Infantry Division crossed the "berm" from Kuwait into Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein.

I remember that day. I watched from my room in Savannah as the troops moved north knowing as a senior at AASU and a soon-to-be commissioned officer in the Army that I would be involved in this war sooner than I was ready for.

Looking back at all the things that have happened the last seven years, sometimes I wonder who I am and other times I wonder how life would have been had this not begun.

Regardless, I am a product of AASU and this war.

I have served four yearlong tours in Iraq in both military and civilian work capacities. I have fought for my life and the lives of the Iraqis I have been ordered to protect and American sons and daughters entrusted to me. I have had to come to terms with post-traumatic stress disorder, combat injuries from IEDs and combat engagements that I will carry forever. And through it all, I have to deal daily with the worth of such things and the cost to my family and myself.

Was it worth it? In the short term, no.

In the long term, I certainly hope so.

No one, in the short term, likes to have to make the sacrifices that U.S. servicemen and women have made to bring democracy to this small country in the Middle East.

Should we have been here in the first place? Since this is my write-up, I will give my opinion – yes.

Was it the right time to do what we did? My opinion is no.

I feel, after having lived and experienced firsthand this whole messy game that is the global war on terror, that the amount of resources and lives we put into Iraq should have been focused instead on Afghanistan to put the pressure on the real reason this war was started – the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.

But as a soldier, you follow the orders of the civilians – the great men and women U.S. citizens vote into office to make the decisions they felt were best for the country – and so we went.

I think we should have kicked Saddam's regime out after we finished with the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan. In the long term, I hope my fellow servicemen and I can look back and say, "Yes, it was worth it."

Maj. Scott C. Scheidt of the Georgia Army National Guard graduated from AASU in 2003 with a bachelor's degree in economics. He holds a master's degree in logistics management from Touro University and he is currently working toward a doctoral degree in management and organizational leadership from TUI University. He was first deployed to Iraq in October 2004 and completed four tours during the Iraq War. In 2005, Scheidt wrote a piece for The Inkwell entitled "25 years in the making." This is his follow-up.