A Marine goes back to Iraq as a writer: The fear’s still there, but it can help

By Sebastian J. Bae
Best Defense Council of the Former Enlisted

To me, Iraq was always the land of roadside bombs, snipers, and pervasive fear. As a Marine, I learned to be obsessively paranoid of every gesture, every face, of every piece of garbage. I felt besieged, wrapping myself in Kevlar and weapons, my finger lingering on the trigger well. Waiting. Suspecting.

So I never imagined I would ever return to the land of my nightmares. Yet here I am, walking the streets of Erbil as an embedded writer with Global Surgical and Medical Support Group, a U.S. charity dedicated to providing free healthcare to those in need. At first, I felt naked, exposed to every real and imagined danger. With every new face, my hand instinctively reached for a weapon that wasn’t there. My mind ceaselessly conjured up memories of Ramadi — the long nights behind an M240B machine gun, the doldrums of daily patrols, and steady uneasiness twisting and turning in my stomach. Every engrained reflex, every buried memory, every bubbling emotion flooded back.

I was imposing my version of the war, my contorted perception of Iraq, upon a new reality I struggled to understand. But the truth was that my Iraq didn’t exist anymore. The war had changed, the landscape permanently altered by new fault lines and new actors. But most of all, my role in the war had undeniably changed. Two years removed from the Corps, I had no more battles to fight, no more wars to win. I was in Iraq as a writer, a storyteller, struggling to be a voice for the roughly 2 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees in Kurdistan. My only weapons were my pen and notebook. My only armor was my camera, a porous wall separating their stories and my own.

My vulnerability creating accessibility.

Children ran over in groups, curious and eager, while others lingered behind canvas walls, watching, waiting. The children followed me like a comet tail as I wandered through the tightly packed communities of tents and caravans, reminiscent of open-aired prisons. I spoke to anyone willing, my hand desperately trying to jot down every detail of their stories of pain, of loss, of fragile hopes.

Abdel, an elderly Iraqi man, signaled me over, waving his hands wildly. Through fifteen minutes of elaborate hand gestures, Abdel explained to me how he needed surgery for his eye, but didn’t have the money for the operation. I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to tell him I would get him the surgery, but I knew I couldn’t. So, I just nodded helplessly, thanking him for the water he gave me before briskly walking away.

I didn’t want him to see me cry. But the stories of loss continued to steadily fill my notebook.

Bassam, a stout Iraqi man, proudly reeled off the units he served with as a translator for the US Army from 2007 to 2010 — 1/11 Route Clearance and the 643rd Engineering Corps. Then his voice instantly soured, recounting his frantic escape from Mosul at midnight on August 6^th, 2014, just three hours ahead of the capture of the city by the Islamic State. He had lost everything in the ten hours he drove to the safety of Erbil: his home, his livelihood, his official papers. When I asked how he was faring in the camps, he confessed he was “just trying to stay alive.”

Rem, a young Iraqi girl, clutching her baby brother in her small arms, pointed to my camera and asked, “Will this make us famous?” I nodded. I didn’t want to be a liar; I just wanted it to be true. I didn’t want her to be another faceless figure. I wanted people to see the strength of her smile, for her to be flesh and blood, not just another number.

As a Marine, I made far too many mistakes, a litany of ‘what ifs’ and ‘only ifs.’ Now, as a writer, I find myself not doing enough. I came to Iraq to give a voice to the voiceless, but I fear that my pen is too weak to carry the weight of their stories. I fear I can’t make a difference.

As a Marine, I feared dying, feared bleeding out on foreign streets far from home. Now, I fear my pen will fail the faith entrusted into it. So, despite all the years, all the changes, I’m still a man of fear. A man afraid in Iraq.

Sebastian J. Bae, a frequent contributor to Best Defense, served six years in the Marine Corps infantry, leaving as a Sergeant. He deployed to Iraq in 2009. He received his Masters at Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program, specializing in counterinsurgency and humanitarian interventions. He holds the Marine co-chair on Best Defense’s Council of Former Enlisted. His instagram handle is sebastianbae.

Photo credit: Sebastian J. Bae