Vets watch as insurgents undo sacrifices in Iraq

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For an entire night, Marine Sgt. Colin Archipley crouched
low atop a roof as U.S. artillery slammed insurgent hideouts in the
Iraqi city of Fallujah.
At dawn, when orders came to destroy a
suspected enemy weapons cache, Archipley discovered his unit was on top
of the same building, and insurgents were holed up floors below.
American forces blasted the structure, scattering the fighters.
The
savage combat inflicted heavy casualties on Lima Company, and dozens of
American soldiers were killed before the house-by-house battles ended
in late 2004.
Nearly a decade later, Archipley watched in
frustration from his organic farm north of San Diego as an al-Qaida
splinter group seized control of Fallujah, Mosul and other Iraq cities
that Archipley and his comrades risked so much to protect.
Iraq’s opportunity "was squandered," he said. "I’m not sure what else we could have
done."
This
week’s stunning advance into Mosul left many U.S. veterans reflecting —
with bitterness and sadness — on the sacrifices of a war that lasted
for more than eight years and killed nearly 4,500 Americans and tens of
thousands of Iraqis.
"In many ways, it just feels like a waste — a
waste of many lives, a waste of many years," retired Army Col. Barry
Johnson said from his home in Potlatch, Idaho.
On the broad stage
of Middle East affairs, the unraveling highlights the resilience of
extremists and the risks of weakened central authority. It also raises
wider questions about the future of Afghanistan after international
forces withdraw later this year and about the growing influence of
militant Islamic factions among Syrian rebels.
But it’s in the
small settings across America — VFW posts, rehabilitation clinics,
kitchen tables — where a different type of reckoning is taking place.
Soldiers and commanders who served in Iraq struggle to make sense of the
unfolding chaos.
Johnson stood on Iraq’s border with Kuwait as
the last U.S. military convoy left in late 2011. Even then, he said, it
was evident that Iraq’s military and security forces were not up to the
challenges at hand.
Those tests included trying to confront
strongholds of groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant,
which has managed to drive back better-armed Iraqi forces. Iraq’s
Shiite-led government — allied with both Washington and Tehran — is also
increasingly estranged from Iraq’s Sunni minority, which claims the
Shiite leadership runs roughshod over their rights and concerns.
"It
was clear that the Iraqi government and the Iraqi military were not
going to be able to sustain themselves and keep the situation from
deteriorating," Johnson said.
Because the cities loom so large on the roll call of Iraq battlefields, their loss sharpens the sting.

Fallujah,
a mostly Sunni city west of Baghdad, was the scene in 2004 of some of
heaviest U.S. urban combat since Vietnam. It later became a centerpiece
of Washington’s efforts to recruit Sunni militias as allies against
insurgents.
"Losing Fallujah, when I heard that the first time a
few months back, I really just honestly wanted to throw chairs across
the room, because what I’ve done there has basically just been undone,"
said former Marine Sgt. Ben Colin at VFW Post No. 6776 in Albany, New
York. "We just basically went there and did nothing, in my opinion."
In
Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, U.S. forces battled block by block
against insurgents in 2009 before the deadline for American troops to
leave major urban centers.
Martin Schaefer, an Army reservist who
did two tours in Iraq and now lives in Darien, Illinois, groped for the
right word to define his emotions. Not mad or upset, he said.
"Sad,"
he decided. "Sad to see that the work that had been accomplished by the
U.S. and Iraqi forces is being undone by an insurgency."
In the
Boston suburb of Arlington, veteran Jeffrey Chunglo winced at reports of
insurgents seizing U.S. military equipment, including armored vehicles
and weapons that had been left with Iraqi forces to defend Mosul.
"I
think we were in a hurry for an exit strategy," said Chunglo, who
served as a senior hospital corpsman with the Navy. "I think, obviously,
a little more time could have been spent putting together a better plan
for ongoing monitoring — especially over the last year — to limit the
(insurgents’) impact."
But many veterans acknowledge the pressures
in Washington from a war-weary nation, particularly with Taliban
violence on the rise in Afghanistan and demands for greater involvement
in the Arab Spring uprisings.
New York veteran Matthew Pelak
questions the staggering mandate given to U.S. commanders after the 2003
invasion to bridge the huge rifts between Iraq’s three major groups:
Sunnis who once rode high under Saddam, majority Shiites who took the
mantle after Saddam’s fall and the semi-autonomous Kurds in the north.
"We
removed the government, the standing army, any way for that country to
organize itself," said Pelak, a former Army sergeant who served in Iraq
from 2004 to 2005 and later returned as a security contractor with the
company then called Blackwater. "So it’s a bit tough to just say, ‘Hey,
let’s all play nice in the sand box.’"
In Iraq, Marine Staff Sgt.
Marcus Berleson of Weatherford, Texas, served as a squad leader. In
Afghanistan, he lost both arms and vision in his left eye trying to
disarm an improvised bomb in December 2011.
"When we pulled out of
(Iraq), we left a big power void," said Berleson, who now does outreach
with wounded veterans. "We didn’t have the country stable on its feet
yet. It didn’t have a true infrastructure. It didn’t have true security
forces or a military that was actually willing to stand up and secure
the country for itself."
But few veterans appeared to support a
return of U.S. ground forces to Iraq — a prospect that Pelak called "an
incredibly bad idea."
"I think there is no place for the U.S.
military right now in there," he said. "It would further just confuse
the situation in an already chaotic environment."
For a former top
U.S. commander in northern Iraq, the images of Mosul falling to
insurgents leave only a sense of helplessness and sorrow.
"I keep
going back to the number of soldiers who have given the best part of
their lives to help make this country (Iraq) better," said retired Gen.
Mark Hertling, who now lives in Orlando, Florida. "It’s saddening and
it’s disheartening, and you know you can’t do anything about it to fix
it."
___
Associated Press writers Julie Watson in San Diego;
Kim Gamel in Cairo; Michael Hill in Albany, New York; Ted Shaffrey in
New York City; Priya Sridhar in Chicago; John Mone in Dallas; and
Rodrique Ngowi in Boston contributed to this report.

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