Opinion

Today at work, the power went out for a few hours. With nothing else to do, I look in the IT Office drawer and open up a copy of the Notre Dame Prep 2003 Yearbook.

I turned to that page at the beginning that summarizes the past year. I couldn't help but chuckle when I read the following quote. And yet, it was one of those chuckles that sorta trails off, as the actual gravity of the situation sinks in...

In the fall of 2002/3 school year, the threat of war was in the air. In late fall President George W. Bush announced his decision to send troops to Iraq in search of Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological weapons. U.S. troops entered Iraq in March of 2003 and the war was over in a matter of a few weeks with, thankfully, few American casualties and no proof of Iraqi chemical weapons found.

Interesting how people saw the war then. You gotta remember, George W. Bush had around an 80% approval rating when he initiated the Iraq War. Nearly everyone I knew at the time seemed to be for it. I know I was for it. Heck, even Senators Biden, Clinton, Edwards and Kerry voted for it. (In fact, 58% of Democratic Senators voted for the war.) The Democrats don't like to admit that now, of course. It's so much easier to point fingers then to try and actually fix things.

We all thought it was just going to be an "in and out" kind of war. Whatever that means. I don't know what it was...I guess we were just mad about September 11th and wanted to take it out on anyone possibly connected with it.

Five years, and 4113 US Casualties later, and we're still there. I guess it just goes to show: "Hindsight is always 20:20." Hopefully the surge will work and we can exit safely in a year or two. Hopefully.