As a child, my first remembrance of war is the Gulf War. I was sitting in front of the television watching the soldiers land from the helicopters to the sandy desert plains of Iraq. Forty-two days later, my mother told me that the war was over and that everything was going to be okay. Of course, I had no fear or worries. I had little understanding of exactly what was happening in a place that was so far away. My thoughts at the time were not why our government decided to send thousands of troops to a different country, but why the soldiers pants were tan and brown and not green and brown as usual.
As I grew up, many more complex thoughts began overloading my brain about war. I wondered why we killed, and what was being accomplished by killing. My generation alone has witnessed so many historical events. I have grown up with the Persian Gulf War, the Oklahoma City bombing, September 11th, the NASA space shuttle catastrophe and now, Operation Iraqi Freedom. These are the major events are what come to my memory when I look back in American history. I am able remember where I was, and what I was doing during every single one of these events. The impactions and memories of war have lead me to some burning questions.
I have always had a large fascination with politics and how the American government operates. This fascination has lead me to my current major in Political Science. I have watched the news and kept up with my current events since I could remember. I knew a lot of the decisions that the American government made were questionable, and that made me wonder if what we were doing in these other countries was the right thing to do.
This enthrallment all started while looking at a recent time line for a history project my junior year of high school. I realized that America had and still has troops all around the world in different countries. I also realized that there hasn't been any military combat on our own homeland since WWII.