“I want to go back to Iraq and finish the job”
I wrote this article in Italian for The Post Internazionale and you can find it here, an abstract in English below:
“I want to go back and finish the job.” Jake is a 24 years-old veteran and he wants to fight in Iraq. He had been in the army for five years, 13 months of which he had spent in Iraq protecting the Golden Mosque at Samarra. He also trained the Iraqi army. Now he is trying to go back “to protect the people of Iraq and honor the ones [U.S. soldiers] who paid the ultimate sacrifice.” About 4,400 U.S. soldiers lost their lives in the 8-year long war. On June 7 when Jake saw Mosul falling into ISIS hands he immediately tried to re-enlist in the army, but the recruiters did not take him back. “I felt abandoned,” he told me.
