This month (November 2024) marks the 20th anniversary of Operation Phantom Fury, also known as The Second Battle of Fallujah, the biggest, bloodiest, and costliest of the U.S.-led war and occupation of Iraq [2003-2011].
Working for NBC News as a correspondent/shooter, I embedded with 3.1 Marines, videotaped, and reported some of the battle's most dramatic and controversial footage. Even all of these years later, it's difficult to watch.
Still, it is necessary to ensure the event isn't reduced to the nostalgia of military tactics and strategy but studied for the more profound lessons revealed by the costs of fighting an unprovoked, unnecessary war with unclear objectives and clearly outside the scope of national interests.
In this and upcoming videos, I will examine the physical, mental, and moral injuries suffered by combatants and civilians during this conflict. Much of what I witnessed and recorded has never been seen.
It reveals both selfless acts of sacrifice and the darkest parts of human character, which are nearly always intertwined during periods of extended conflict.
I hope that these successive videos, which will be completed in multiple parts over the next year and pieced together in an hour-long documentary, will be used not to cast blame but to renew a constructive dialogue within our society about our mutual responsibilities and how we will conduct ourselves in war—all of us, the public, and those who fight in our name.
[License-Free Music by Pixaby: OpenMusicList, DarkMystery]
Kevin Sites reported the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq from 2001 – 2015, beginning with the overthrow of the first Taliban government and ending with the rise of the Islamic State.
His award-winning book, The Things They Cannot Say, details more stories like this one. You can find it at the link below.
https://amzn.to/4cfGyb0
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