I first arrived in Iraq in June 2004, when the insurgency was raging in al-Anbar province. I was a new Marine lieutenant leading a rifle platoon. In total, our platoon should have numbered about 40 Marines. Like most platoons in our battalion, we deployed at less than full strength. As the battalion we replaced prepared to return to the United States, a call went out for volunteers to extend their missions and bring us back at full strength. Very few have done so. But one of those volunteers, a tall, blond-haired corporal named Bill Dean, ended up in our platoon.
When I first met Dean, I asked him why he chose to continue fighting. He did not talk about September 11, nor about weapons of mass destruction, nor about his belief in a free and democratic Iraq. He gave me a blank look and with a dry, ironic wit that I would appreciate, he said, “I have to keep fighting the GPWD, sir.”
“What is GPWD?” » I asked.
“The Great Patriotic War in the Desert.”
The withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq this month has me thinking again about GPWD. During our deployment to Iraq—while we were waging counterinsurgency in Haditha and Hit and fighting a pitched battle in Fallujah in November—when our orders didn’t make sense or we found ourselves in a difficult situation, inevitably, a member of the platoon would shrug their shoulders resignedly and say, “I have to keep fighting the GPWD,” as if the absurdity of that name matched the absurdity of our strategic situation.
Gn usa
