Marine defends U.S. role in Iraq
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
By Brian Mosely

He has lost friends in one part of the world and helped saved lives in another.

Now Marine Sgt. Mitchell Farris has returned home to Shelbyville and is getting reacquainted with friends and family while looking toward the next phase of his life.

But the young man also expressed frustration with the popular perception of why our soldiers are in Iraq and the lack of public support for the mission.

Farris graduated from Central High School in 1998 but didn't choose to go into the service right after leaving school. He worked for Bedford County Utility District before enlisting in the Marines in December of 2001.

With a five-year contract with the Marines, Farris spent a lot of his time training for his job of servicing helicopters. Following recruit training at Parris Island, he returned home for a few weeks before undergoing Marine Combat Training, which is for soldiers who are not in the infantry.

After a brief stint in Pensacola, he returned to Marine Corps Air Station New River in North Carolina for more training before being sent to Okinawa since November of 2002, where some 20,000 Marines are stationed. Farris spent most of his time servicing the Boeing CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter.

With two squadrons of CH-46s on Okinawa, Farris was always staying busy, either fixing the aircraft, performing general preventive maintenance or going to or returning from a remote location.

But while some people think of service members as those who take lives, Farris spent much of his time in the service helping to save them. He participated in several rescue operations in the Philippines.

Those islands had been hit with a major typhoon and Farris had helped out with rescuing civilians trapped by mudslides. He had just been back to base for two days in December of 2004 when the Indian Ocean tsunami struck, which killed well over 250,000 people.

The next few weeks were spend preparing helicopters to be moved to the disaster area via C-5 transports. Farris was in Singapore for a time assembling the crafts for transport and getting medical help to the needed areas. Those relief efforts lasted over three months. He returned to the Philippines in March of 2006 after another mudslide covered a school.

Farris was due to leave the Corps in December of 2006, but he was asked to go to Iraq "and I went," he said, adding that 75 percent of his unit was also due to leave the service "and did not have to go, but every single person in my unit extended their tour or signed another contract because it was something we all believed in."

"As an American, you want those people [the Iraqis] to taste a little bit of what you have," Farris said. "We take it for granted everyday and I think people don't hear enough of that."

Upon his arrival in Iraq in January, Farris spent three weeks at Al Asad Airfield, the second largest airbase in the country, before moving to Al Taqaddum Airbase, also known as "TQ." The base is considered a major hub for men and supplies moving into Anbar province in Iraq.

Farris spent most of his time at TQ unless he had to leave to service aircraft in a remote location, which he said only happened once. Farris saw no combat while in country, but did experience a little of the conflict.

During the first few months in Iraq, the airbase would see a couple of mortar attacks each week, but Farris said, "they weren't very good." But then came the "surge," the addition of thousands more troops, which calmed things down considerably, Farris said.

"The surge has made a big difference," he said.

The one time Farris left the safety of TQ was to work on a downed aircraft, he stated he was worried more about the helicopter than his own safety. Other troops set up a perimeter around them while the repair work was done.

Farris spent time in Iraq from January of last year until the end of August, when he returned to his home base at Okinawa. He finally arrived back in the states on Dec. 29 and was back home shortly thereafter. Today is his first day as a civilian.

But while Farris returned from Iraq unscathed, others have not been as lucky. Farris wears a small metal bracelet to remind him of his friend, Cpl. Thomas Saba, who died along with six others on Feb. 7, 2007, when they were shot down while familiarizing themselves with the area.

Now that he has returned from overseas, Farris expressed some frustration with how many see the war in Iraq, saying that folks only know what they've seen on TV and don't get the perspective of someone who has actually been there.

People have already asked him since his return "Should we be over there?" and refer to the reversal of the original claim that Iraq was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.

"Intelligence is more of a guesswork. You're not going to have all the answers, and now, years down the road, people are upset about the intelligence we had, saying we were lied to. But me and most of my friends, we don't feel that way."

Farris said that you have to make the best decision you can with the information you have, and he and his fellow Marines "don't feel we were lied to."

"Things like that, it frustrates me when I talk to people," the Marine said. "They've been fed this, and they don't know."

Mitchell said he believes that America should be in Iraq to help the Iraqis. While he said he met only a few from that country, "for who we are as a country and what we stand for as America, we've always helped other people and to think that it's wrong for us to be there, all I have to say is step back and see what we were 200 years ago and put yourself in their shoes."

"Would you not want some help? To not help them now is just totally wrong. It's our responsibility as a country."

Farris said that the death toll from Iraq over the past few years has been high, but also pointed out that the same number of men were lost in just 30 days during the battle of Iwo Jima in World War II.

"We lose that many service members to accidents ... off duty stuff ... I asked a captain about it and he said he would rather be over there fighting for those people he doesn't even know than getting hit by a bus crossing the street back home."

Americans fail to realize these feelings from their service members, Farris said, because nobody tells them.

"I know what it's like to lose friends over there and I'd go back if they asked me again. I have friends with wives and kids going back because it's what they believe in."

He added that a lot of people may not support the war, but that's no reason not to support the troops. People may be unaware of all the relief work done by the military, such as the missions he participated in. Farris also asked not to forget those who have returned after the conflict is over.

Mitchell said he intends to take some time off and hopes to get a job at Arnold Engineering Development Center outside of Tullahoma. He has already spent time with friends and family and admitted that the return to civilian life has been a major adjustment.

"In the military, there's always something to do -- and coming back here, things have come to a standstill. I'm pretty bored."

Farris said from his perspective, everything in Shelbyville has moved out to North Main Street. "Driving around, I can't find stuff anymore," he said. "So I have to call someone to find where it's at."

As for advice to those who are thinking of joining the armed services, Farris said that the experience is good, but a person needs to have the proper mindset and realize that "You're not at home with momma and daddy anymore."

"There's going to be things that you just have to accept, dust it off and take it as a grain of salt and just go on because there are going to be times where it will be hard, but if you let go of all that stuff of who you were before you joined, and you take in what they're trying to give you, you'll get something out of it."

Ellie