You are not alone
Stories and Sites of Sacrifice: Gettysburg, Normandy, Ramadi
The War on Terror was nowhere on the program, but everywhere in spirit at the 2025 Gettysburg Film Festival. The theme was Victory in World War II and so ghosts of Dwight Eisenhower and Dick Winters (who commanded the heroic “Band of Brothers” of Easy Company) joined with those of General George Meade and Colonel Joshua Chamberlain in multiple celebrations of victory. Yet present throughout were the ghosts of my generation’s wars, those of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Occasionally, they were invoked explicitly, as when a panel lamented America’s inability to stop looters from raiding Iraq’s art in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion, compared to the heroic preservation efforts of World War II’s Monuments Men. But more often the ghosts existed in silence, their presence felt only by the unstated contrasts: the righteousness of Gettysburg and the muddled sense of purpose of Iraq; the clarity of victory with Normandy and the heart-wrenching loss with Afghanistan.
Pennsylvania Monument, Gettysburg National Military Park. Source: Author’s photo.
Neither the Civil War nor World War II were as clear or decisive as we sometimes imagine. A little over a decade after Lee’s surrender, Federal troops left the South and decades of segregation and Jim Crow set in; similarly, within a few years of V-E day, the Iron Curtain dropped and the Cold War began. Yet both wars have powerful, national narratives grounded in truth.
The Civil War preserved the nation and eliminated slavery. As Lincoln said at Gettysburg, “that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Through victory in the Civil War, America realized this new birth of freedom, however imperfectly, and carried forward the torch of liberty and equality.
Gettysburg National Military Park. Source: Author’s photo.
In World War II, America—along with our allies—defeated fascism. With the invasion of Normandy, we answered what General Eisenhower called the “hopes and prayers of liberty- loving people everywhere”. And in victory, we secured for ourselves and future generations a world freed from the tyranny and oppression of the Axis powers. America’s warriors then went home and helped create decades of prosperity. As Stephen Ambrose wrote in his book Band of Brothers, “The job completed, the company disbanded, the men went home.”
One cannot walk the grounds of Gettysburg or the American Cemetery in Normandy without sensing the special place these sites and their stories occupy in America’s civic religion.
But being in the presence of these stories also raises questions. What are the sacred stories and sites for the War on Terror? Or put differently, what stories do our ghosts tell and where do they live?
The first inclination might be to look to 9/11, the memorial in New York, and President George W. Bush’s remarks. We have that moment when, prompted by an onlooker saying he could not hear the president, Bush shouted “I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.” We also have the speech he gave just over a week later before a joint session of Congress, where he told the nation and world:
“Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated…The advance of human freedom -- the great achievement of our time, and the great hope of every time -- now depends on us. Our nation -- this generation -- will lift a dark threat of violence from our people and our future. We will rally the world to this cause by our efforts, by our courage. We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail.”
Yet neither the words spoken at Ground Zero nor in the well of Congress yielded a narrative that achieved broad resonance with the War on Terror.
There proved too much dissonance between the Churchillian narrative President Bush struck and the way the war played out in Afghanistan and Iraq.1 At the end of his speech, Bush said, “As long as the United States of America is determined and strong, this will not be an age of terror; this will be an age of liberty, here and across the world.” Our war never produced an age of liberty and while I reject the idea that we have lived in age of terror, we have failed to overcome the fear that first visited us that clear morning in September.
As for 9/11 itself, while the memorial is sacred ground and Bush’s remarks a powerful part of that story, they belong to that day. The narrative they tell belongs to the extraordinary loss inflicted on thousands of families and the nation as a whole, and to the even greater heroism demonstrated by so many police, fire fighters, other first responders, and ordinary Americans who rushed into the fire and smoke. It belongs to the dust and the battle so many survivors had to fight to secure medical support. But outside of the Horse Soldier monument which stands ever vigilant over the memorial, 9/11’s narrative is not a war story.
In truth, it’s not clear the War on Terror has a coherent narrative. There are stories of victory and defeat, solidarity and betrayal, and perhaps most of all, confusion and frustration. The war struck the military and veteran community deeply, yet seemed to land so lightly on most of society. Yet while acknowledging this narrative fog, I was struck recently by a line from the 2025 film Warfare: “You are not alone.”
In the film it is meant literally. Lieutenant Macdonald is shouting to his injured platoon-mate Elliot, trying to give him hope as he hovers between life and death. But it also captures something deeper about the war on terror. As the war descended into long, drawn-out conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, it grew ever more important to fight for each other, to bring people back home, and in so many ways, to ensure that no one felt alone in the conflict. These motivations always drive soldiers’ actions, but as the strategic contexts grew murky and the prospect of clear-cut victory dimmed, the entire battle space became, from a narrative standpoint, the unit.
This is a message powerfully conveyed in Warfare. Directed by Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza, the film shows a a platoon of Navy SEALs as they occupy, defend, and finally evacuate from a house in Ramadi, Iraq. It is based on a real battle Ray was a part of and it draws on the memories of many service members present that day. But the viewer never knows the actual mission. You don’t know why the SEALs are in the house or what their unit is doing in Iraq more generally. All you see is what the SEALs experienced in a single day—the boredom, the brutal fight, and the brotherhood.
“You are not alone” then, is the mission.
This holds true for the broader War on Terror experience.
My tour was nothing like that of the fight in Ramadi, but even I felt this. My commander, for example, was adamant we travel across Afghanistan to deliver end-of-tour medals to our soldiers (I was on staff at the time). Our soldiers had been distributed throughout the country to train the Afghan military and police, and so he felt, I believe, that they needed to physically re-connect to the broader unit; they needed to know that they were seen and part of our shared story. They needed to know, in other words, that they were not alone.
It’s a mantra that has defined so much of the past almost twenty-five years. It’s a promise we carry to those we served alongside, to the fallen, and to all our families, that they will not be alone. In uniform and civilian life, good times and bad, youth and old age, you are not alone. It’s an honorable narrative and a privilege to carry the promise.
But veterans need not carry it alone.
A Site
Right now there is no single War on Terror site invested with the spiritual power of a Gettysburg or Normandy. Many memorials exist across the country and Section 60 at Arlington is known as a shared resting ground for those killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, but there is no setting analogous to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (which includes the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall).
That will change soon.
The Global War on Terrorism Memorial has moved into the design phase, with a projected opening in 2028. This landmark will serve as a unique space for all Americans to gather, reflect, learn, and engage with the war’s narrative together. Elliot Ackerman, a Marine Corps veteran and co-chair of the memorial’s design advisory council described his hopes for the memorial by saying:
“My hope is that the Memorial will be a place where people who have been touched by the GWOT in any way can gather and reflect. Whether you’re a veteran, a family member, or a student visiting the nation’s capital, I hope this Memorial will help people make sense of the conflict and find meaning in it. If we can reflect on what this war meant, then we can derive meaning from the war. Making meaning is the way people heal, and ultimately, it’s the way people can come home.”
Home. Home is the ultimate end goal when we say “you are not alone”; the final destination for the promise we carry. We need not wait for the memorial to be part of this, but a national site will give us a common starting point, a place where each of us can see our part in the story.
We were soldiers once and we are fathers now
In November, I reflected on what it will be like to bring my son to the GWOT memorial when it opens.
It was not until I became a father that I realized memorials were as much about the future as they are the past. Prior to the birth of my son in 2021, when I prayed at my friends’ graves in Section 60 at Arlington Cemetery, walked by the Horse Soldier
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America fought the Global War on Terror across more countries and settings than just Iraq and Afghanistan. But given the overwhelming proportion of American service members and overall war capacity directed to those two countries, they occupy the majority of Americans’ mindshare when people think about the war on terror. This is not to discount the dangerous missions executed by thousands of Americans across the world, many of which were classified or remain relatively unknown to much of the public.