So I met this guy the other night at a bar.

The thing is I can’t remember his name; I… So I met this guy the other night at a bar.

The thing is I can’t remember his name; I can’t remember what he looked like, really. I guess he was about – yay high. His eyes where blue, I think, but I couldn’t tell you his hair color.

I remember only one thing about him.

He was a Marine and had just returned from Iraq.

He looked like he was my age, 21, and he was friends with some people I know. Between jokes and rounds of beer, he mentioned something about looking forward to seeing a particular girl – typical bar conversation.

I must have looked like an idiot standing there staring at him, awestruck.

With a lump in my throat, I fought back an urge to cry, hug him and say, “thank you,” say, “I’m sorry,” say anything that would change the fact that he had just fought in a war that many, including myself, were never able to fully support.

I was unable to support the efforts in Iraq because, in principle, I’m opposed to war. At the same time, I am incapable of turning my back on those fighting.

In March, the weekend we started bombing Baghdad, I sat in a New York hotel room mesmerized by the images on television. The night-vision cameras gave a green hue to the smoking debris settling over the city’s skyline after each explosion flashed.

I’d never seen anything like it. There were live images of soldiers setting up and firing large weapons – the kind that require two men to support and fire – then bracing themselves for the recoil.

That same weekend, I saw organizers standing in Washington Square Park, handing out fliers and recruiting people for a peaceful march later that day in Times Square.

The next day, while walking through Times Square, I noticed a couple of people toting American flags. There was no major protesting, but I was shocked to see a wall of police officers keeping watch along the length of the block, waiting for something.

I didn’t take part in the protest and I avoided eye contact with the policemen. I didn’t know which side of the line I was supposed to stand on. I didn’t – and couldn’t – support a war. At the same time, how could I turn my back on the hundreds of kids – many my age – going abroad for the first time to fight for a cause that has yet to be proven worthy?

I could not support this war because I wasn’t convinced that it would induce any real change, which is a necessary element, for me, in determining the validity in risking, and ultimately losing, human life for a cause.

We have not found any of the weapons we went in there to find. Saddam Hussein has not been apprehended. The people of Iraq are still starving. Since this war ended, American soldiers have been killed with shocking frequency – The New York Times reported that, just last week, one was killed while buying a soda at a vending machine.

I do not feel any better off now that Saddam has, officially, been removed from power. I do not feel any more privileged knowing that people my age died fighting for, as I was told, my safety as an American citizen. I do not feel any better off now, knowing that they are still over there, risking their safety and lives “for me.”

But what about the Iraqi people? Our country has made them free, hasn’t it? We’ve made it possible for an Iraqi orchestra to play again, and allowed them to perform their national anthem in public. But this is only a symbolic freedom.

The Iraqi people are still suffering from a lack of basic necessities like food, water, electricity and self-governance.

If you ask them whether they consider themselves to be free, I can’t believe their answer would be an emphatic yes. Still, the guy from the bar the other night knows people who are abroad even now, risking their lives enforcing this artificial kind of freedom.

Staring at the soldier as he laughed with my friends, I swallowed my emotions and asked him a question.

Looking for any sign that the war experience had changed him, I asked if he would go back to the Middle East and do it again, or, were he called, if he would go to Liberia.

Matter-of-factly, he told me he would say yes and go back in a second – any Marine would.

Christian Schoening can be reached at [email protected].