The newspaper photo captures everything that Americans wanted to believe about the Iraq war in the earliest days of the invasion in 2003. A U.S. Army medic, Pfc. Joseph Dwyer, whose unit was fighting its way up the Euphrates to Baghdad, cradles a wounded Iraqi boy. The child is half-naked and helpless, but trusting. Private Dwyer’s face is strained but calm. The text accompanying the photo describes the power of this image. “If there are better images of the strength and selflessness of the American soldier, I can’t think of any. It is easy to understand why newspapers and magazines around the country ran the photo big, making Private Dwyer an instant hero, back when the war was a triumphal tale of Iraqi liberation.” (Lawrence Downes, “Losing Private Dwyer,” The New York Times, 15 Jul 08.) The picture captured the golden dream of America’s “good and just” war.
However, Downes goes on to inform us, “that story turned bitter years ago ... And the mountain of sorrows keeps growing: Mr. Dwyer died last month in North Carolina. He was 31 and very sick. For years he had been in and out of treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and addiction. He was seized by fearful delusions and fits of violence and rage. His wife left him to save herself and their young daughter. When the police were called to Mr. Dwyer’s apartment on June 28, he was alone. They broke down the door and found him dying among pill bottles and cans of cleaning solvent that friends said he sniffed to deaden his pain.” The waking reality that confronted Mr. Downes after the Iraq photo-op was the darkest of nightmares.
Those who knew him, describe Dwyer as strong and helpful before going to Iraq. “Joseph was a rock, a guy who would change your oil and check your tires unasked and pick you up by your broken-down car at 3 a.m.”
A few months after the famous photo was taken, he returned home. He talked about Iraqis coming to get him there. He confided to a few friends about “the ‘demons’ that followed him all day and in his dreams.” He became a Baptist and searched Scripture on his lunch hour for solace. He was getting high with spray cans bought at computer stores. He went into meltdown.
His friends, his parents and the mental health system tried to get him help, but nothing worked. “’He just couldn’t get over the war,’ his mother, Maureen, told a reporter. ‘Joseph never came home.’”
Downes summarizes the tragedy: “Private Dwyer, who survived rocket-propelled grenades and shocking violence, made his way back to his family and friends. But part of him was also stuck forever on a road in Iraq, helpless and terrified, with nobody to carry him to safety.” The hero, who carried everyone else's problems and pains could not be himself carried out of the war zone that had been created inside of himself.
The goal of American leaders to subdue Iraq by military force, coupled with the ideal of spreading freedom and democracy, guided the U.S. to initiate an invasion of Iraq. As is always the case, the value and validity of the dream is found in dreamfully attending to how it causes things to play out in waking reality. The tragedy of Private Dwyer is merely one heartbreaking reality-check that tells us that the dream of America Liberating Iraq was ill-conceived. This dream quickly and catastrophically turned into an ongoing, many-layered waking nightmare. This should give the dreamers of this dream pause to reconsider the dream itself.