Photos with Kamanaka-san

Little Birds… four years since 2003

The footage of Iraq at the beginning of the US invasion in 2003, and especially the youth that were depicted, reminded me that it has been four years, mostly overlapping my time in college. It made me try to imagine how different four years of education by experiencing war in Iraq, as opposed to classes at Chicago, would have been.

My four years here have felt like a long time, with lots of events and influences on my life. What would I learn if I were in Baghdad for that amount of time? I was getting emotional watching “Little Birds”, and it actually worried me that had I been there–getting bombed, having smug military men occupy the city, seeing children and acquaintances die–I can’t say for sure that I wouldn’t have wanted to fight, or have learned enough rage that I could justify it to myself.