EDITORIAL: Growing up with Iraq war helped define us

Ten years ago the United States invaded Iraq and began a war that has impacted each and every American. While it may or may not have been at our doorstep, the war helped shape our generation.

For almost any undergraduate student today, the beginning of the Iraq war marked a war that would play a role in defining our education of the Middle East, and understanding the world and its ranging cultures.    Looking back 10 years ago, most of us undergraduate students were elementary students, and we were raised in a time of war.

Growing up during the Iraq  war is something unique to our generation. We were educated with the notion of  preventing attacks on American soil in the back of our minds. The war may not have had a direct impact on some, but it still affected the way we were being taught, raised and informed.

It was a war our generation learned how to talk, learn and debate about.

It was an issue we were able to look at each other and have a discussion on what is right and what is wrong.

If you don’t know someone who was directly involved with the military during the Iraq war, it’s a safe bet you know someone who did have a tie to someone involved.

For many of us in the Midwest, the Iraq war hit even closer to home as a number of young soldiers joined the military from South Dakota and other upper Midwest states.

According to Sen. Tim Johnson, who was the only Senator who had a family member serve time during the Iraq war, South Dakota had over 8,000 guardsmen serve time in Iraq.

From March 2003 to December 2011, American troops occupied this foreign land miles away and those eight years marked a massive time frame in many of our roughly 20 years of life.

Although it may not have seemed like it back when many of us were around the age of 10 that the Iraq war would define who we were as a generation, it truly has.

We understand the implications of war from a young age. We understand how to talk about war movements. We know first-hand how a war in the 21st century will impact our nation and the world. Ten years ago, history was created, and a decade later, we have felt its impact.