A marine covered a statue of Saddam Hussein with Tim McLaughlin’s American flag in Baghdad in 2003. (Photo: Jerome Delay/Associated Press)On Sept. 11, 2001, Tim McLaughlin, from Laconia, N.H., was a Marine Corps first lieutenant working in Room 5E678 of the Pentagon. He had broken his leg in training and was temporarily serving in an administrative capacity. He helped fire and rescue teams from within the Pentagon that day. A year and a half later, he commanded the first American tank that rolled into Baghdad’s Firdos (Paradise) Square shortly after 4 p.m. on April 9, 2003, signaling the end of Saddam Hussein’s rule. It was his Bravo Company, Third Battalion, Fourth Marines, First Marine Division, using a Hercules tank-recovery vehicle and a heavy chain, that helped Iraqis pull down Mr. Hussein’s hollow metal statue before the world’s television cameras. It was Lieutenant McLaughlin’s Stars and Stripes flag given to him by a friend in the aftermath of the Pentagon attack that a marine briefly draped over the statue’s head that day, an image that symbolized and outraged in equal measure. He left the Marine Corps as a captain on Sept. 1, 2006. Now 30, he is a second-year law student at Boston College.
Before 9/11, my life was fun. High school. Undergrad. Summer evening softball games on the Washington Mall. And then a plane hit the building that I worked in. One hundred and eighty-nine people died that day at the Pentagon; more in Pennsylvania and New York City.
Tim McLaughlin (Photo: Erik Jacobs for the New York Times)I have an American flag that was given to me a few days after the 9/11 attacks by a family friend who worked as a Congressional staff member. I haven’t seen the flag in years. It’s at home in New Hampshire.
I also framed the next week’s New Yorker magazine, and it hangs on the wall in my apartment. There’s a quotation hanging near it that reads: “Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there
is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.”
I was a first lieutenant in the Marine Corps in the spring of 2003.
On April 4, we were on the outskirts of Baghdad. My tank platoon was part of a much larger race through central Iraq, and while we pulled triggers with one hand, we waved with the other. No better friend, no worse enemy.
As dusk was falling, our battalion passed through a residential area with children racing after us, men and women lining the streets and a feeling of happiness sweeping the area. From the cupola of my tank, I looked down and to the left at a group of cheering Iraqis. In the midst of that chaos was an old woman. She wasn’t cheering or smiling, nor did she appear to hate me, but in that split second I saw the world as she saw it.
I wasn’t good or bad. I was just next. The next tank in the next army in a long line of violence that defined her life.
On April 9, my tank was the first to roll into Paradise Square in Baghdad. The world’s media were there, too, confined to the Ishtar and Palestine hotels, but I didn’t know that at the time. I was scanning for people who were trying to kill me. Turns out the bad guys were a few blocks to the northeast where my friend Chad’s platoon was. My American flag was placed on the statue of Saddam Hussein that day so I could take a picture of it. People watching on their televisions at home saw it too.
They liked it. Or didn’t. Or changed their minds later on. I told a reporter, “I know Iraq didn’t have anything to do with Sept. 11, but I think that given the opportunity, a person like Saddam Hussein would certainly be capable of trying to hit London or Paris or New York.”
I’m in law school now, but I recently met with Andrew, one of my Marine Corps friends. He’s looking to go to law school too, so he spent the day with me at Boston College. I’d never really noticed it, but my school is wheelchair-accessible. That’s important, because Andrew doesn’t have legs anymore.
Families who have served know that life in the military isn’t easy.
Each service member comes from a different background, has different experiences, and deals with them differently. If you could see some of my friends, though, it would be apparent what their experiences were.
Some are missing body parts. Some are blind. Some are buried. But most of us will live out our lives physically intact, and we don’t like to bother you with what we’ve seen and done and what we think about at night.
No one has to convince me that there is a difference between the way the world is and the way it should be. I’ll stand for the way the world should be every time. Peace. Human rights. Racial, sexual and religious equality. But when the noise, trouble and hard work get in the way, not everyone makes the same sacrifices. We won’t always get it right, and it’ll never be perfect, but I’m proud of the people I’ve stood with.
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