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The struggles people face in daily civilian life in no way compares to life on the battlefields of Sadr City, Baghdad, or Mosul. The box office hits such as "Saving Private Ryan," "The Patriot," or "Schindler's List" do not show the real face of war. The Iraq war is a fight filled with blood, sweat and tears.
"There's nothing glorious about combat, death, or destruction," said 26-year-old war veteran Carlos Lopez. "In combat, your heart is pounding. Maybe that's the beat you hear, your heart pounding. You're breathing hard, you're scared, you're shaking."
In 2003, when Saddam Hussein was found, Lopez carried on combat in Kuwait, eventually moving on to the city of Sadr in 2004, which he considered the hardest year.
"It was five or six weeks of straight combat," he said. "We suffered casualties. My best friend who I went into the army with was killed on August 15, 2004 in a job in Iraq."
Left distraught and wry of non-stop battlefield combat, Lopez wanted out. He tried to get out by working as a security contractor in Kuwait. However, the government pulled him back in the army.
"Once you sign a 8-year obligation, you're theirs," he said. "You always hear in the movies 'oh you're selling your life away' or 'you don't belong to you anymore, you belong to the government' -- it's true. You sign up for eight years of your life, that is exactly what they take."
Spending 37 months in the Middle East, Lopez witnessed thousands of deaths by his own hands as well.
During several months of heavy war, artillery, machine guns, patchies, bomb-dropping choppers became the main reason veterans suffer from psychological damages.
After the heat of war, Lopez and his fellow mates in combat were, ironically, spat on, cursed at and ridiculed by Iraqi civilians for mass murdering cities.
During one event in Iraq, an Iraqi mother of a killed son sobbed and yelled at the top of her lungs at Lopez, accusing him of killing her son.
Ultimately, she had asked him why. But, on the battlefield, soldiers are scared for their lives, and do not have time to come up with a reason. A soldier is to only follow orders, said Lopez.
"When I first was in combat I would yell 'Yeah, yeah, let's kill them all!', but the first bullet zips right by you, you're scared, shaking, down on your knees saying 'Oh god, this is real.' A year later, another bullet zips by you and you laugh and say 'Oh, that almost took your nose' and your fellow comrade would reply 'No it didn't bro, it almost took your face off."
War is made up of masked men. It brings humans back to their natural roots of being savages and cavemen, he said.
Lopez gave reasons why a soldier becomes desensitized from his own death, as well as others.
When a soldier's mother asks why he killed her son, the soldier has no time to be weak and break down, let alone give an answer. Bombs do not stop when a soldier needs a breather.
"I saw thousands of guys being waxed by machine guns. All the soldiers went from being scared to yelling "Woo! Kill them all"', he said. "I'm not going to lie, it felt good. But, in the end, I'm thinking, man, I was witnessing bombs drop. You can see a quarter mile out people being blown up and body parts flying in the air. At the same time, everyone is cheering. I guess you can ask, 'how sick does that sound?' right?"
However, Lopez does see a positive side to the army: the benefits a veteran receives when he or she is discharged from the army. When Lopez was discharged from the army, he started attending Cosumnes River College.
"In the end, if you take advantage of all your benefits, you'll be able to live nice.
They pay for your house and you can get a nice car. As long as you're enrolled in school, you receive benefits," he said, adding that these benefits last five to 10 years depending on how long a person served in the army.
"Bottom line: the military and combat will change you. And if you survive through it, I would say this to any soldier, make sure you take advantage of everything they promise you. You earned it," he said.
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