Veteran lawmakers were shaped by conflict in the Middle East. Now they're grappling with Iran war

Описание: (9 Mar 2026)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
 
++ENDS ON SOUNDBITE++

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Washington – 6 March 2026
1. Pan up of U.S. Marine uniform of U.S. Sen Ruben Gallego, (D) Arizona
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Stephen Groves, The Associated Press:
“You are a veteran of the post-9-11 wars, you served in Iraq. Just what this week has been like for you? What memories have been brought up of your time in Iraq?"
3. Pan outside the office of Sen. Ruben Gallego, (D) Arizona
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Sen. Ruben Gallego, (D) Arizona:
“You know, as someone that lives with PTSD, it's not been an easy week, and two, I have a lot of fear that we're about to make the same mistakes that got me into that war in 2005. But mostly it's really made me think about the men that I served with, my friends, my best friends, the ones that died, their family. I do talk to them, interact with them a lot. And, you know, it has also made me very angry that, again, that this government has such a cavalier attitude towards, you know, human life.”
5. Placard outside the office of Sen. Ruben Gallego, (D) Arizona
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Stephen Groves, The Associated Press:
“Now obviously President Trump at a certain point has promised that this will be a short war. Do you believe him and why?”
7. Photo on mantel of Sen. Ruben Gallego, (D) Arizona with Sen. Tammy Duckworth, (D) Illinois
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Sen. Ruben Gallego, (D) Arizona:
“I don't know, and I don t believe him, because he hasn't described what the goals of this war is. What does victory look like? If you can't describe victory, it means that you're going to keep searching until you quote unquote find it. That could take forever. That could be short. The other problem is that we don't what the end result is in the region. We may be out of a war, in a shooting war, but we may have destabilized the region that's going to be getting us more involved in the future, whether it is destabilizing Israel and its neighbors or Qatar and its neighbors or Saudi Arabia. We don't know how this all ends. We don't who's going to take over Iran. And so we may be out a week, two, three, who knows, but we may end up being even deeper, deeper involved in Middle Eastern politics and the drama, I would say, in that area that I think a lot of us have been hoping that we could actually just know, start exiting ourselves from.”
9. Photo on mantel of Sen. Ruben Gallego, (D) Arizona with Sen. Tammy Duckworth, (D) Illinois
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Stephen Groves, The Associated Press:
“Do you see a way that a U.S. withdrawal could actually work?”
11. U.S. Marines flag outside Gallego's office
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Sen. Ruben Gallego, (D) Arizona:
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STORYLINE:
As Congress responded to President Donald Trump's attack on Iran this week, a generation of lawmakers who served on the frontlines of Iraq and Afghanistan found themselves front and center in the debate over the war. 
 
“You know, as someone that lives with PTSD, it's not been an easy week, and two, I have a lot of fear that we're about to make the same mistakes that got me into that war in 2005,” said Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego, whose company suffered some of the heaviest losses on the U.S. side during the Iraq War.
 
Gallego, like others on Capitol Hill, leaned on firsthand experience of the wars after the Sept, 11, 2001 attacks as Congress tried to formulate a response to the new war. 
 

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