Master Sgt. Dean Smith gave three years of his life to Army service in Iraq — three years he could have spent at home, helping his wife raise two young children.

Because of that sacrifice, he more than hopes the U.S. withdrawal from that Middle East hotbed wasn't premature, and the eight-plus years the military spent fighting and dying in the rugged, often hostile country weren't in vain.

"I missed a lot of birthdays and Christmases and such, so if everything goes to pot and (the withdrawal) doesn't work out, it would kind of be upsetting that I sacrificed all that time to help that country, and my family missed out ultimately," Smith said.

The last combat troops in Iraq pulled out more than a week ago, with the U.S. now focusing its military energy on its longest-ever conflict, the 10-year Afghanistan war.

The Iraq war began in March 2003 with an invasion by U.S. and British troops, resulting in the toppling of dictator Saddam Hussein and a May 1, 2003, "Mission accomplished" victory declaration by President George W. Bush aboard the USS Abraham.

But the war was far from over. The occupation would go on, bloodily, as coalition forces sought to stabilize the country and turn the country back over to the Iraqis. In the end, some 4,500 U.S. forces were killed in action.

Two area natives died in the country: Sgt. Jason Harkins of Clarkesville and Staff Sgt. Shaun Whitehead of Commerce. They were both killed by roadside bomb blasts, according to a CNN website that tracks casualties in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

‘We were clearing soccer fields'

As the war escalated, so did the homemade bomb attacks.

Smith, a 1990 North Hall High School graduate now at the United States Sergeants Major Academy in Texas, spent three tours of duty with an explosive ordnance disposal unit, including as part of the invasion forces.

His job was to find and disarm bombs, a task that was the focus of the award-winning film "The Hurt Locker."

"That (movie) was a little Hollywood-ed, but that's kind of what we do," Smith said.

"Each (tour of duty), it seemed like it got a little easier, a little better," he said. "When we first got there, I was outside of Sadr City (outside of Baghdad) and we were getting rocketed and mortared every day — you could almost set your clock by it."

Soldiers were getting hit by 240-millimeter rockets "in my last deployment and those are huge," Smith said. "It's a big step up from the 107-millimeter (rockets) we were getting hit with and they were Iranian made. I'm not going to elaborate too much on where I think they came from."

He said he believes the media overplayed negative aspects of the war.

"We were clearing soccer fields for kids to play and removing unexploded ordnances from farmers' fields," Smith said.

Chris Morgan, a Gainesville High graduate now working for Wayne Farms in Oakwood, was a Marine reservist who served during the Iraq invasion. He remembers those days vividly.

At the time, Morgan was coaching and working in the Gainesville school system. The country was still reeling from the terrorist attacks on 9/11 and America's military was immersed in Afghanistan.

The Bush administration was claiming that Iraq's possession of chemical weapons and its support for terrorist groups made the country a serious threat in the region.

"In January 2003, my unit was activated ... and we reported to (Marines) Camp Pendleton (Calif.) within the week," Morgan said. "We were in Kuwait the first week of February."

Morgan's unit entered Iraq on March 19 with a larger Marine expeditionary unit based mainly in southern and central Iraq.

"I was doing mainly convoy escorts, moving things to and from the front lines," he said. "I feel very fortunate that I didn't have to see direct combat, but it was all around. You could see it. You'd go through towns where there were firefights."

Morgan's service in Iraq ended in the fall of 2003. He then went into inactive reserve and wasn't called back to duty.

Steven Hollibush joined the Georgia National Guard after his 2002 graduation from East Hall High School.

He went on to serve one year in Iraq as a medic with the 148th Brigade Support Batallion's Charlie Company based in Forsyth. His first six months were spent around the Baghdad International Airport.

"We went on convoys and did different missions," said Hollibush, now out of the military and working for the American Red Cross in Hall County.

He didn't see much violence but recalled once when he responded to a Humvee military vehicle flipping over at the Euphrates River.

"The hardest part about (the service) was being away from family," Hollibush said.

A different view of war

Ron Martz saw Iraq in a very different light - as an embedded reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

"I was looking at the war through a pinhole," he said. "We knew what was going on right around us but didn't have a bigger sense of what was going on in the rest of the war."

At one point, two soldiers in a vehicle Martz was riding in were shot at about the same time. AJC photographer Brant Sanderlin took a photo of Martz, a U.S. Marine veteran, as he tended to one of the injured men. Both men survived.

Martz, who was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in two categories in 2004 for his coverage of the war in Iraq, now teaches journalism at North Georgia College & State University in Dahlonega.

"I think the Bush administration screwed (the war) up on the front end and the Obama administration screwed it up on the back end," he said.

"The initial invasion went very well. The problem was when (troops) got to Baghdad and (the coalition) hadn't brought in the number of troops they really needed to do a first-rate job of nation building from the very beginning."

Martz said he believes Obama's "failure to negotiate a reasonable Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government was a major foreign policy blunder.

"The U.S. had no recourse but to withdraw its troops because without a SOFA that would have given U.S. forces immunity from the uncertainty of local Iraqi laws — which are still very much in flux — while conducting operations.

"There was a very real prospect of American soldiers being hauled into Iraqi courts for any manner of offenses, real or imagined. By being forced by that foreign policy failure to withdraw forces before the Iraqi government gets its feet on the ground, it leaves the country much more susceptible to continued sectarian violence and undue influence from Iran."

Martz added that he fears more violence is on the way in Iraq.

"Trying to change the government from a dictatorship to some sort of representative democracy government — that is something the people are not used to," he said.

"I think it's going to be years before (the Iraqis) work something out. The question is: Who is going to have the most influence there?"

‘... a lot of work and heavy lifting'

U.S. Army Col. Michael Pyott, who teaches military science at North Georgia, took part in Operation Iraqi Freedom, as well as Operation Desert Shield/Storm and Operation Enduring Freedom. He has also served in the Pentagon on the Joint Staff working with the White House and Congress.

He said the key issue facing Iraq is whether the country's citizens can overcome differences "as an emerging democracy and grow as a country."

"I don't think we could have remained there forever," Pyott said. "I am not sure about the (withdrawal's) timing. I leave that up to people who are much smarter than me."

One thing is certain for Pyott: "I don't think it will ever be the case that lives were wasted there and that America wasted the past nine years that it was there."

"Iraq was ruled by a cruel dictator who was in violation of numerous (United Nations) Security Council violations," he said. "Basically, he thumbed his nose at the world."

Morgan agrees with that sentiment.

"I do think Iraq was something we would have had to deal with anyway," he said. " The idea that Iraq would have imploded ... without any U.S. involvement is a fairy tale."

However, in disbanding the Iraqi military during the war, "we sowed the seeds of our own undoing," Morgan said.

"You would drive through these towns and all you would see were hundreds of young men with nothing to do in a country littered with weapons," he said. "Too many great Americans had to pay for that. That is what I feel most regretful and guilty about."

As for the troop withdrawal, he gives that his full support.

"Ultimately, it's (the Iraqis') country. We've done a lot of work and heavy lifting. Ultimately, they've got to stand on their own," Morgan said.

Hollibush said believes the withdrawal is too soon.

"I think it's an unfinished work," he said. "I think (Iraq) probably needs more help and more stability before we pull out and hand everything over to them and let them try to figure it out for themselves.

"It is in the Middle East and everybody over these seems to hate Americans. I think if you are going to change the way a country thinks, you got to raise up the next generation and change their thought process."

Morgan said he is optimistic Iraq might change for the better, as the years roll on.

When the "young people who are seeing a new vision for their country ... get older and have a little more power, I think maybe there's maybe a better opportunity for going forward," he said. " For now, though, some of the old hatreds are coming out."

Smith said his biggest fear is Iraq "will fall back into chaos and all my brothers and sisters who died over there was ... for nothing. ... I just hope we set the conditions for success."

Iraq, he believes, has left one certain legacy: It has changed the ways of warfare.

"When you're dealing in this sort of counterinsurgency fight, it's new (territory)," Smith said. "Future wars are going to probably be fought like that."