Rep. Pat Ryan, a Democrat, served two combat deployments in Iraq from 2005 to 2009. He says one of the fundamental takeaways from his service is that war is horrific and should not be taken lightly.
“The last person who’s ever going to tell you to go to war is someone who’s seen it firsthand,” he said. “Part of why I’ve been so frustrated and outspoken: I feel like we haven’t learned the lessons of our two longest wars in our country’s history, where we lost thousands of people. And it feels like we’re repeating a lot of those same mistakes and starting this war now in Iran.”
Casualties have begun mounting since the conflict in Iran began. So far, the Associated Press has reported that seven American soldiers are dead, with more than 100 more wounded and more than 1,000 Iranian soldiers and civilians killed since coalition airstrikes by Israel and America began, followed by response missile and drone strikes by Iran.
Republican Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus has served in the Navy Reserves since 2008, including a tour in Iraq from 2018-19. Neuhaus says the Trump administration must find an off-ramp to the conflict or convince Congress that the benefits a prolonged war outweigh the cons.
“President Trump is going to have to prove that case to the House or they’re going to have to pull back combat operations,” Neuhaus said. “Then people are going to say, ‘OK, so why did we do this?’ And hopefully that administration, the regime has changed in Iran or something better has come out of this.”
Ryan has been among the Democrats in Congress calling for greater restrictions on the war powers granted to the executive branch without approval from Congress.
“Part of my obligation, having served in Iraq, is to say that another generation shouldn’t go fight in in what is a very ill-defined and very open-ended regime change war,” Ryan said.
He believes the war shouldn’t have been started in the first place and he thinks there are more questions than answers from the Trump administration.
“I’ve spoken out against presidents of both parties that I think have violated the idea of our founders and our framers, who were wise. They said, this is a big decision. It shouldn’t just be made by a single person because the whole country will bear the consequences as we’re seeing now,” Ryan said. “The whole country should have a voice in it.”
Neuhaus says he’s gotten a lot of calls from local families, concerned about their loved ones being deployed to Gulf states like Kuwait or Jordan, which were considered safe before war in Iran started.
“You have to pray for them at some point,” he said. “They are in God’s hands and you hope that the U.S. military is putting them in shelters or evacuating them out if they’re nonessential.”