COLUMN | Seattle Veterans Who Know War Ask Why America Can't Wage Peace

The war reached Sandra President's nightmares before the bodies of American soldiers returned home.

The Tacoma resident and Air Force veteran served 22 years in uniform and has been retired for six. But when the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran and Lebanon in late February, terrifying memories from her past began returning.

"Since this started, I've been having nightmares about being deployed again," she told me. "That PTSD — it doesn't just disappear."

President is not alone. For many veterans across South Seattle and the South Sound, this war did not begin in the Middle East. It began in their bodies: in the sudden tightening of the chest, in old muscle memory returning uninvited, and in the private dread of people who know, more intimately than most politicians ever will, what American war looks like long after a "dominant victory" has been declared.

When Ogenia Baskin heard the news that the United States had struck Iran, her reaction was immediate: "Here we go again."

The echo of Iraq was impossible to miss. Yet another preemptive war, another absent congressional declaration, and another promise. This time that shock and awe would bring swift victory in a country five times the size of the last one we tried to remake. Unlike the 2003 Iraq invasion, when the Bush administration spent months methodically manufacturing consent through intelligence briefings and Colin Powell's UN performance, this war began with the immediate disapproval of nearly 6 in 10 Americans, according to some polls.

None of the veterans I spoke with harbor false illusions about the Iranian regime. They condemn the government that brutally killed more than 30,000 protesters in January. But they are also quick to draw a distinction: There is a difference between a global coalition demanding justice and accountability, and two countries launching military strikes with murky motivations and no clear endgame.

Baskin, 27, served five years in the Army as a satellite communicator with First Special Forces Group Airborne. She left the military last September. But technically, she could still be recalled. If that happens, she says she will resist "with every means available."

"This is another nonsense war that will cost the lives of my former comrades," she told me. "All to serve the interests of people who will never step foot in that region and don't understand the cost of a human life."

Michael McPhearson wasn't surprised either. McPhearson, the former executive director of the Emerald, served in the Army during the first Gulf War and now leads Veterans for Peace as its executive director. "Once you put that many forces in a place," he said, "it's hard to believe they won't be used."

What troubled him was not just the decision to attack, but how easily America drifts into war. First comes the military buildup. Then the rhetoric about security and strength. Then the insistence that this time will be different. It's a pattern painfully familiar.

Since Feb. 28, the human cost of this war has already become grim: Up to 3.2 million Iranians have been displaced, at least 13 U.S. service members killed, more than 1,000 people in Lebanon have been killed, and more than 3,200 people (including 1,400 civilians) in Iran are dead. Among them are children. One strike from a U.S. missile on a school in Minab reportedly killed more than 165 people, many of them schoolgirls.

And still Washington speaks in the familiar dialect of imperialism: strategic objectives, deterrence, regional stability. It is the language of people who rarely have to live with the consequences of their own decisions.

"I don't know if our current commander in chief realizes the impact — the trickle effect — of starting these kinds of wars," President said.

The trickle effect. Such a small phrase for such enormous consequences.

Because war trickles downward in America the way suffering always does. It lands hardest on those with the least power to refuse it.

Baskin knows that intimately. She joined the military for reasons that many Americans understand but rarely publicly admit. She grew up in foster care. As a Black woman looking at the statistical projections of her life, the military offered something few institutions in this country reliably offer young people without wealth: stability.

"I joined because of what I call the 'poverty draft,'" she said. "The numbers didn't look good for me. The Army said five years, education, experience, a chance to get on my feet. It felt like the only real option."

That is one of the quiet contradictions at the heart of American patriotism. We celebrate military service as noble, and for many who serve, it absolutely is. Soldiers build bonds of loyalty and care that most civilians never experience. They learn discipline, teamwork, and resilience.

But we rarely confront the economic pressure that guides so many young Americans into uniform. We call it voluntary service in a country where the alternatives can feel like slow economic suffocation.

And now those same people, recruited with promises of opportunity, are being asked to fight yet another war whose purpose remains murky at best.

Baskin says the country's priorities are impossible to ignore. "We have endless money for wars," she said, echoing the old Tupac lyric. "But we can't feed the poor."

She isn't exaggerating. The United States has already spent more than $12 billion on the war with Iran. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of veterans remain homeless across the country. In January 2024 alone, federal data estimated more than 32,000 veterans experienced homelessness on a single night.

And yet the Pentagon burned through $93 billion in September 2025, spending millions on luxury items like lobster tail, king crab, expensive furniture, and even a $98,000 grand piano.

I think about that when I drive past veterans sleeping in tents and trailers along Beacon Avenue, just blocks from the VA building on Beacon Hill. The contrast feels almost grotesque.

President, Baskin, and McPhearson arrived at their conclusions about America's addiction to war through different journeys. But they all reached the same destination.

They believe this war cannot truly be won, not because Iran is militarily stronger, but because wars of attrition often favor the side willing to endure longer. Because the American public never meaningfully consented to this conflict. Because there is no clear objective, no coherent strategy, and no real exit plan.

"People struggle to understand this," Baskin told me. "But the idea of self-determination isn't just an American value. It's human. You can't bomb a country into surrendering its identity."

McPhearson once believed war was sometimes necessary. "I thought it was a necessary evil," he told me. "Something you had to do sometimes to protect your country." Over time, his perspective changed. "More often than not, war is a choice," he said. "Especially for the aggressor."

Marcus Harrison Green is the founder of the South Seattle Emerald.