He was the guy that made the wisecrack to the Saudi king. “You are not worthy of your mustache” Supposedly a pretty big insult over there.
All wars end. All soldiers eventually want to go home.
There was a saying by a former Soviet submarine captian upon meeting an American counterpart that has always stuck with me, “It’s not always important who won or lost but that we survived.”
Despite tremendous cultural and religous divides between opposing forces in Iraq human nature IS human nature and even die hard soldiers tire of constant combat. We’re not a species bent on fighting for fighting’s sake. Every soldier is fighting for someone and something and when it appears that your cause is lost it is best to make peace with a merciful enemy. Better to live any kind of life than die for nothing.