In 2003, CBC cameras caught young U.S. Marine Barry Sward heading to Iraq as invasion fever peaked. Twenty-four years after 9/11, Adrienne Arsenault tracked him down to ask the only question that matters: was it worth it?
Sward's answer — a life reshaped by a war launched on premises that collapsed — belongs to a generation of veterans in both countries doing the same math. Canada lost 158 in Afghanistan; America lost thousands in Iraq. The recruiting posters never mentioned the decades after.
Every year, recruiters still set up tables where 17-year-olds dream in uniforms. Sward's story is the counter-brochure: glory is a loan, and the interest compounds in joints, sleep and memory.
Sources: CBC News. Context from the Young Hadene newsroom.
A U.S. Marine filmed by CBC heading to Iraq in 2003, revisited 24 years after 9/11.
A veteran's long-view audit of what the war on terror cost him.