inspiring how he has been compelled to turn his adversity into action,” Ms. Now, he dreams of marrying his fiancée, Sara, and starting a family, as well as expanding his organization and establishing a home and school for the children he serves.“It is.

He returned to high school to get his diploma. Louay returned home in 2017 to establish the Al-Khair Youth Team, a small organization whose volunteers, some of whom were orphaned by the war, provide food, activities, and basic lessons to youth. Louay is not bitter, she says.He is slowly rebuilding his life, and with it, his country. But remarkably, despite all he’s been through, Mr. how unfair the implications of war are on the most vulnerable,” she told me. The war orphaned 5 million Iraqis, killed about 200,000 civilians, displaced at least 4 million people, and devastated much of Iraq’s infrastructure, economy, and cultural heritage.The human cost is impossible to quantify, says Alannah Travers, who interviewed Mr.

Louay told his story to Al Jazeera as part of a collection of profiles. When he was 11, the Islamic State group seized his town in Anbar province, forcing him to flee to Baghdad, stop his schooling, and sell corn from a street cart. troops killed his father, whose car was shot at en route to a medical appointment, and he was a toddler when American forces raided his house, looking for Al Qaeda fighters. Louay was born two months after the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003. troops – and deeply impacting a generation of Iraqis. aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln beneath a banner that declared “Mission Accomplished.” Of course, the war would drag on much longer, changing the lives of scores of U.S. Bush famously announced the end of major combat operations in Iraq aboard the U.S. Twenty years ago today, President George W.

Craig fehrman author in chief