It hadn’t seemed real up until that moment inside that tent in Kuwait 16 years ago. My Army Reserve Civil Affairs unit had been called up the previous month, and had undergone mobilization training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Then it was time to cross The Pond: the Atlantic Ocean.

We loaded up on an L-1011 jumbo jet at Pope Air Force Base next to Bragg. The airline transporting us had a contract to ferry troops into Kuwait for Operation Iraqi Freedom. This contractor, unlike so many others...