TAMPA, Fla. — John Ubaldi spent 30 years in the Marines, deploying twice to Afghanistan and once to Iraq. He says Operation Epic Fury — the U.S. strikes on Iran — looks different to him than the wars he and thousands of others volunteered for.
"When we invaded Iraq, the president, George W. Bush, had to call up, and I was part of that as a reservist. They had to call up almost 300,000 reservists to take part in that invasion. We don't have that call up. We're not staging massive amounts of troops or logistics," Ubaldi said.
WATCH: Tampa War on Terror veteran weighs in on Operation Epic Fury
Ubaldi sat down with Tampa Bay 28 reporter Blake Phillips, where he acknowledged, when asked, that while the scope is different from past wars, the United States is still getting involved in the Middle East yet again.
"I just want to make sure that we're doing what is correct, that we have clear, concise goals that we're trying to accomplish, but if we can take out the Iranian regime and get a different government who is peaceful to its people, peaceful to its neighbors, is not going to foment terrorism across the Middle East," Ubaldi said.
Ubaldi told Phillips that he had followed the debates over whether the United States should be involved, but as a veteran, he believes military action was the only option remaining.
"Negotiations didn't work. Giving them money didn't work because they're still moving along with it. What would you do differently than what Donald Trump did, and no one's really asked that question," Ubaldi said.
He also acknowledged that thousands of service members will answer the call — in some cases giving their lives. I asked him how he thinks repeated deployments, following in the footsteps of parents and older siblings, affect morale.
"Hopefully we do things that we're not wasting American lives like we had happened in Iraq and Afghanistan for minimal results," Ubaldi said.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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