The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set news policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com Richard H. Schmidt III of Patten is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom II. In the summer of 2004, I was in Iraq with the Maine Army National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 152nd Field Artillery (Forward), out of Waterville. Our unit was assigned to a military police mission at…