The US miltary has been stretched too thin. Already there are reports that the troops want to rotate back home. Reservists didn't sign up for continued indefinite deployment overseas. We hope to get other countries to share the burden of occupation, but so far only a few countries liike Poland where we essentially pay their troops. Rumsfeld has promised no ****e Muslim dominated clerical government of Iraq. The problem is that if this is the desire of the majority it will not go away in two years or even 10 years. As Yugoslavia showed you can't keep the Kurds, Sunnis and ****es from killing each other without a strong hand. Before the strong hand was Sadam; now it is the US military. If this keeps up the number of people who are willing to sign up for the reserves will definitely go down. Even our own Treeman has said that he would consider the war a failure if we are still needing to occupy Iraq with hundreds of thousands of troops after 2 years. Here are the cooments of one soldier on the ground. *************** Baghdad's New Blogger By Paul Woodward Salam Pax is still the best known Baghdad blogger, but another picture of life in the city newly emerges, this time from a blogger who arrived there just a few weeks ago. The weblog is Turningtables, its author is a U.S. Army sergeant camped outside one of Saddam Hussein's palaces. Soldiers on active duty are often reluctant to say how they feel, but at a time when U.S. casualties are mounting, the justification for the war is open to question, and "pockets of resistance" are beginning to look more like guerilla warfare, Turningtables unmasks the fears that usually lie hidden behind a soldier's expressionless face. it's a sad state that originates when the death of soldiers becomes common everyday news...and it stops being surprising...and shocking...and horrible...when it takes a really gruesome story to remind you that you are in the middle of this ****...and you can't go home...YOU CAN'T GO HOME...you want to curl up and quit... Sergeant Sean has been keeping his journal since early June and the life he describes will ring true for many a soldier: we volunteered for this...we sit here because we raised our hand...and sold our souls...most would think that we knew exactly what we were getting into...they would be wrong...we were naive...we were homeless...we were living with our mothers...this is just a job for 75% of us… Circumstances may have set this soldier on a course he hadn't foreseen, but nevertheless, his appreciation for military life shines through: if there is a person who wanders aimlessly through life I would recommend the service to them...and I would even allow my children to join...I would only hope that they remain objective through out...that they keep a sense of reality and stay aware… the military in itself is altruistic...communism...but how else could it possibly operate...selfless service...the good of the whole over the good of the one...the pay...the living conditions...think about it...soldiers are not free to make their own decisions...if they were how could anything difficult be completed...how could a platoon take a machine gun nest...or a war be won... His unit wants to be seen as the toughest support unit in the Army, but he knows that neither inside nor outside the military does any glamour attach to the role of support. Movies don't get made about these troops even though they form the backbone of every army. With six years of service under his belt, previously based in Bosnia and later Afghanistan, Sgt. Sean is a regular soldier doing his job but the story he tells gently mocks the icons of warfare that are Hollywood's bread and butter. Arnold Schwarzenegger can rally the troops in Baghdad and promote his new movie by calling the GI's the "true terminators," but military life -- as described by a man actually living it -- is a way of making a living, a stepping stone to college, a structure for an unstructured life. I once read that some people come off as courageous because they are so afraid of being thought a coward...I'm glad that as of yet I haven't had to prove my courage...that would mean somebody was trying to kill me...and right now...I'm content with people shooting off nasty emails instead of bullets... Military service carries the honor of defending ones nation even for those who never fire a shot, but all the while the hopes and dreams of each soldier must lie in wait, far from the battlefield, locked away in a life postponed. there are so many difficulties that come with a deployment to the Middle East...a major portion of your life is put on hold for 6 to 9 months and all the areas that could not possibly pause for your war are forced on to the phone lines... Sgt. Sean, like thousands of other American service men and women, now finds himself at the sharp end of a political experiment whose design was always unclear and whose conclusion becomes ever more elusive. The president insists that America will stay the course in Iraq, but a mission with no deadline is a plan that dare not risk being called a failure. The White House and the rest of Washington continue to juggle with competing demands from ill-defined strategic goals, bungled foreign relations, a neglected economy and a presidential campaign that makes every other need subservient to that of electoral victory. Meanwhile, thousands of soldiers must sweat it out in Iraq not knowing whether they will be there for months or years or, worst of all, whether they might end up the next victim of a rocket-propelled grenade attack or a drive-by shooting. Turningtables, Sgt. Sean's weblog, is located at turningtables.blogspot.com/
Man, I totally forgot about Salman Pax. I remember when some people here claimed he was fake, I forget who, but I have a pretty good idea.
Someone needs to...NCO s who want to curl up and quit, because they only joined the service to get an education, should never re-up.
Madmax, Why not volunteer for at least the reserves? You could be in the JAG Corp if the infantry is too rigorous. . Why be just an armchair supporter of this war and occupation?
good point. why don't i? i guess i'm just too busy being a bloodsucking republican. you know...driving my SUV around town aimlessly....littering at every turn...hiring only white people...taking over corporations and tearing them apart for my own personal gain. it's all in a day's work, glynch. i just don't have time for government service. but enough about me...you've been drafted??? you going??? to canada??
Max, I believe that morally you shouldn't fight in wars if you think they are wrong and unjust. Conversely, should you avoid service and let others do if for you if you believe that the war is really just and very necessary? PS please don't try to sidetrack with SUV's and other issues.
I was just kidding...I just think you have a vision of who I am that is vastly different from who I really am. And much of that is because of my race and my politics. I like to poke fun of my own alter-ego sometime. I agree wholeheartedly that if you don't TRULY believe a war is the right thing to do that you shouldn't serve. I totally agree. I would totally agree to defend that right. I don't think it's practical, however, to say that if you support the war you should necessarily join. That doing something less means you're a hypocrite. If I were truly concerned that the fine fighting men and women of the US Armed Forces were incapable of doing the job without me, that would be one thing. But they kick ass with little help from MadMax. They earn my support...and they deserve it. There are other things I believe in that I serve as well, glynch. Just because I'm not enlisted in that cause doesn't mean I'm not enlisted in ANY OTHER causes.
