Posted by
Reeson on Wednesday, January 17, 2007 12:48:52 PM
Below are excerpts from an International Herald Tribune article that I have a problem with. The media finds a few guys who aren't sure about the war anymore and portrays their story as indicative of the entire military. The reality, though, is that morale among deployed troops is among the highest in the military. To go one better, retention rates (reenlistments) in the Army and Marine Corps, the two branches doing most of the fighting and dying, are highest among deployed units and consistently beat the goals set by those branches.
That sends an important message that is overlooked by the mainstream media: the guys and gals doing the fighting and dying are signing up to stay!! Why would they do that if they were questioning what we were accomplishing there? In fairness to IHT, they did manage to quote ONE officer who was in support of the U.S. effort in Iraq.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/01/17/africa/ME-GEN-Iraq-Soldiers-Reflect.php BAGHDAD, Iraq
Their alarm clocks went off at 3:30 a.m., sending members of the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division reaching for their M-4 assault rifles then trudging from their tents and trailers into mud that quickly covers their boots.
Piling into Humvees, they rumbled through verdant brush along irrigation canals south of Baghdad, which provides excellent cover for bombs. Hundreds of American soldiers have died in these mostly Sunni Muslim villages since the war began.
But nearly four years into the fighting, some soldiers say it's getting more difficult to swing their legs over the edge of the cot each morning. With America's Iraq policy in flux, some troops say they're asking themselves for the first time whether the U.S. can win the war — or what winning really means here.
The soldiers said they do their jobs and leave politics to the generals. But the debate in the U.S. over the legitimacy of the Iraq conflict has trickled down to the soldiers patrolling this dangerous area.