And while 'I wuz in Main & Central, stealin' Lurch's links', I came across his treatment on the article about the troops disillusionment in Iraq.
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Those of us who have actually done the deed have been insisting for years that our Army is stretched too thin, tasked too hard, and bleeding too much. Those who have sat on their dead asses have called us traitors. It’s not a painful accusation once you consider the source.
Mr Kamber points out that younger troops, those on their first tour, don’t necessarily feel the same sense of frustration.
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A grizzled man would wonder whether their attitudes might change after months of patrols, ambushes and IEDs in the same area, day after day, especially after loading a few helicopters with their buddies.
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When the senior NCOs bitch, you know there's something wrong.
... The fact that a career NCO like SFC Moore has had enough is a signifier that no one should miss ...
Now, fortunately or not, I never had experience with a sustained combat situation, not many of us who served between Vietnam and Iraq 2 have. When we went, it was for a specific op, whether it was extracting a Company weenie from a tight spot or dealing with a South American drug dealer's secret airfield in the Andes, it never lasted more than a couple weeks. Even our deployment to Grenada was less than 3 weeks. We never got into a patrol routine, hell, generally no one even knew we were at a location, let alone be out looking for us. The locals we came in contact with stumbled upon us by accident. We never had to pacify anything and people only knew we were around when shit started blowing up.
For the guys in Iraq it's different; day in, day out of people trying to kill them, the blistering heat of summer, never knowing whom among the locals they can trust, and never being able to decompress . It's bad enough doing it for a year, let alone coming back 3 and 4 times. I'd be sick of it too. I'd be really pissed that I was in the situation thanks to a buncha idiots who thought they'd be getting a quick, large payday by kicking over Saddam and taking his oil.
Our guys are fighting to stay alive. The senior guys know what's happening, know they're fighting a delaying action now. Bringing 'freedom and democracy' to Iraq went out the window for these guys and all they care about is staying alive until the politicians decide it's time for them to come home.
Ask the Vietnam guys about that.
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